ON TOUR: From New York City to Baltimore and back to Washington

My husband and I are house sitting over on Puget Sound. I feel I'm on retreat here. A much needed retreat.  Today I spent the afternoon slowly washing my car BY HAND. I know that's a rather mundane thing to post about, but I haven't done anything slowly and meticulously since our whirlwind book tour began on June 19th. (This is a picture of us at the top of the Empire State Building where I vowed to go when I finally got my book published!) It's been so nice to sllllooowwww down! As I was scrubbing the car, I felt the cool breeze on my face and watched the changing cloud formations over Puget Sound. I said hello to a neighbor across the street.

"Are you coming or going?" he asked.  I had to think about that one for a minute as I wasn't quite sure of the answer.

"I'm just here for a few days taking care of the cats over the 4th."

He smiled and we continued talking about the weather and our activities.

Tonight, a blogger friend is coming to town! Becky from the blog Becky Blab will be here. I met her live for the first time in NYC and she'll be here tonight with her husband. I also met Kate from Sunflower Existence and Christa from Christa in New York and a number of other bloggers and writers!

On June 19th, my husband and I took the red eye to NYC. We stayed for two nights near Columbia University with my husband's yoga student's sister and her husband, the oboe player for the NYC Ballet!  On Wednesday night, after flying all night long, we had our first east coast gig at Community Meditation Center on the Upper Westside. Namaste Bookstore came to the event to sell books! It was a great turn out!

I forgot to mention that right after we arrived we headed to Times Square where over 1,000 people were doing yoga for summer solstice. We couldn't miss that event!

I was so happy that my father and step mom were able to fly to NYC from Florida for my book reading. They had an opportunity to meet my lovely agent and lots of friends. On Thursday night, we went out to dinner and to a Broadway show. We saw Peter and the Star Catcher! It was excellent.

On Friday night we stayed with a dear friend in Brooklyn and on Saturday morning we took the PATH to Jersey City to pick up our HUMMER.

Well, not really, but it might as well have been. The rental car company gave us a Toyota Sequoia. Trust me, no one got in our way driving down the New Jersey Turnpike and that was just as well!

Our second gig was in Hawthorne, NJ at Well Read Bookstore. That was where I met a very dear friend from high school who I hadn't seen in 24 years! This book tour was really like a reunion of sorts with new people added to the mix. But even the "new" people felt like long lost friends. There was a reason for each meeting and each minute was so important to us.

After our event in NJ, we headed to Fort Washington, PA where we stayed a night. The next morning we drove to Norristown, PA where we caught up with an old friend for breakfast who is building a house on wheels in her parent's backyard! It was so great to meet up with her!! And her garden is amazing.

We hit the road again and all of the tolls along the way as we headed to Baltimore for our event at Breathe Books. A Korean family showed up to that event and we discovered that they had visited the temple and attended a ceremony where my husband had become a monk. They had no idea that my husband was a monk there!

We drove to Baltimore Airport to drop off our HUMMER and a friend from DC followed us there. We ended our trip with our dear friend Eric who also has a lovely real estate blog called The Cribline! It was a great ending to our tour! We even had a chance to stroll across the grounds around The Capital and along The Mall to a few museums. Miro's paintings were in town at the National Gallery of Art. That was a special treat!

Finally, I had a nice hometown book event on June 30th at Edmonds Bookshop after we returned. It felt like a full circle. I will cherish this experience. The best part of it all was all the lovely people we met along the way. Now we are heading to the airport to pick up my blogger friend who I met in NYC and her husband! Have a lovely 4th of July everyone! I'm going to try and post weekly now. Lots of great stuff coming up! Stay tuned!