There are lots of different ways to get your travel on, are there not?
Earlier this year, I embraced the coddiwomple: purposeful yet unstructured travel. I’ve always liked that concept but didn’t know it had a name. And last fall, I talked about the challenges of what I called travel whiplash—disjointed back-to-back trips with brief stops back at home in between. I’ve also talked in the past about tying events together to smooth out that kind of travel struggle.
My most recent southeast adventure put all of these travel skills to the test. I managed to combine coddiwompling in the midst of yo-yo-ing in and out of Roswell in order to tie a bunch of events together. I’ve dubbed it Frankentravel—a trip hacked together from inelegant bits.
The bits and pieces
This tale of Frankentravel arose when I needed to be in the southeast for several very different events spread out over three weeks. It began with my Tremont photography workshop in Tennessee, followed by taking George to Virginia for a cubing competition, returning to Atlanta to close the sale of my loft, and rounded out to a finish with Fred’s graduation, Mother’s Day, and Fred’s 18th birthday on three consecutive days.
There wasn’t enough time to return home to Nevada in between each event and I could not skip any of them. So it would have to be a three-week trip that I would piece together like Victor Frankenstein’s creation.
You know that I greatly prefer coddiwomple-style travel—loose and flexible. But this trip? I had to plan it in detail. It was a beast to put all the pieces together. It actually took me many weeks in mad-travel-scientist-mode to figure it all out. Why? Unlike my usual independent travel, this trip involved a lot of people! Friends, family, real estate agents—a huge cast of characters were on this playbill. This is also the first time I returned to Atlanta with no home base to use as a basecamp.
And if you follow my newsletter, you know that the whole thing almost came unraveled after I mostly had everything in place. I got called for jury duty in Nevada during the time I was supposed to be leaving Tremont and going to Roswell to pick up George. Imagine my dismay when I opened the summons! Frantic calls to the county clerk to find out how I could fix the problem quickly followed.
Fortunately the judge took pity on me and excused my summons but it took some time to get that sorted. That meant I was dead in the water to be able to finish up complicated plans until I knew if I could even be in the southeast to begin with. The delay sent flight reservations into the crapper, leaving me to pick from the available dregs at the last minute. That forced me to fly into Atlanta and drive to the workshop instead of flying directly into Knoxville, the closest airport to Tremont and the start of the trip.
Execution
With that adjustment in place, I made the commute to Atlanta, hopped in a rental car and high-tailed it to Tennessee. The effort was well worth time with my fabulous Tremont family in the Smokies. After five days there for a vigorous workshop, it was time to race back to Roswell to pick up George.
Since there were several days between Tremont and George’s competition in Virginia, we were able to take our time getting there. We stuck to backroads as much as we could—a sort of mini coddiwomple in the chaos. Even with a leisurely drive, we still gave ourselves a day to explore Richmond a little. The following day was spent at his competition where he achieved his first podium finish in a particularly challenging contest.
With no time to spare, we bolted back south immediately afterward facing one of the toughest time constraints of this trip: I had to pick up my dear man at the airport the next evening. Here’s how this played out—I had to get from Richmond to Roswell, drop off George, run the gauntlet of Atlanta traffic to the airport on the south side of the city, then do it again to get back to the north side where closing on the loft would be the next morning. And all of that had to happen in about 24 hours.
There were infinite opportunities for that plan to go sideways. I was painfully aware there was no room for errors or delays. I pulled it off, though, and the loft closed seamlessly. We celebrated in fabulous fashion with friends in Decatur, I showed my dear man around my former stomping grounds, and found some closure with saying a sort of goodbye to Georgia. Not that I won’t ever be back but it’s different now.
The next stage of my Frankentravel was what to do with the few days between the loft closing and Fred’s graduation. I opted to show my dear western man around the southeast. We embraced the mini-coddiwomple yet again, wandering through north Georgia, and into western North Carolina. We meandered through small towns, not covering much distance but taking advantage of the slow pace to explore local restaurants, breweries, and lush southern spring scenery.
Once we were back in Roswell, we caught up with my parents who had flown in for the weekend. I rented an AirBnb in Roswell as a base for those several days of events since I no longer had my groovy loft to return to. It was a gauntlet of activity. Fred graduated on Saturday, Mother’s Day was Sunday, and Fred’s birthday was Monday. All of that was filled with family, friends, and chaos. Fun but exhausting for an introvert like me.
We flew out the next day to return home to Nevada and catch our breath. I think I slept for three days when I got home!
Post-mortem
As I am wont to do, I always look back on trips to see what I did well and what needs improving. I think I cobbled this trip together pretty well with all of the moving parts and cast of characters. It wasn’t pretty but it worked.
Of course, in the midst of all that, life continues. When you’re on the road for that long, every day can’t be a vacation. Work has to happen and life tasks still need tending. You can’t just check out. So I had to find time to get life tended to; a bit of a struggle under the circumstances. I did a good job of maintaining my physical therapy routine so I was pleased with that. I was disappointed in my work productivity, though. That’s a glaring problem I need to address for future trips.
One of the things I considered in the planning stages of this trip was renting motorcycles for the North Carolina section of the adventure. I grudgingly had to acknowledge that the added expense and complication to an already overly complicated trip was too much. I needed to honor personal limitations for what one person can do in a short time.
The thought of not riding for three weeks was heartbreaking though. Trust me, I fought that. I even considered riding to the southeast from Nevada and back so I wouldn’t be off the bike that long. But time constraints were in play and I didn’t want to feel like I needed to Iron Butt a cross-country trip. Painful but the right choice.
Overall, I’d call it a successful trip but it took a lot of orchestration. I’m not sure I would change much if I find myself in a similar situation in the future other than trying to avoid that situation to begin with.
So there you have it, complicated but successful Frankentravel. Now back to traveling my way.
Until next time, here are some random shots from my Frankentravel excursion.
