Here’s the shorthand for the day: We started with a wakeup call in New York City at 5:00 am, and we finished with dinner ending in Los Angeles at 10:00 pm—your basic 20 hour day. But it’s all for the cause.

In between it was very exciting. We flew from New Jersey to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where nearly 2,000 people gathered to hear me about the Pickens Plan for an hour.

A teacher had brought her 8th grade class as a field trip. There was no way I was going to go into that hall before I had a chance to visit with those kids. I told them I was doing this for them and my grandchildren. I took pictures and had a row of seats cleared out for them near the front of the hall.

These town hall meetings are really something to see. If you need any proof how important Americans think the Pickens Plan is to their lives consider this: We had scheduled the meeting to start at 10:30 on a Wednesday morning. Not a weekend, not an evening event. It was smack in the middle of the workday and nearly 2,000 people crammed into the hall.

There were camera crews from the major TV stations as well as a couple of crews shooting for various local documentaries. At least one reporter from the Albuquerque paper was on hand, so a whole lot more people were going to hear about our town hall than the 2,000 in the room.

I was introduced by the Lt. Governor of New Mexico, Diane Denish. She made the case that this is a NON-PARTISAN effort, which was important to, and appreciated by, the audience judging from the applause.

I took the stage and used my white board to explain the problem and outline the solution. You know, I really like that white board because there are a lot of numbers and it allows people to look back at what I’ve been saying until they understand it. I talked for about 35 minutes, then took questions for another 20 minutes. I would have answered questions for an hour, but there was a press conference scheduled, so I answered questions from the media instead of the audience for the next 30 minutes.

After the town hall, Madeleine and I went over to visit with the Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson. Gov. Richardson, remember, is a former Secretary of Energy and knows a lot about these issues.

After Gov. Richardson and I talked about the details of the Pickens Plan, the Governor SIGNED THE PLEDGE! He said he didn’t agree with everything I said, but he is committed to holding the next Administration and the next Congress to coming up with an energy plan to stop sending all this money overseas to buy foreign oil.

Then it was back on the T-Boone-Express for a flight to Los Angeles. Madeleine and I went into the NBC Studios in Burbank for my appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Jay spent a good deal of time in the Green Room with Madeleine and me. He is the owner of a whole flock of cars and motorcycles that he likes to work on himself. He has a good sized shop where he does that work. Jay has enough solar panels and a roof-top wind turbine to make his shop energy-neutral. He said his wind turbine produces enough energy most days to run the lights and an air conditioner. You’ve got to hand it to a guy like Jay Leno when he puts his energy conservation where his mouth is.

Before I went out on stage, the other principal guest for the show, actor Matthew McConaughey came by to say hello. Matthew was raised in Longview, Texas and is a graduate of the University of Texas. He has a passion for animals—he saved a lot of them after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans—which made him a favorite of both Madeleine and me.

Once I was on the air, I explained the highlights of the Pickens Plan. It’s a challenge to say in about eight minutes what it had taken nearly an hour to cover early in the day. But Jay kept the conversation moving and even talked about converting his ’57 Cadillac to natural gas.

The show is taped at about 4:00 pm California time, and by the time the show was over and the backstage photos were taken it was close to six.

We got to the hotel and I had a stack of phone calls for business and the Pickens Plan campaign, so I handled them and then ended our day having dinner with Pat Boone!

Just another day on the road. The next day, it was on to Salt Lake City, then back home to Dallas.

—Boone