I had originally planned to go on a deep, spiritual odyssey but quickly realized I am not that good at introspection. Instead, I used the miles, the sites, and some of my random thoughts to come up with a plan for articles, blog posts, and yes a journal entry or two.

Regardless of whether you are driving across the country as I did, or across the state, there are article ideas there for the taking. Even though I didn't take enough advantage of the sites along the way, I did see some and read road signs about the others to feed the idea mill.  

I had non-fiction and fiction ideas when I saw signs about: dust devils, "Do Not Drive Into Smoke," turn your air conditioning off while driving up these hills to avoid overheating (of the vehicle I imagined but it was 110 degrees so it was either the car or me), the World's Largest Rocking Chair, and more.

Then there were thoughts of what to do with Henrietta when I had to make a restroom stop? (I solved that problem by putting her into my purse but what would someone do if they had a pet too large to fit in a purse?); how to find pet-friendly hotels; what kind of food and water dishes to pack and how many toys; there was also the issue of keeping the sun from beating down on her.

I am hoping to query (and ultimately sell) articles to pet magazines, travel magazines, women's magazines and any number of the free, local publications I picked up on my stops in the various towns along the way. 
While I am no CPA, I do believe travel expenses can be written off as a writers' expense.  

You may notice, I started this blog post out all about "I" but have hopefully given you food for thought whether you're taking a cross country, cross state, or cross town trip.