The Summer of '06:July 2-31 (On the Road, Part 2)

Following on from The Summer of '06:June 9-25 (On the Road, Part 1), July was another exciting month. First we went back to Branson for a 5 day retreat to work on our manuscript. OK, maybe the busiest vacation spot in the mid-west on the July 4th weekend isn't the best idea of a place for a retreat, but we actually got 40 pages written. While there, we took a day trip to Mountain Home, Arkansas, to talk to a Kiwanis Club about "Enhancing Literacy with Whole Brain Learning", and about our book.

Of course, using MapQuest to help us reach our destination meant that we wound up in the middle of a subdivision 10 minutes before we were supposed to be meeting the group at a restaurant in town. Thank God for cell phones--we called the restaurant, got new directions and asked them to forward a message to the president of the Kiwanis about our predicament. This confused him somewhat, because when we had originally set up the talk, we had been planning to stay in Mountain Home, and at the motel next to the restaurant where the club met. He wasn't quite sure how we'd managed to get lost!

But the talk was very successful, we had a very and friendly receptive audience, and sold a few books.

Our next stop was a long weekend in Fayetteville, Arizona, where we visited with Honora's sister, Pat Carr, who is a quite well known short-story writer. Actually, we didn't spend the weekend exactly with them. They have a farm in Elkins, about 25 miles away, down some pretty interesting roads. So, they keep a small apartment in Fayetteville for very hot, or very cold, days, and for Saturday nights so they can go to church. They very kindly gave us use of the apartment for a few days, and we visited back and forth.

From there we drove to Terrell, Texas, for another Kiwanis talk, and then on to Austin, where we stayed for a couple of days with the same friends mentioned in our June travelogue. This was a fortunate happenstance, because we lost the air-conditioning in our car on the way to Austin, in 101 degree heat! Fortunate, because Bob knew a very good and not extraordinarily expensive body shop, and was also able to provide us with a spare car while our system was being replaced.

The main reason we  were in Austin was the ConMysterio convention. It was small, intimate, and lots of fun. As you can see from our Tour Archives, we had a lot of panels, and we made several new friends. We also got a chance to meet Kinky Friedman, a candidate for governor of Texas, who has some pretty sound ideas for helping the state improve it's education program. He's also  a singer, songwriter, novelist, politician, and former columnist for Texas Monthly, and a very funny man.

Unfortunately ConMysterio is no more. We received a note shortly after the convention informing us that they were not able to continue financially. Too bad--it was lots of fun and well organized.

The next week we traveled to Louisiana, and it was one of our busiest so far, with three Kiwanis talks, 2 book-signings and a TV talk show. We also visited the Myrtles in St. Francisville, supposedly the most haunted hotel in the country. We didn't see any ghosts while on the tour, probably because there were far too many people, but we had a great meal at their restaurant.

We also took a jaunt into New Orleans, and were delighted to see the French Quarter alive and bustling. There are a lot of areas where there is desolation, and a lot of work to be done, but it's great to see tourists coming back, willing to spend the dollars that the city needs to rebuild.

Our final stop of the month was for 6 days in Atlanta, Georgia for the Romance Writers Association convention, held at the Marriot Hotel and attended by 2200 people. We belong to the Kiss of Death Chapter, and they had a pre-conference day on guns, with a morning of workshops and an afternoon on a shooting range. It was extraordinarily informative, and lots of fun, to boot. KOD also hosted a "Death by Chocolate" reception, with 5 different chocolate cakes, mousses, pies, and truffles to tempt you.

Every year the RWA does a "Literacy Signing" with over 400 authors signing their books for a Literacy charity. This year they raised $65,000! We did our bit, selling 4 books for the event. We also sold another 15 at the "Moonlight Madness Bazaar" they hold. Not bad for 2 newbies, who only knew one person at the convention when they got there!

There were a lot of very interesting sessions, great speakers, and awesome banquets. And the final awards ceremony is a major dress-up affair, followed by a dessert reception with some more major chocolate choices, including a 5-foot tall chocolate fountain.

And thus the month ended, and we arrived back in Grayville, not wealthier but wiser, loaded down with boxes of free books and convention miscellanea, and with a few extra pounds each.

This website and all the material presented herein is copyright © 2006-2008
by Honora Finkelstein and Susan Smily.

Updated: 02/04/2008