On the Road

 

“I thought she was playing a joke, but she just drove away.”

 

Luckily, his wife eventually returned and rescued him, and their motor home excursions around the country have continued. The tradition began in 1990 when this Roetzel & Andress attorney found it possible to block off month-long vacations in his schedule. The couple flew to Denver, rented a motor home and drove all over the West, from the Black Hills of South Dakota to New Mexico. “After about a week and a half, I completely forgot about practicing law,” says Blakely. “You live in the present when you’re traveling around in a motor home because there’s something new in front of you every minute.”

 

And if he can’t take a month away from his practice, Blakely and his wife simply park the motor home (they now have their own) at an airport, buy a round-trip ticket, and continue the vacation in a couple of weeks. On one such trip they left their motor home parked at the Anchorage, Alaska, airport for three weeks. “When we showed up to continue our trip,” he says, “the attendants at the parking lot told us they were afraid we died somewhere in the outback.”

 

The Blakelys have made it to 49 states, and their next excursion could take them south to Mexico. And what about that 50th state? Blakely says, “Not unless it would set a world record.”