Happy Boxing Day    Of course, not being British or Canadian, I have no reason to celebrate Boxing Day — but I do … kinda.  Boxing Day is the start of the great transition of me wasting my time watching loads of football to wasting my time watching loads of soccer … that is until Hockey dominates my attention.  Seriously, nearly eight hours of English Premier League soccer on their biggest regular season day of the year.  So of course I will be doing nothing but watching soccer.

Yep, nothing at all.

Oh, except for getting ready to drive 3500 miles in a week.

Y’all remember when I drove out to California earlier this year for work?  Remember how that seemed like a once in a lifetime thing?  Guess what.

Yep, I am heading out to for a long-term stint in California again.  A different situation, and it doesn’t has as open as an end day as the last go around.  I am calling it ‘shifting my base of operation’, meaning I won’t be locked down at a plant non-stop; but will be making a plant a priority while supporting a few other ones in the area.  Plus I’ll be traveling to different regions, just flying from California not Boston.  I expect this will run until early April – just in time for the snow to melt out East.

I’ve been planning this trip for about a month, but hadn’t locked into anything because … well … there was some things in the air.  For one, I had to get a bunch of things done here in town, and some of those had their own ideas about schedules.  Though the big variable is weather – Do you know how hard it is to get a five day window of good weather forecasts covering some 3500 miles?

As for a plan, it’s only generally set.  Heading out tomorrow afternoon (Dec 26th), the plan is to get to the Northwest of NYC (about 3-1/2 hours).  From there, it’s a run to Cincinnati where I will spend Monday morning visiting a plant before making a short run that afternoon to … well … that’s where things get more up in the air.  There’s predicted weather Monday afternoon & Tuesday in the midwest, and the choice will be to see if there is a shortcut through it, or to drop south and below it.  By the time Wednesday rolls around, the roads should be great on any predicted route — all with the plan on spending New Years Eve in California.

The pup, of course, will be riding along with – that’s the whole point of driving out, to take him with.