Sunday, March 16, 2008

Notes from the Road

Wow, never meant to be out of touch this long. It's been a whirlwind trip so far. We had a great drive down to California. BEAUTIFUL weather, safe travel, and loads of conversation. Usually Julee and I put the music on, crank it up, and bop our way across whatever state we're in. I'd even loaded a CD holder with all the right genres, which basically is a mix of everything. But it's been awhile since we've been together, and we were so deep in conversation 5 hours had passed and we hadn't even looked at the CDs. I can't wait for the drive back home on Tuesday. So much has happened, you know we'll talk nonstop for the 7 1/2 hours home. (Probably a mercy to our hubbies that we've got those hours to talk ourselves out...)

We got on the road, Dutch Brother's coffee clutched in our paws, nice and early Sunday morning. Pulled into the driveway at Francine and Rick Rivers's home around 4:30 that afternoon. We'd planned on spending the night there, enjoying Francine and Rick's company, then it was on to San Francisco to meet author Robin Jones Gunn and a friend from England, Marion Stroud. Marion had never been in SanFran before, so we were all going to give her the grand tour for the next two days.

Well, best laid plans, and all that.

The worst storm in 20 years clobbered England, so Marion's flight was canceled. We were notified of this fact by a basso profundo Robin, who also informed us she had the respiratory flu and would also be flying in a day later. No worries, though. That gave us another day with Francine and Rick! We had a wonderful time talking and laughing, and playing with their dear German Shepherd, Shabah. He's 11 now, and his hind legs aren't cooperating so well...reminded me of my darlin' Bo. So it was a kind of bittersweet time, since it's entirely likely he won't be around a lot longer. But I had a blast playing with him all the same. He followed me to bed each night, toy in his massive mouth, big brown eyes pleading. I'd send him out of the room, only to have him peek around the corner, ever hopeful. You gotta love dogs!

Oops! Palm Sunday service here at Mount Hermon is about to begin. No way I'm going to miss Dave Talbott playing piano and organ, so I'll stop for now. But I promise I'll check back in soon and fill you in on the rest of the trip so far.

Peace and blessings to you this Palm Sunday.

Karen

2 comments:

C.J. Darlington said...

Thanks for the update, Karen! :)

Lori Benton said...

There you are! Great to hear from you. Please say Hi to Frani from us girls up in Medford.

We miss you!

I've just started reading Donald Maass's Writing The Breakout Novel. Have you read that? I think you mentioned you've participated in a class of his. Hoping to glean some insights to help me make Kindred a leaner, cleaner story.

Praying for a safe trip home. Don't get all talked out on the drive home. We'll just ask you to repeat it all, you know. *s*