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Click
here to see the complete list of Express
stops. Hope to see you on the road! Click below to view entries from each leg: Leg 1 Leg 2 Leg 3 Leg 4 Osseo/Minneapolis, MN 
What a skyline! 
Marvelous Marcy Rebman of A Novel Place! 
Marcy's other half Kevin and their multi-talented son. 
Their beautiful daughter! 
Chey! 
Jody stopped to chat and to pick up a personalized copy of Sofie. Look for our appearance on "Let's Talk Books!" on local acces cable channel 20 Friday, August 19th at 8:30 pm! Kansas City 
We forgot our camera for our signing at The Last Chapter! Unbelievable. Thankfully MARA prez Cheryl Rabin had a disposable camera she generously allowed us to use. So pleae forgive the poor quality of the pics. We're *very* thankful to have them at all.  Lovely Jane Schaumberg, owner. (Hope Brittney enjoyed Sofie!) Contact The Last Chapter at 913-339-6616, 11128 Antioch, Overland Park, KS.  Jane's great gang! Amy, Vickie and Hazel.  We had a delightful time meeting and chatting with Rosemarie, Merma, Lisa (who brought tons of books for us to sign!), Annette and Dick, along with the store gang pictured above.  Cheryl Rabin, President of MARA. (Soon we'll be attending her signing!)  Kathy and Tom Ross of Half-Price Books of The Ozarks came in armed with books for us to sign for their store! Visit them at www.halfpricebooksozarks.com Colorado Spring, CO  Beth Anne of Beth Anne's Book Shop and Carol and we enjoy lunch at a local Greek restaurant. 
Tony's best Fabio impression... 
Debbie. Murray/Salt Lake City Utah  Gorgeous Gail Stordahl-Brown, Borders CSR.  Nathan is one of those guys who instantly feels like an old friend.  Isn't Cammie a cutie? 
Robin and Lisa stopped for a hello and to pick up signed copies of Sofie. 
Taran was a hoot! RWA Conference - Reno Check out the full conference album by clicking here!  We're lucky to count Jenny Bent and Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media Group as friends as well as agents! 
Harlequin Associate Senior Editor Brenda Chin is named PASIC Editor of the Year!  The Blaze Party was busted -- twice! Check out more shots in the complete album by clicking here. 
The Harlequin Party always rocks!  Friends in more ways than one. Here are Lynda, Heather, Amelia and Joni. Check out the full conference album by clicking here! Utah 
The Great Salt Lake 
The Great Salt Lake Desert Wyoming 
 Iowa 
Click below to view entries from each leg: Leg 1 Leg 2 Leg 3 Leg 4 Look for a more complete tour album soon! |
Saturday, August 13th, 2005 Pics are up from The Last Chapter! Check 'em out to the left. And warms thanks to Jane and her crew for their generous hospitality! xoxo Monday, August 8th, 2005 Where we are: home Home. Now that's a word that has become all so important to us in past weeks, and a destination we're glad to have reached. We had an unforgettable time on the road, catching up with old friends, and making new. Introducing Sofie to the public, and revisiting our previous books with longtime fans. Seeing inspiring sights and places we would never have otherwise viewed. But wait... We can't say a final farewell to this travel BLOG just yet. Not with photos from The Last Chapter and Jane Schaumberg and her gang still outstanding. So please come back to see those and to read our final thoughts on this tour and our best and worst list of places we visited! TTFN! Saturday,
August 6th, 2005 Friday, August 5th, 2005 Where we are: Minneapolis, MN What we're listening to: Savage World (What a piece of work! Who *is* this guy?) Tomorrow marks the official end to our tour. Incredible! Have two months really passed since we first launched this spectacular trip across these wonderful United States? We get into the Twin Cities area late last night, a half-day earlier than planned, and have a hard time getting a room for the night because of a well-attended softball tournament. We finally land a room at Country Inn and Suites (what a great new chain!), and catch up on our sleep so we can spend today exploring this stretch of the Mississippi River. If you're ever in the area, the waterfront is a definite must! From Mill Ruins Park, to Anthony Falls right there in middle of the river, we're taken with the cities' humble yet important history. So peaceful and clean and welcoming, we enjoy this day off walking and chatting and discussing what comes next after tomorrow's signing at A Novel Place and PBS appearance. And what does come next? Well, you'll just have to stay tuned to see...<g><g><g> Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005 Where we are: Kansas City, MO What we're listening to: Dr Laura Apropos, I think, that our second to last signing on this gigantic cross-country tour is at The Last Chapter! Tragic that we forget our digital camera back at our hotel room while downloading the shots from yesterday's signing. MARA prez Cheryl Rabin saves our arses by coming up with an extra disposable camera for us to use (what are the chances of that?!). Owner Jane Schaumberg and her cohorts-in-crime Amy, Hazel and Vickie are more than fantastic! Baklava from a nearby Greek restaurant is laid out (nearly as good as Tony's!), and a nice audience is waiting for us to entertain them with our road stories. What a great group! The atmosphere feels more like a relaxed chat with friends than any sort of official appearance. Kathy and her husband Tom have traveled from their bookstore in the Ozarks for a visit (okay, they also have fam in the area, but we're tickled they come out and have us sign several copies of our books for their store). We thoroughly enjoy meeting and chatting with Cheryl and Merma and Rosemarie (a fellow Greek!), and Lisa and Annette and Dick and...the list goes on! Thank you, thank you, and thank you again, Jane, for making this, one of the final stops on our tour, a memorable and special experience. Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005 Where we are: Colorado Springs, CO What we're listening to: our CD of Greek singer Karras We've seen so many wonderful sights during this tour, and the stretch between Salt Lake City and Colorado Springs is one of our favorites. I've commented on Wyoming before, so I won't go into detail here, but we take a secondary route from Laramie to Denver that leaves us speechless. So much rugged, beautiful territory. The spaghetti westerns from Tony's youth spring to life all around us (even though most of those were actually filmed in Italy<vbg>)... We check into our hotel five minutes away from Beth Anne's Book Shop the night before our signing and catch up on some much needed sleep. Later, while I format some of the countless photos we snapped during the RWA conference, Tony meets and chats outside with families from neighboring rooms that are outside catching a bit of fresh air. Seems there are three major bases in the Springs area and is the point where many of those serving overseas are scheduled to come home for a visit. Everywhere there are men and women in uniform and anxious and happy families looking forward to seeing them, if only for a short time. The following morning we drive to Beth Anne's and are bowled over by the woman of the same name, along with her son Marty and reader and new writer Carol, as well as coworker Debbie. Time for a brief chat before Beth Anne is whisking us out for lunch along with Carol, to a Greek-Mexican restaurant, no less, that she hasn't tried yet but the place ends up serving not only authentic Greek food, but excellent Greek food. We're enjoying ourselves so much time slips away from us and we nearly forget we're supposed to be signing at the store. But as Beth Anne points out, they can't start without us - lol! We love, love, love this woman and her cozy bookstore and look forward to coming back, hopefully very soon! Sunday, July 31st, 2005 Where we are: Murray/Salt Lake City, Utah What we're listening to: local station on Mormonism (fascinating!) What a beautiful city! While nowhere near as large as we expected, Salt Lake City is absolutely breathtaking. With magestic mountains (one's called Mount Olympus, no less), protecting the city valley like handsome sentinels, you feel safe in this place in the middle of nowhere. Tony takes countless pictures that we'll have to compile and share sometime. We arrive at the Murray Borders and wonderful Gail immediately greets us, along with Lynda (aka Nancy -- inside joke), who's originally from Brooklyn. It is Sunday in Salt Lake City, so we don't expect much traffic. Did you know that the church services here run around 3 1/2 hours and are tiered throughout the day? What amazing dedication! So we take full advantage of the op to get to know Gail, Lynda, Cammie, Taran and Nathan, as well as Robin and Lisa. What a great bunch of people! Open and friendly and welcoming. We find out that there are two Greek churches in Salt Lake, and copy down suggestions for Greek restaurants, although we unfortunately won't have an op to visit any this trip because we'll be making a run for our next signing in Colorado Springs immediately following the signing. Ah, yes. This is definitely a place we look forward to revisiting in the future and getting to know better; both the city and the people. Thanks, guys! Saturday, July
30th, 2005
Since there are so many pics from the RWA Conference, we've
created a separate album. Friday, July 29th,
2005
Since there are so many pics from the RWA Conference, we've
created a separate album. Thursday, July
28th, 2005
Since there are so pics many from the RWA Conference, we've
created a separate album. Wednesday, July
27th, 2005
Since there are so pics many from the RWA Conference, we've
created a separate album. Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 Where we are: Reno! We're here, we're here! Of course, we're not at the conference hotel, but at another about a mile up the road, so we can't just pop downstairs to see what all's going on. Ugh! But we're here and in mere moments we're going to be seeing all our buds and yours. Woohoo! Amazing that we were absolutely dead when we arrived at midnight last night. Traveling through eight states and three time zones in a little over two days will do that to a body. But after a good night's rest, we're ready and raring to go. Can't wait to post pics to share! Just a few smiling postcards from us to you to say how much we wish y'all were here. Stay tuned... Tuesday, July 26th, 2005 Where we are: Rock Springs, Wyoming I would never have imagined a place could smell like oatmeal cookies. But when we awakened at five a.m. this morning just short of the Wyoming border in Nebraska, I swear I was looking to follow my nose to Grandma's oven. Only neither of my grandmothers, rest their souls, ever made oatmeal cookies, and there was no oven or bakery anywhere to be found here. Only endless rolling hills and skies. Of course, I probably could have done with a couple of hours more sleep. But Tony panicked when he saw that his watch read 7:00 a.m. By the time reality had seeped through our sleep-muddled brains that we'd crossed two time zones and that it was actually 5:00 a.m., we'd already had the bed made up, the coffee poured from the thermos, and were back on the road again. Yeesh. That's all right. This run for Reno is our most ambitious yet. A whopping 2200 miles in just over two days. We drove for a full fifteen hours yesterday, stopping at a state park in Iowa for a couple of hours for an spontaneous picnic to absorb the lush, green hills and to enjoy the brief break in the heat. We shot for Cheyenne, but fell just short, instead stopping for the night just inside Nebraska after a freak storm we later found out included the touchdown of a tornado nearby. Yikes! Did I mention the heat? All I've got to say is that must have been one helluva a downpour because we woke up to 50 degree weather and through Wyoming they're calling for temps no higher than 65. Considering we were gasping our way through 105 degree heat yesterday, well, the turnaround is nothing if not noteworthy. Did I bring long sleeve shirts for us? No, of course, I didn't. But since we're in the car it really doesn't matter. We've been through beautiful Iowa and Nebraska before, but southern Wyoming is a first for us. Wow! Absolutely breathtaking, even with the overcast sky. Or perhaps because of it. Cattle and horses roaming over wide expanses that stretch as far as the eye can see. Tony spots a pack of coyotes while I point out prairie dogs and antelope. I'd love to see an eagle, but I'm thinking they're a little farther to the north. It also bothers us that Yellowstone is so close, but it might as well be half a world away because if we hope to make it in time for the literacy signing in Reno tomorrow afternoon, well, there are no scenic routes or detours this trip. There have been many surprises during this tour, and this is another of them. I don't know, I didn't expect Wyoming to be so...rugged somehow. It's almost as if the area's still in the process of being settled; it doesn't take much imagination to envision stage coaches pulling to a stop, or the Union Pacific Railroad chugging into a station, bringing settlers to the New Frontier. In the mesas in Rock Springs it eerily seems like the faces of the Native Americans who once lay claim to this land are etched into the red rock. We're definitely coming back here at some point in the future. Hopefully in the Express II. And hopefully to stay long enough to thoroughly absorb everything that is Wyoming... |
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