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Life

I’m back!

We returned from our road trip with our camper last Monday evening, after 29 days and 5000 miles! We went to Texas and back, stopping along the way to visit friends and family and explore both new-to-us places and old favorites. In all, we had 19 visits with friends and family in that one month! It was wonderful to reconnect with so many people we love. We visited 12 states (stopping in each one for at least a meal, if not to stay). Best of all, my health cooperated and by sticking closely to my routines, I was able to enjoy the whole trip (it’s actually more relaxing and less stressful for me than being home – no responsibilities!).

It was a wonderful trip. You can read more about it and see photos on our Road Trip Blog or check out my Texas Road Trip playlist, which includes 4 weekly videos, plus some 1-minute shorts. The videos include lots of beautiful spring scenery and nature, fun exploration of several cities, plenty of bookstore visits, and reading updates, too. I’ll be putting together a separate video of just the bookstores.

A few highlights (in reverse order!): 

Enjoying original music in Nashville

Red-tailed hawk in Tennessee

Beautiful lakeview site in Arkansas

Waiting (in vain) for the bats to emerge in Austin

Texas bluebonnets in bloom!

McKinney Falls State Park Lower Falls, near Austin

Hiking in Cibolo, Texas, near San Antonio

With good friends in Houston

Beautiful trails in The Woodlands, TX

We ate lots of delicious seafood in New Orleans!

Gorgeous waterfront site in Georgia

Reunited with my childhood best friend

We spent the past week unpacking, doing laundry (still not quite finished with those two tasks!), and catching up on everything at home. As much as we enjoyed our trip, it was wonderful to be back home, lying full-length on my couch! We have a small couch in our camper, but my husband was very happy to have his recliner back, too. 

We arrived home in time to see our forsythia and the trees in our neighborhood in bloom, and we spent some time in the garden yesterday, uncovering new flower growth from its winter mulch. We planted over 50 daffodil bulbs last fall, and we missed seeing some of those bloom, but some are still blooming here. 

And now, we are preparing to get back in the truck for another trip! We’ll be heading to my hometown, Rochester, NY, for Easter this weekend, but it’ll be a quick trip. We are so grateful to our friends, neighbors, and our son for watching the house when we go away (living next-door to a state trooper helps, too).

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 I pulled all my trip vlogs and vacation videos into one playlist:

Texas Road Trip playlist 

And I caught up on reading videos with:

March Reading Wrap-Up and Friday Reads 4-11-25

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The Handmaid’s Tale – the sixth and final season is finally here!! This is absolutely one of the best TV shows we have ever seen: acting, writing, cinematography, compelling & twisty storyline–it has it all! The link is to my original review of the first several seasons (don’t worry–no spoilers). If you’ve missed this one, this is a great time to try it!

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(Check out my March Reading Wrap-Up for a full catch-up on everything I read in March.) 

I didn’t have as much reading time on the trip as I thought I would (this was not a typical camping trip for us!), but my focus is now on getting ready for Booktopia, an annual event I attend every May in Vermont with my mom. You can hear more about it my Booktopia 2024 vlog.

On our trip, I finished The Plot and The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz for Booktopia. These are literary thrillers–quite literally! They are thrillers set in the writing/publishing industry. Jake is an aging novelist, with dreams of making it big. His first novel was critically acclaimed, but it’s been downhill since then. He’s now teaching in a second-rate MFA program. When an arrogant, annoying student named Evan tells him his can’t-lose idea for a plot, Jake is resentful and jealous. He struggles with his own next novel for several years, until he hears that Evan died shortly after he met him. A thorough check shows no sign that he ever published the novel, so Jake decides to steal the winning plot idea. As Evan predicted, the novel is a huge hit, a best-seller that propels Jake into the limelight he’s always wanted, interviewed by Oprah and with a movie adaptation by Spielberg. Jake is still terrified of getting caught, though, and when he receives a note accusing him of being a thief, his life begins to fall apart. The Sequel focuses on Jake’s wife and her successful novel. Both novels are super-twisty with plenty of surprises in store! I gasped out loud at one point. I can’t wait to meet the author in a few weeks!

Now, I am reading Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Haigh, also for Booktopia. I was thrilled to see Jennifer’s name on the author list for the event because I am a longtime fan of her novels. I loved Baker Towers (and read it twice) and also enjoyed Mrs. Kimble, The Condition, Faith, and Mercy Street. And now I get to meet her in person! Her latest novel, Rabbit Moon, instantly pulled me into the story, and I’ve been staying up much too late each night reading it. Twenty-two-year-old Lindsey is a six-foot American with long red hair who lives in China. Early one morning, she’s hit by a car in Shanghai and ends up in a coma in the hospital. Her parents in the U.S. are shocked by the news and rush to China to be by her side. But what was she doing in Shanghai? She told them she was living in Beijing with a job teaching English. As they wait for Lindsey to recover and look into her life in China, more secrets emerge. A shocking incident when she was 17 fractured Lindsey’s family, and she has only remained close to her little sister, Grace, who was adopted from China as an infant. So far, this novel is incredibly compelling and engrossing. It’s definitely one of her best.

While on our trip, my husband and I listened to Still Waters by Matt Goldman on audio (see my March Reading Wrap-Up or previous Monday posts), which we both enjoyed very much. It was a gripping mystery/thriller. We also started listening to Pitch Dark by Paul Doiron, book 15 in his Mike Bowditch series about a Maine Game Warden. We enjoy this series because they’re outdoor thrillers, with plenty of nature intertwined with the suspense, action, and adventure. So far, Mike has been investigating the disappearance of a man who was searching for a father and daughter living off the grid in the woods. Mike was in serious peril when we got home, so we can’t wait to see what happens next when we travel this weekend!

I started my own audio when I got home. My Libby request for The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny (#19 in her Inspector Gamache series) was available the day before we got home–perfect timing! It’s a complex mystery so far, kicked off by an odd series of unusual events. Gamache and his team soon find themselves looking into a possible terrorist plot that could have disastrous effects for all of Quebec. His core team of himself, son-in-law Jean-Guy, and fellow inspector Isabelle feels that they can only trust each other, which makes their investigation even more difficult … though no less urgent. It’s great so far.

After my husband, Ken, finished The Boys by Clint and Ron Howard (which he loved), he read The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger. As always, this was a big hit, and Ken was again reminded of Krueger’s enormous writing talents. And he just finished The Wanted  by Robert Crais, a used book I picked up for him at one of the bookstores we visited after he said he wanted to get back to reading Crais, a novelist he’s enjoyed in the past. He liked it very much and definitely wants to read more from the author.

I have no idea what our son, 30, has been reading! I’ll try to catch up with him this week, and he’s coming to visit next weekend.

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