Of Travel, Ideas and a Heavenly Heliodore

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

I have long said that everything is research, and that ideas fly around us with the intensity and persistence of a gnat horde. It’s true. It’s also frustrating. And overwhelming.

Right now I’m sitting at an ungodly early hour of the morning, my inner clock still refusing to synchronize with my home time, trying to sort out the masses of information boiling in my brain. The Husband and I returned (LATE!) a few days ago from a trip to the Munich Gem and Mineral Show, a wonderful trip concluded with long hours of flights on uncomfortable planes interspersed with long hours spent sitting in uncomfortable airports. Our return day began at 5 am in Munich and ended right around midnight here in Texas. My poor jangled electrons are still trying to catch up.

So what does that have to do with ideas? Everything. As I said, I believe ideas are everywhere, and they are there in spades at the biggest gem and mineral show in Europe, if not the world. (5 acres under roof – it may be weeks before my poor abused feet recover!) All we have to do is open our minds and imaginations to them. Ideas, that is, not my feet.

Everywhere you look there is the germ of an idea. Fossils, for example. Who found them? What kind of creature were they? Where were they found? What kind of adventures did the discoverers have bringing them to market? Or take the case of the 38 carat emerald cut heliodore (a gloriously clear pale yellow-green stone) that looks as if it might have been snatched from the crown of some pagan idol.  It made my little jewelry-junkie heart beat like a hyperactive triphammer.  While my rational mind is completely assured that it was legally acquired and is purely legitimate, my warped writer’s mind is off on a wild ride of ‘what ifs.’

Adding to this rich mix of stimulation are the languages. Walk down any aisle and in fifty feet or so you will have heard at least a dozen languages, some of which I could identify, some of which I couldn’t. While doubtless all these people were either exchanging gossip or talking about business, that self-same warped writer’s mind can spin a tale of international skullduggery or heroic derring-do.

Of course, no writer has to make an exhausting and punitively expensive trip just to find ideas. You can do the same thing with a trip to the grocery store (which, to be honest, can be punitively expensive, too!) as long as your eyes and your mind and your imagination are open. And maybe that’s the trick – not where you go or what you see or anything else – just be sure that your mind is open. Explore. Dream. Think. And imagine. It’s easy.

The Lake District in England

by Karen McCullough

For years I’ve wanted to visit the Lake Country in England. The historical association with the romantic poets and the cultural connection to Beatrix Potter influenced that but the real decider for me is all the stories I’ve heard about the remarkable beauty of the area.


The region has been a go-to vacation spot for many English families for years, including my son’s in-laws, who are avid mountain-climbers.


I recently got the chance to visit when we arranged to spend a week in Keswick, one of the largest towns in the District. We shared a vacation cottage with our son, daughter-in-law, and their two children. The journey to the place was a fairly easy but rather long car ride from their home in Hythe, Kent.


For us, getting there meant taking planes from our home in Greensboro to Atlanta, from Atlanta to JFK in New York, and from New York to Glasgow. After a couple of days stop-over in Glasgow, we took a train to Penrith and then a bus from Penrith to Keswick.


Was it worth all the travel? From the purely personal perspective, a chance to visit my grandchildren is worth any amount of effort. But the countryside offered a lot of rewards as well.


The Lake District is actually an area of mountains, valleys, and rivers as well as many lakes. The scenery ranges from gorgeous to breathtaking. Mild weather and frequent rain ensure that the place is very green. It’s a playground for lovers of nature and the outdoors.


Although there are other entertainments, including a theater by the lake in Keswick, the place attracts mostly hikers, mountain climbers, bikers, boaters, and other water sports enthusiasts. The entire area is a warren of narrow roads, trails, and walking paths.


We had a beautiful view of a nearby mountain from the large window of our house and the deck overlooked a river. On our first full day we took what was billed as an easy hike to the Castlerigg Stone Circle, an ancient stone circle that lacks the size and grandeur of Stonehenge, but is more accessible and intriguing. The day was unusually sunny and hot, making the mostly uphill hike there more strenuous than expected. Still we managed it and an even longer downhill hike back to town.


Day two featured a boat trip around Derwentwater, one of the many lakes in the area, followed by some time in town, followed by lunch in a pub and poking around the town of Keswick. Day three also featured beautiful weather. While my daughter-in-law and oldest granddaughter climbed Catbells (a “beginner” mountain I wasn’t ready to tackle) the rest of us walked a mostly level trail along a lovely, winding river.


It’s worth noting that the landscape is also dotted with numerous small pubs and cafes. Most walks included breaks for refreshment at a café and ended with a meal in a pub.

Unfortunately during the last couple of days of our stay the weather deteriorated sharply. Rain isn’t unusual in the area. Our first few days, which featured sunny warm weather, were more of an anomaly. But the solid deluge and heavy wind of our final days were not the norm. On one of those final rainy days we all visited one of the most interesting non-outdoor activities in the area, the Derwent Pencil Museum. The pencil as we know it had its origin in the area and Derwent still makes some of the best quality pencils around.


The last day we stayed inside and played with the grandchildren. And that was good too. All things considered the trip was well worth all the travel involved.

The (Literal and Figurative) Weight of History

I’ve just returned from a vacation in Greece. This was the trip of a lifetime, something I didn’t expect to ever happen, but I’m thrilled to have had the opportunity. I experienced so many wonderful things and had great times. I love Greek food, the beautiful country, the colorful souvenirs, and the lively culture.

The Parthenon

Undoubtedly the highlight of the trip, though, was the tour of the Acropolis, followed closely by the visit to Delphi. I’m not a historian, a classicist, or an archaeologist, but all of those fields interest me. My reaction to those places mirrors the way I felt on first viewing Stonehenge and the Colosseum in Rome. Those sites have little in common other than being old and huge building feats for people without access to the power equipment available today.

I’ve heard people say about sites like Stonehenge and Delphi that they’re nothing but a bunch of old stones, sitting in place and doing nothing. Or a group of nice columns from a ruined building. I simply don’t understand that point of view.

What remains of the temple of Apollo at Delphi

I can’t help but see more than stones and mortar when I look at structures like the Parthenon. I see enormous amounts of work from peoples of a past time. I see remarkable ingenuity to manipulate huge objects with unpowered tools. I see amazing feats of mathematics and engineering that’s just as impressive today as it was then. I see an appreciation for symmetry, grace, and beauty that’s built into the human spirit. I swear I sometimes hear echoes of the groans of workers, the yells of the overseers, the crash of blocks as they’re moved into place, discussions of the designers.

I try to feel the depth of the impact these structures must have had on the people who built them. Huge undertakings like monumental buildings require a culture’s commitment and investment so they must have been of incalculable importance to them. We may not always understand why these days, but we can still gape at what has been achieved and marvel at what it took to create them.

Perhaps it’s part of being a writer that when I look at buildings like the Parthenon, my imagination tries to bring them to life, to picture in my head the building process, the culture that spawned the expressed need, and the meaning they brought into the lives of the people of the time.

I prefer to think it’s being human, being much the same as those who actually created these structures. I wonder if any of them could have guessed we’d still be marveling at them thousands of years later?

PS: If anyone is interested in reading a more extensive write-up of my travels, I've been posting a day by day recap (with pictures) on my blog at http://kmccullough.com/kblog/

Travel - Anticipation and Anxiety

by Karen McCullough

Image in public domain, from Wickimedia Commons

Summer is about to officially begin and that means travel time!

I love traveling.

I hate traveling.

I love going to new and different places, collecting new experiences, and seeing things I’ve long dreamed about visiting.

I hate all the hassles of getting to those places.

I love the excitement of airports, with the anticipation of travel to exotic (or even more mundane, but different) places. I like window-shopping in fancy stores, picking up a few last-minute things, and watching the planes land and take off.

I hate the anxiety of getting to the airport on time, getting through long security lines and pat-downs. I always seem to trigger a pat-down, though I have to be the least threatening looking person in the entire airport. I hate worrying about getting to my gate on time, the crush of people all trying to board as quickly as possible, and settling into a seat area that’s impossibly tight even for someone who is 5’1” and 130 pounds. I hate the inevitable delays and worry about making connections, especially for international flights.

I love relaxing into my seat, getting into a book or movie, having someone bring drinks and food to me.

I hate being confined in a small space for hours on end, having to climb over people to get around, using an airplane lav, the bland tastelessness of most of the food, and my own complete inability to sleep on a plane.

I love landing in a new place, finally getting off the blasted plane and stretching my legs, anticipating the adventure ahead.

I hate lines at passport control, the crush of luggage retrieval, and the search for the taxi stand. Especially in a country where I don’t speak the local language, I worry about communicating with the taxi driver, getting ripped off, and making it to the right hotel or Airbnb. Or if I’m renting a car, I worry about the hassles of that process and then finding my way to my destination, hoping the GPS on my phone works in this place or the maps I’ve studied were correct.

I love settling into new quarters, starting out to explore the new terrain, finding new delights and surprises around every corner. I relish trying new food at local cafes and eateries, making notes about interesting details as research for a possible future story setting, and even watching the people. Soaking in the atmosphere of a new place, talking to local people, shopping for souvenirs, taking in as many interesting sites as possible all feed my soul. Large dramatic sites, like the Colosseum in Rome or Stonehenge (or as I hope this summer, the Acropolis), move me in odd and profound ways. The beauty of small objects in museum also touches me. I feel the history of a place as almost a living thing when in direct visual contact with the creations of people throughout history. They speak to me through the stone or glass or clay. I could spend days in art and archaeology museums, or at least hours – until my brain starts to complain about overload.

I hate that occasionally my stomach rebels at all the new foods and different waters, though it doesn’t happen often, thank goodness, and there are medicines that help. I wish I didn’t have to be careful about what I eat because I’m allergic to nuts and they’re hidden in a lot of things. And I sometimes wish my feet could handle more miles, though I wear good shoes for walking and in fact, can do a lot of it. I’m not good at packing the right things, although that’s mixed because it can give me a good excuse to pick up something I wouldn’t otherwise have bought.

I love the way travel expands my mind and my imagination.

I hate the way it empties my pocketbook and bank account. But I count every penny worth the expense.

Honest People

By Fran McNabb

Sometimes we only hear about the bad things that people do, and there is certainly enough of that to go around. Every evening the news bombards us with disheartening and sometimes tragic events that take place around the world. Today, I simply want to share something good that happened to me.

I recently attended the RWA National Conference in Orlando, FL. The entire five days were filled with exciting and sometimes exhausting events. With over 2,000 attendees I’m sure there were happenings that brought out the worst in people, but I didn’t see any of it. My days were filled with meeting new authors, visiting with old friends, sitting in workshops where information was shared, and listening to speakers’ uplifting and encouraging talks.

On the return trip home at the airport something happened to me that I'd like to share. Trying to juggle my carry-on, my purse, and a laptop that I had to remove from its carrier, I was not the most coordinated traveler. I plopped down in a seat next to my friend who was picking me up and waited for my luggage to come out on the conveyor. No problem. I retrieved my huge suitcase, picked up my carry-on and walked out to the car with my friend. As we were loading, I realized I’d forgotten my computer.

Like all authors my computer holds my life, my thoughts, my manuscripts—things that were irreplaceable. I panicked. We had walked at least ten minutes from the luggage area so my friend thought it would be quicker to drive me. It wasn’t. We couldn’t go straight to the luggage area door. We had to follow the signs out of the airport and then to reenter the parking area. I tried to remain calm, but I thought I was going to hyperventilate.

When she pulled to the door, I jumped out and ran through the door. I’m sure I looked like a wild woman with arms swinging, eyes bulging, and breathing as fast as I could. I was sure the computer would be gone, but as I turned the corner, I was amazed to see my computer on the seat next to a couple.

When the man saw me, he chuckled. “I figured someone would come flying through those doors to claim this. You have to be that person.”

Wow. The man and his wife had sat there and waited for me to return. He understood how important something like a computer was to the owner. He could’ve picked it up and disappeared in the crowd, but he didn’t.

When I got to the car holding my computer close to my chest, my friend was as thrilled as I was. She said several people came out laughing and she assumed they had seen me flying through the luggage area. I, too, had to chuckle at how I must've looked.

Honest people. Yes, there are still honest people in this world. Did I think to ask the man his name? No. I did thank him and his wife, but I never asked his name to send him something in return for his good deed.

As I sit here typing this on my laptop, I have to say thank you, thank you, thank you to all the people in this world who still hold on to admirable qualities like honesty and thoughtfulness. We might only hear about the bad in this world, but I know for a fact that good people still exist.

 FRAN MCNABB lives along the Gulf Coast, but loves participating in writing conferences. She has eight published tender romances, which something use her beloved Gulf Coast as the setting. She loves reading, writing, painting, and boating. Visit her at www.FranMcNabb.com or at mcnabbf@bellsouth.net
 

One Continent Left

Is it crazy that I want to visit Antartica? Certainly some folks think so. As one of them said to me recently, "What is there to see besides ice and snow and maybe a few penguins?" I could argue the point about the intrigue of ice and snow or the many other animals, most of them sea creatures, one can only see at the world's southernmost land mass. It's all true. . .and it all misses the point. I want to see Antartica for the same reason Sir Edmund Hillary gave for climbing Everest: Because it's there.

As a little girl growing up in the Arizona desert, I dreamed of travel. In those days that meant seeing something outside the far southwestern corner of America. My parents were school teachers who talked about interesting places in the news or told stories of foreign cultures in exotic locales, but for our family, travel usually meant going to visit relatives who lived within a few hours' drive.

That didn't keep me from childhood adventures. My father worked occasional summers for the U.S. Forest Service. As a child, I often drifted off to sleep to the sound of a summer rain shower or awakened to the trumpet of a bull elk. With the children of other forest service workers, I explored the spruce and fir forests of the White Mountains, watched a porcupine build her nest and rear her young, and ate for breakfast the rainbow trout I caught at the lake that morning. These experiences only whetted my appetite for even greater adventures.

In the decades since, I've had many more travel opportunities than my modest upbringing might have suggested, some of them much more adventurous than I'd planned. For instance, there was the educational trip my daughter took for college credit when I tagged along. We knew we would have new experiences in Bolivia. We did not expect to witness revolution, the overthrow of a government, or the upending of a centuries-old social order. But that's another story for a different time.

It was in 2010 after a long-anticipated anniversary cruise in the Mediterranean that my husband and I realized we had set foot on every one of the world's continents save one. We can't say we've seen Africa, not after an overnight stay in Cairo. Nor can our half-day in the eastern side of Turkey qualify us as having seen Asia, but we have visited both, as well as Australia, Europe, North and South America. And that leaves .,, yep, you guessed it.

Antartica isn't  next on my list of travel priorities; in fact, it's way down that list. Since it isn't really on my husband's list at all, there's some doubt as to whether I'll ever set foot there. Then again, I didn't really expect to visit Africa, either. As long as Antartica is still there, I'll want to see it--if not for the bragging rights, at least for the penguins.


Susan Aylworth is the author of 13 novels with a 14th due this fall. Mom to seven, she is "Gramma" to 24. She lives in northern California with her husband of 45 years and a pair of spoiled housecats. Contact her @SusanAylworth, susan.aylworth.author@gmail.com or www.susanaylworth.com, also on Pinterest and Instagram. She loves to hear from readers.

Having Adventures

Most days I sit in front of a computer and work. I’m a free-lance web designer/developer by profession as well as an author. Both jobs involve sitting at a desk for hours on end, using my brain and my hands but not much else. Even on weekends, when I do more writing, too much of my day goes by at the computer. I do make it a point to get up periodically and walk around; I try to walk at least a mile a day, and I do other exercises, but still the day is limited.

I read as much as I can, too, but every now and then I itch to get out in a more serious way. I want to take a vacation and travel. We go to the beach once or twice a year and that’s great for resting and relaxing, providing more reading time, but it doesn’t satisfy my longing for new places, people, and experiences.

At least every other year we plan a more major vacation with travel to someplace we’ve never been or don’t get to visit often. We almost always meet or include other family members in the trip, which tends to make it more meaningful for all of us.

A few years ago, we flew to Las Vegas, then drove to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, spent a few days there hiking, drove to Bryce Canyon and spent a few days, and then drove over the mountains to Denver. It was a lot—A LOT—of driving, but so worth it. It was the first time I’d seen real desert other than in movies and television shows, (yes, East Coast Girl), my first view of the Rocky Mountains, including an unforgettable ride on Interstate 70 up and over, my first time in Vegas (and likely my last), and hikes in eerie landscapes at Bryce that sparked all sorts of story ideas.

Me at the Grand Canyon, 2010

The last two trips have been to England, where our son now lives with his wife and small daughter. We’re fortunate that he lives in Oxford, a place that is endlessly fascinating on its own and within fairly easy driving distance of many other interesting places. We’ve ventured forth to Bath, Blenheim Palace, Highclere Castle (better known to most people as Downton Abbey) and Stonehenge. We’d spent time in London and Kent on a previous trip, as well.

My husband and son at Stonehenge, 2014

Not many of these places have directly worked their way into a story yet. But the spirit of them has already infused some of my work. Those places have expanded my horizons and filled the bucket of my brain with more material to weave into my books. But I need more.  Need more!

By the time you’re reading this, I should be home from the latest jaunt, a trip to Italy.  My son and his family joined us there for a stay in Rome, followed by Florence, and then Como.  Report to follow.

WHERE'S MY VACATION?

As the summer moves along swiftly toward the beginning of a new school year, it seems people everywhere are talking about vacations they've taken – they speak of Disney Land, Virginia Beach, an Alaskan cruise, Colorado, the Cayman Islands, Turkey, even Cuba.

I listen with envy – where's my vacation? I'm a grown woman, for goodness sake, perfectly capable of planning and arranging to take a real vacation. Yet my one trip to Disney World was in July 1976 during the Bicentennial celebration. I don't know that I've ever seen Virginia Beach; if so, I don't remember. I certainly never saw any portion of Alaska. We made a trip from Texas to Yellowstone National Park – almost 25 years ago. We once drove to Branson, Missouri. At the time, I'm thinking we were the youngest people in the city. If we went back today, we might fit in just right, age-wise.

Are we over-due for a real vacation or what? It's not that I don't have plenty of vacation days to take from my law firm job. Where have they gone? Not to the Caymans, that's for sure. I sometimes spend a week with my Mom who lives across the country. Other days are used for writer's conferences or family events – weddings, family reunions, and the like. Of course, I use some days to stay home and write – especially now that I'm faced with a very real book deadline.

To tell you the truth, I'm not longing to leave home and fly to some faraway place on vacation – I mostly wish I were longing to do so. If I could snap my fingers and magically be standing before Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon I'd do it. Do I want to see foreign countries before I die? I'm not sure – it seems like a lot of trouble to go through and a large unnecessary expense.

Why doesn't the joy of vacation out-weigh the hassle of getting there for me? Is it because I'm a homebody at heart? Or because I'm just as happy sitting home and reading books? Or my thrifty Pennsylvania Dutch upbringing won't allow me to spend the money? Or all of the above? Seriously, I keep saying – in a very vague way – that we need to get out and see the U.S.A.

I really ought to make plans now – because time flies – tempus fugit as my mother-in-law liked to say. She's not with us anymore – her time to travel has passed. Which ought to send me a very real message.

Do you love to travel? Where's your favorite place to go?

Mystery author Kay Finch is currently writing her new Bad Luck Cat Mystery series set in the Texas Hill Country to be published by Berkley beginning in 2015. Her Klutter Killer mystery, Relative Chaos, features a professional organizer who finds a dead body in a hoarder's garage. Kay lives in a Houston, Texas suburb with her husband, two rescue dogs and a cat. Visit her web site at www.kayfinch.com.

Travel Makes the Heart Grow Broader

Aberglasney Gardens, © Leigh Verrill-Rhys

Some of us are born with wanderlust firmly lodged in our DNA. While we might be rooted in a village or a crowded city, our instincts are hungry for other places: faraway places or simply places we have never been.

For those of us who don’t have the opportunity to travel, there are books: history, travel guides, coffee table photography collections.

And for those of us who want more from our "armchair" wanderlust, there are novels. Charles Dickens will take us to Victorian England. Gabriel Garcia Marquez brings us to the countries of South America, as does Isabel Allende and, with Miguel Asturias, we explore Central America. If we chose, we can visit Japan in the company of Kobo Abe or Africa with Chinua Achebe. Frank Waters takes his readers to the American Southwest of Native Americans and we learn about the experiences of settlers and frontiers men in the early west from Zane Grey.

Jane Austen is our authentic source of what life was like for young women of the early 19^th Century and George Eliot gave us the women of the English country and town in the middle of the same century. Edith Wharton took us to the fashionable, constricted society of New York at the end of this century.

Novels in all genres provide the same pleasurable excursions to the exotic, the sublime and the strange. A sense of place is one of the essential elements of fiction. Without that, we flounder in the ether. Despite our desire for adventure, we want to be sure of our place in this fictional world.

For those of we wanderers who write, this allows us the exceptional opportunity to satisfy our inborn curiosity about our world under the guise of research.

Where do you like to spend your time exploring the fictional world?

We can start right here with the authors contributing to Classic & Cozy. For instance, Loretta C. Rogers writes historical fiction about the American West, including some places and events we wouldn’t consider ‘western’ at all. Sandy Cody writes mysteries, one of which takes place along the Mississippi River. Sierra Donovan writes sweet, contemporary romances set in the atmosphere of ‘small town’ America. For those who like sweet historical romances, set in the Adirondack Mountain region of New York State, Tracey Lyons is your lady.

I have selected these colleagues solely at random and if you click on any of the names to the right of this post, you’ll find some of the best in the genres of classic and cozy romance, western, fantasy and mystery novels.

Pentre Ifan Cromlech, Penfro, Cymru

If you are keen on the mysterious beaches of paradise, have a peak at Marty Ambrose’s list of books. We also have Kathye Quick’s multi-genre efforts for historical romance, urban fantasy and contemporary romance. Speaking of contemporary romance, I’ve been known to contribute a few novels to this sub-genre, as well as historical romances set in medieval Wales under my pen name, Lily Dewaruile.

Happy traveling!