On the road again

Miss D. and I are on the road again.  She has some family business to attend to, so we're on our way north to take care of that.  Unfortunately, it'll prevent us from attending LibertyCon this year (scheduled for the coming weekend).  We had planned on attending, but the date and venue of the convention were changed, without sufficient notice for us to be able to accommodate it by altering other plans;  so this year, we'll have to rely on our friends to represent us and create as much mayhem as possible in our absence.  Knowing our friends, they'll do just fine at that!

Yesterday (Sunday) was a very long day - almost thirteen hours on the road, thanks to a driving rainstorm (at times gully-washer strength) that didn't let up for nine solid hours, and the resulting traffic slow-downs and snarl-ups.  We ended up taking a two-hour detour off the interstate, over less traveled roads, in order to avoid the worst of an hour-and-a-half delay caused by a very big pile-up.  It cost us an extra hour, but was still an hour faster than if we'd sat in traffic moving at a slow crawl for miles on end - something I'd as soon avoid whenever possible.  Fortunately, we're in a very comfortable vehicle, which makes it easier to face long days in the saddle.

We're overnighting near St. Louis, Missouri.  We got in shortly before 7 yesterday evening, dropped our bags in our hotel room, and went out again to enjoy supper with friends Jason Fuesting (whom we've met in these pages before) and his lovely wife Amanda.  It was great to see them again, and catch up on each other's news.  We were pretty tired, for obvious reasons, so we didn't stay up late, but there'll be other visits.  Jason is working hard to prepare his second novel for publication, and we've invited him to "make a pilgrimage" to the North Texas Writers, Shooters and Pilots Association where we live, to acquire a little "background color".  We're an eclectic bunch, and we have a lot of fun together.

Today (Monday) we'll be heading further north and east.  We'll visit with Mad Mike (a.k.a. Michael Z. Williamson, friend, author, knife fundi, and all-around good guy), then head further east for Miss D.'s family rendezvous.  From there, it's on to the woods of North Carolina to visit our friends at Killer Bees Honey (which we've also mentioned in these pages before).  We'll take a few days to relax there before heading homeward once more.  I daresay we'll be accompanied on our return journey by several more jars of KBH's best!

Blogging will occur as and when I can find time and place for it.  Some days will be sparse, others should have a normal complement of posts.  Quite apart from Miss D.'s family business, I'm preparing two books for publication over the next couple of months, so I won't be short of work to do!  Volume 3 of the Ames Archives, titled "Gold on the Hoof", is now edited and ready;  it needs only a cover and typesetting, which should happen by the end of July at the latest (hopefully sooner).  "Taghri's Prize", a stand-alone historical fantasy novel, is in the process of alpha and beta editing, and should be ready soon after.  I'll put up another teaser from it in a short while, to whet your appetite.

That's it for now.  It's not even four in the morning here - my back woke me up, complaining about thirteen hours in the car yesterday, so I took a pain pill and decided to write this blog post while waiting for it to kick in, before going back to sleep.  I hope y'all are sleeping better than I am!

Peter