ROADTRIPS

OR THE BEST WRONG TURN YOU EVER MADE

Roadtrips as a subject is really easy for me (Angi). If you've EVER read this blog, you know I don't need an excuse to jump in the truck and drive. I LOVE ROADTRIPS. On this fine day in March I'm going to tell you how it all got started and about my best wrong turn I ever made. Is it in life? Or is it physically in a car? Which is yours? Leave a comment for this month's hostee giveaway from C.H. Admirand.

E.E.

One of my favorite road trips was a trek I took across the country to help a friend move from Kansas to Northern California. What made it so memorable wasn’t just traveling through many Western states for the first time--although that was AWESOME! It was the fun we had along the way. On the way across Nebraska, I read my poor friend the entire first draft of Tom Sawyer Returns. She recently read the book again and kindly said: “It’s not the same novel.” Then, a bit later, “You’re writing has improved greatly.” Thankfully, my reading didn’t put her asleep behind the wheel.

Another memorable moment came when we stopped to gas up off the highway in some far rural area of Wyoming that I couldn’t point to on a map. We were talking the whole time, in a hurry to get going and find some place to eat, and as we drove off, I heard something “pop.”  A little while later, I looked in the side mirror and saw something poking out of the gas tank... Good Lord! We had driven off with the pump still in the tank! That was the popping sound.

Both of us were horrified. When you pull the handle off a gas hose, do the pumps keep spewing gas? God forbid, it caught fire. I saw no plumes of smoke in the rearview mirror. 

Were the police on their way after us? Should we stop? Keeping going? Turn around? We had two dogs in the car and worried about what might happen to them, if we ended up in jail.

My friend despaired. She began to confess past sins, including the time she’d stolen a bottle of nail polish from her friend’s dresser. I suggested she had better turn around. This unwitting "crime" would haunt her for the rest of her life!

Me and my road trip buddy
after we reached California's wine country

We stopped and removed the pump handle from the gas tank, then threw it into the back seat. The smell was atrocious, so it went into the trunk—the perfect place to hide a body. Then we turned around and drove back to the convenience store where we had purchased the gas. My friend went inside and told the teenage clerk what had happened. He gave her a blank stare when she asked what she should do. She handed him $50 and said “I’m so sorry” and we left. 

Once we reached California, things certainly improved. We visited wineries and the California coastline and many other sites that I don't have space or time list here.

We didn't document the gas pump near-theft. No need to leave evidence!

C.H. 

My parents took us on vacation every summer. Mom liked to visit historical sites along the East Coast, and Dad...well I think he just liked to get away with the family. What an adventure! It was Summer 1973, going into my sophomore year in high school, when Dad packed up the six of us into the family car (PTL...praise the Lord it had A/C!)—during the gas shortage! It was kind of weird how there were gas lines and rationing going on when we left NJ (against our grandparent’s dire predictions of running out of gas somewhere along the way.) The further we got away from the Tri-State area, the gas lines disappeared…and the gas prices dropped! Here’s a link to an article describing it with a picture. 

Dad always stopped at Nagel’s Candy Barn (closed now for years) before vacation and bought a bag of home-made lollipops! We used to joke that he had 32 “sweet teeth.” But boy were we glad when he’d pull that white paper bag out of the glovebox and pass it around for everyone to choose their favorite flavor! By the time we’d reached California, we were running out of our favorite flavors and had to settle for grape, root beer, or birch beer. 

Memorable highlights from that trip: 
Visiting with Dad’s older brothers Uncle Gub and Uncle Bill and their families (and getting to ride in my cousin, Billy’s, new orange ‘72 Datsun 240Z,)    

visiting New Orleans, the Alamo, driving across the desert into California, the San Diego Zoo, Disneyland, Carlsbad Caverns, the Sonora Desert Museum, the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, and Louviers, Colorado—a small DuPont Village outside of Denver where Dad was born. The postmistress of Louviers remembered Dad and his family! (We thought she looked old enough to remember when Grandad and Grammy Dobbs were born, but we kept that thought to ourselves.) 

That connection to Colorado where Dad was born stayed with me, simmering for years, until I was writing my first book and needed somewhere to take my Irish immigrants to get them into trouble. So, of course the reason Margaret Mary Flaherty had to travel to Colorado was her older brother’s fault…my brother was always leading me into trouble growing up! 

I’m giving away a print or e-book copy of Mending the Duke’s Pride, Book One in my new series for Dragonblade Publishing: The Lords of Vice.

AMANDA

I would rather drive anywhere than fly. I love, love road trips! The sheer joy and adventure of being able to stop and discover new places, people, and perhaps things about yourself that you never knew. Today however, I’d like to share an experience on my "writing journey" road trip.

As a writer, my characters rarely have it easy. On their road to their happily ever after there are many twists and turns, delays, bumps in the road, hill-top moments and a few potholes as well!

And it's not a great deal different for the literary storyteller. I suppose that’s why I’ve always believed in potential and possibility.

I told myself that I would never write in a certain genre-that being erotic romance. I just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t in my persona. Even though it was a very popular genre at the time and many publishers—including my dream publisher-Harlequin, were seeking submissions (no pun intended) At this time, I’d been trying for over a year to please my then agent, but to no avail (let’s not get into the confusion of her being listed as having questionable ethics in her business) So, on a whim, I wrote a short paragraph, a steamy little under the stairs Victorian, scene set in London.

To my surprise. It was good. Really good-apparently.

Roughly two weeks later, I received THE CALL from Harlequin Spice, asking if  I thought I could write this scene into an entire book. Fast forward after  YES-- to a four-book contract. I was thrilled and terrified at once. Did  the experience push the parameters of my writing comfort? Absolutely, but in the process, in working with other authors and editors, I gained the experience of realizing my strengths, my weaknesses, and where my voice is best suited. One of my mantras on this writing journey is “I am still learning.” (thank you, Michelangelo) as such, I am grateful to all the large and small press publishers that have contributed to me becoming on this road of writing—a better storyteller. 

The experience lead to many books after, including the Kinnison Legacy trilogy, the Last Hope Ranch series and the End of the Line novels, along with a variety of historical stories, a recipe book, and my first illustrated book-The Hope That Wanted to Be a Prayer inspired by the crappy Co-Vid pandemic. <g>

Where will the road take me next? I’m working on  a new contemporary romance trilogy based on faith, hope and love!  More to come, so stay tuned!

JACQUI

The defining road trip of my youth was almost every summer my family packing the car and driving west from our farm to Alberta, Canada's Rocky Mountains. First came the familiar backroads to reach the highway. Then we were speeding along until we got caught behind a camper, or big rig, or maybe both. Then came the wait to try to pass because it was only a single-lane highway back then. 

Eventually, we'd glimpse the mountains on the horizon. After the gently rolling hills (or maybe slopes) of my prairie home, this first glimpse of those majestic peaks was always thrilling. The trees, rivers, and lakes always looked better in the mountains as well. And then there was the game of trying to spot all of the exotic (to me) wildlife, like bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, and bear.

Our final destination was always Miette Hot Springs. To reach this we had to leave the highway—at the point where if we kept driving it'd only be half an hour before we'd reached the tourist town of Jasper. Instead of doing that, we'd head up a steep and narrow road with many, many switchbacks. I looked up the distance and it's only 17 km or 10 miles up these switchbacks but as a kid, this part of the trip felt like it went on forever. 

Talk about a lot of turns that felt like wrong turns! Back and forth, on and on. With the edge of the road feeling way too close to the drop down the mountainside. Thrilling, breathtaking, nerve-wracking, and finally relaxing. There's nothing like finally getting out of a car and getting to spend several days in the mountain air.

Miette Hot Springs cabins

LIZBETH

I've been taking road trips since I was very young. With four kids in tow, car/camping trips were the only way my folks could afford to take us far from home. But we sure had fun--camping our way out to Washington D.C., seeing many Civil War sites (Antietam, Harper's Ferry, Gettysburg) because Dad was a huge CW aficionado. When I was a kid, I got carsick easily. I never threw up, but I got horrible headaches. My brothers HATED me because I got to ride in the front seat a lot to stave off sickness! Still, I loved those trips. And I've carried that love through 46 years of marriage. I'm so lucky to have a hubby who loves to drive--far prefers it to being a passenger. And since I no longer get carsick and I love riding--we're a perfect match. 

Glacier National Park 1975

Grand Teton

One of my favorite trips of my very many over the years was our first vacation as a young married couple in July, 1975. We drove west to Glacier, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton National Parks with a brand new umbrella tent, Coleman stove and the camping skills I'd gained with my family. Hubby had never camped--this was a grand experiment for sure. I had never driven to the West, however, (see Civil War buff above) so this trip to the mountains was as good as flying to Oz! Driving through the North Dakota badlands, watching the flat plains turn into rolling foothills--like the kind of round-topped hills kids draw--and then into majestic peaks was soul-changing. To this day, the mountains make me feel as if I'm really home despite the fact that I'm a born-and-bred Minnesotan with nary a mountain to our state's name. 

19-year-old me in Glacier Park

On that trip we saw Glacier Park when it still contained countless glaciers. I fell so in love with tilted Grand Teton that, years later, I set a series of books on a ranch within sight of that massif. I saw Old Faithful and the mudpots, and the geysers of our first National Park. And, I instilled a love of camping in my husband that endures to this day. And, for the record, I would pit his camp cooking skills (among others) against anyone's. We live like royalty with our tent as base! So, yes, give me a road trip any day. Given the time, I'd much rather drive somewhere than fly. Oh, the things you bank in your memories!!

ANGI

My roadtrips began at an early age with my mom and dad (okay, the sibs came along too). My father was in the moving business and drove his own big rig. My mom would follow in our Plymouth Fury III.  We also took trips without the big truck. My dad built a camper--you read that right HE BUILT A CAMPER. He also built toy boxes for the floorboard of the backseat (remember this was before mandatory seatbelts). We were pretty comfortable in that huge back seat and window. It was awesome. 

I later drove this car
when I turned 16.

July 1970 Colorado Mountains

I'm lucky being the oldest because I probably remember more about these trips than my sibs. Like how my two-year-old brother was "potty trained" by learning to pee in a bottle while we were driving. LOL Or one of the only times we slept in a hotel and left because most of the patrons were still up at three in the morning and my dad wasn't sleeping anyway (Colorado 1970). My mom was furious because my dad was driving on pitch-back mountain roads (with very steep drop-offs).  But hey, we got to play in the snow that morning. Yep, those are shorts and cowboy boots.

Yeah, I gave us Hawaii. We've both been there just not with the trailer.

I have now traveled to 48 states, a good portion of them with my parents. But Tim & I are well on our way to visiting all of them together...again. We plan on completing our map of America with our travel trailer. In fact, we just added Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia & South Carolina. We were on this trip when the ice storm hit in Texas (Feb 21). It rained on us the entire trip. Not too bad for adults in a trailer, but definitively bad for three dogs having to do their business in the mud. On our last day we took a detour to Epes, Alabama. It's about six miles off Interstate 20, near the Mississippi border.  It's an awesome break. I wish we'd had more time to explore. 

White Cliffs of Epes Alabama

I have so many stories now about traveling that it's hard to choose, but I wanted to tell you about the best wrong turn I ever made. It was in Valentine, Texas searching for a gas station. Tim & I didn't know that everything closed at dark in that part of the country. It was before we had GPS on our phones, before gas apps and Waze. We followed the road and kept turning to the right hoping to hit the main road again. And in frustration, we stopped the Jeep. We were in the middle of no where with no lights coming from houses or street lights (there weren't any). When we looked around it seemed we were immersed in a million stars. I mean, I felt like I was in the heavens surrounded by nothing but sparkles. I would have enjoyed it more at the time if we hadn't been on the verge of running out of gas. LOL  No pictures, but it did influence my book: Protecting Their Child.

All of my roadtrips end up in a book.

~ ~ ~

Share where your next roadtrip will or would be. 

Be sure to leave a comment, C.H. is giving away a print or e-book copy of Mending the Duke’s Pride, Book One in her new series for Dragonblade Publishing: The Lords of Vice.