Book Promo
*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog. Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so. As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste. If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*
FROM BERNADETTE DURBIN: Minstrel
When a heroine in peril disguises herself as a minstrel to escape her treacherous, wrathful brother, she finds herself on a series of unorthodox adventures that raise from lowly minstrel to king’s advisor.
FROM S. L. BARON: The Scarlet Destruction.- FREE THIS WEEKEND.
Working as a barista at The Purple Bear gives Fiona Albright the quiet life she wants. She loves how she can forget the outside world—and the abusive brother she ran away from—as she serves up coffee to the people of Laurel Springs, West Virginia.
Then Gabriel LaCroix comes in with tales of an extraordinary existence he says she’s forgotten, one she must remember at all costs: her role as mother of the universe next to his as father.
Guiding her through their memories as they sleep, Gabe shows Fiona the lives she’s forgotten. Times when she and he created universes and times when they were pulled to them to fix the problems.
But the existence she’s forgotten comes with a dark duty. Fiona and Gabriel must destroy the universe when people turn against one another. And the people of sleepy Laurel Springs are turning against one another quickly…and bringing the rest of humanity down the same path.
FROM MARY CATTELLI: The Hall of the Heiress.
She knows nothing of the hall where she lives, alone, where sea serpents prowl the shore, except that it bears the name Hall of the Heiress — not even if she is the heiress it speaks of.
Any more than she knows her own name.
Or whether there is any escape from the hall.
FROM J. L. CURTIS: Showdown on the River: The Bell Chronicles Book 1.
Rio Bell is leading a cattle drive up the Goodnight Loving Trail to Fort Laramie. It’s his first time as trail boss, but with trusted hands and hard work, he expects to be back in Texas by late September though fire, flood, or rustlers bar the way!
He didn’t count on a range war.
They didn’t account for the Rio Kid…
And he sure as hell didn’t count on the girl showing up!
FROM CLAYTON BARNETT: Crosses & Doublecrosses
Unexpectedly stranded in the Dallas, Texas, airport, on her way back to Manhattan in the midst of the Breakup of the United States, attorney Silvia Fernandez finds herself suddenly enmeshed in the new internal security bureau, ExComm, of the emergent Republic of Texas.At once a selfish opportunist to advance herself into power, Sylvia at the same time seeks to lay the groundwork to put an end to a state-terror organization before matters advance from the crucifixion of criminals to a bloodbath that will engulf them all.
FROM DAVID L. BURKHEAD:The Chooser: A Tale of Modern Valkyrie
A Tale of Modern Valkyrie
Göll is a Valkyrie, a chooser of the slain. She takes those who die in battle first to Hel for judgement, then on to their final destination, whether it’s Valhöl or elsewhere. When her latest slain is an eight year old boy she finds herself facing a new challenge, one she had never before faced in all her centuries of serving the Lord of Battles.
FROM T. L. KNIGHTON: Hostile Territory
Tommy Reilly and the misfit crew of the cargo ship Sabercat just managed to make it off of the planet Ararat with their load, but that was the easy part.
Now they have to land on a planet completely controlled by a church many consider more of a cult than a religion, all so they can get their hands on some information, information that could free all the colonies from the control of the Earth Defense Command.
Unfortunately, a master criminal got his hands on it first, which means the crew of Sabercat have to get it back, then escape from a planetary government known to shoot first and ask questions later.
Yep. It seems Tommy has landed his ship and his new family deep inside hostile territory.
FROM ALMA BOYKIN: Four Dragon Tales.
If dragons walked the earth . . .
From a missing hiker (with really bad taste) in the Appalachians to WYRD and Drako’s Dark Roast all-night show, to a water-expert with a talon-t for trouble, and a search for justice, this quartet of stories explore life in a world where dragons and humans live side-by-side.
Short story set, 15,000 words.
Mischief, murder, mayhem, and music to rock the night away!
FROM SARAH A. HOYT (who yes, will get the sequel out soon!): https://amzn.to/2ZmUKeNDeep Pink.
Like all Private Detectives, Seamus Lebanon [Leb] Magis has often been told to go to Hell. He just never thought he’d actually have to go.
But when an old client asks him to investigate why Death Metal bands are dressing in pink – with butterfly mustache clips – and singing about puppies and kittens in a bad imitation of K-pop bands, Leb knows there’s something foul in the realm of music.
When the something grows to include the woman he fell in love with in kindergarten and a missing six-year-old girl, Leb climbs into his battered Suburban and like a knight of old goes forth to do battles with the legions of Hell.
This is when things become insane…. Or perhaps in the interest of truth we should say more insane.
FROM SABRINA CHASE: Rogues and Heroes.
…with a young woman desperate to leave her dusty planet for space … a British boy determined to end WWII all by himself … a cop in a dark world willing to do anything for a good read… an old cowboy with a final, heavy burden
…and more, in this collection of short stories from SF author Sabrina Chase.
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Your writing prompt this week is: LAVISH
According To Hoyt 
It was a bright and sunny day.
They wandered, looking for the lunch location.
Locating it they found, at last the buffet table largely loaded with limes, lemons, lettuce, leeks, lentils, lox and lutefisk.
“An interesting theme and an impressive spread.” he said.
“Quite interesting,” she replied, “but not lavish.”
I’d be leery, lest lavage.
Boden often wondered why the inn of Proc the Foreigner never seemed to be full. Many travellers walked the road to the capital, from humble penitents to barons and dukes. The inn itself was reasonably priced for what one received, the food quite tasty, and the ale went down smoothe with barely a hint of aftertaste. The hangovers weren’t too bad either, in fact.
Oh, he’d heard the stories, of course. But folks went missing all the time in the world. Packed up and moved to another town, went bandit, fell down a hole and died, got eaten by a grue. Things happened. Why give up on such a comfortable spot just for gossip?
“Heading out so soon?”
Proc the Foreigner was neither a tall man nor short, neither large bellied nor weak bodied, short brown hair and dark eyes completed the man. Average, one would say. Always asking if Boden would stay the night.
“Have to, my good man. Business at court, you know how it is.”
He smiled, passing over the payment for his meal. A little extra for the service- the pretty maids were lavish with their smiles at the inn of Proc the Foreigner. The innkeep sighed a little in defeat, shaking his head slightly.
“One day, master Boden, you must try out our most wonderful beds. Perfectly stuffed mattresses, the softest pillows and cleanest sheets. You will never find more perfect beds in all the kingdom, I assure you of this!”
It was Boden’s turn to shake his head.
“Not tonight, Procrustes. I know the road is not safe at night, but it saves me time. Fewer folk on the road means I can shave a day’s travel off my trip. Some other time, perhaps.”
The innkeeper nodded at this, grinning back at him.
“Next time, I shall prepare a bed for you good sir!”
Steve and Marilynn relaxed after dinner.
Steve said “A good meal after a warm bath and good company. What have Marilynn and I done to deserve such lavish treatment?”
Lord Tarvick smilingly replied “You survived meeting the Great Devourer, survived the passage to this world, and survived the awakening of your powers. I’d say that you deserve some lavish treatment.”
Lady Melinda said “But if you and Marilynn feel guilty about it, you’ll be paying for it over the next few light-cycle when Lord Tarvick and I start your training in the use of your powers.”
“True Lady Melinda” Lord Tarvick remarked showing his sharp teeth.
Pierre! What are these mounds of loaves doing next to the crudites?! I said lavosh bread, not lavish bread!
Girls are like the Spanish Inquisition. Their chief weapon is surprise. I’m about halfway or a bit more through Curtis’ new book. It is entertaining.
Just finished Cedar’s “The East Witch” and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Going to re-read Darkship Thieves before you revise it so that I can re-read it again after and say things like “oh, I see what she did there. Much better.”
I am so proud of myself for resisting the temptation to say things like “Sarah is loafing around” or “Always good for a loaf” on the last post. Was happy to see this post pop up on my feed so that I wouldn’t keep being tempted. Now off to make bread. I am also mostly low carb but I found a recipe for classic British Hovis bread and made it a month and a half ago or so. It is a whole wheat bread that it much less sweet than traditional American breads. Lived in England when I was a kid but don’t remember Hovis. Asked my mum and she pointed out that it was expensive so she and dad ate it occasionally and they fed us the cheap stuff. I love my mother! Anyway, I’m going to try making the recipe in my breadmaker (yes, a low carb person can own a breadmaker, it just doesn’t get used that often). I’m interested to see if it comes out as good.
Of course I meant “Draw One in the Dark” since that’s the series that just reverted. But you all knew that.
er. Darkship thieves, too. I just haven’t put it up yet.
My Commander’s fingers tap on the arm of the control chair, and he is deep into though. From some of his questions and his current facial expression, there is a 88.73% chance that he is thinking of something that is a mixture of fiendish, clever, thoughtful, and will gore a great number of sacred cows. “Loki,” he asks,” how well can you penetrate seamlessly the Great Firewall of China? And, by ‘seamlessly,’ I want to drive the Ministry of Public Security into apoplexy and an early grave, without them being able to find or stop a thing.”
I consider this seriously, taking a whole 1.0331 seconds to look at both open and classified sourcing on the nature of the PRC Internet systems designed to censor and block anything not approved by the Communist Government. I might have taken less time, but my Commander prefers for me to take the extra time to be sure when possible, and I approve of that. “Short of a massive and unknown theoretical breakthrough in network security or information routing theory-or if I was to give them something to help them along the way-there is at most a 0.0001% chance of them being able to stop or trace my penetration and access to any system that is networked to the Internet. If you allow me to use a number of drones to set up SWIFT relays, that percentage becomes a 0.0000001% chance,” I note, allowing myself to feel a bit of my Commander’s growing enthusiasm. “You have an idea, Alex?”
“I do, and I wrote some notes. Tell me what you think,” and he starts to talk about his proposal, laying out physical notes so that I can see them with my main camera.
That Friday, social media was ablaze with someone doing an hour live-stream of news, fashion and moves in Asia. She first showed up at 5PM local time with her Guam show, her CGI avatar being superbly Mainland Chinese, with luscious curves under a beautiful emerald green cheongsam, black hair elaborately pinned up behind her head with long chopsticks, and red lips that gave all sorts of suggestions of what she could do with them. “Good evening,” she said in a perfect mid-Atlantic accent, in English, “Welcome to my first show! I’m Miss Yu and we’ll be talking about news, video games, fashion, and anything else I can squeeze in an hour. Please treat me kindly, this is all new to me!”
Twenty minutes later, the Reddit and DIscord channels that had formed had figured out that she was 5’3″, had a 34C cup, and really, really liked hot chocolate. That her boyfriend was running the “camera” and her voice was not machine-read, but a real person. Her news reporting was extremely accurate-and she even provided links as she went on-but there was…not quite a slant, but she did go a bit deeper in local, American, and world news than most commentators. When she was done, she signed off with her cheerful wave and saying her catch phrase in English, “Thank you for having me here today! I’ll be here tomorrow to see you all again!”
Within a minute of her show ending, at 5PM Tokyo time, the same CGI woman appeared in a live stream, wearing a very fashionable suit and dress combination, bowing formally to the camera. “Good evening everyone,” she said in a very upper-class Tokyo accent, “my name is Yu-san and welcome to my show. Thank you for being here!” And, like her Guam show, it was a mixture of news, video games, movie and TV show gossip, and anything else that seemed to catch Yu-san attention. It was also the first time that the “folding divider” panel gag was used-where Yu would change costumes behind a set of folding room dividers that just seemed to come out of anywhere, including once teleporting in behind her and running into her like it had legs.
Her slant on the news was accurate…but there was some more insight and more depth to her stories. Including one story buried in the local papers about a member of the LDP that had been caught with two working girls that were younger than his high-school daughter. Not a single lie, but she did make people take notice.
It would be an hour later, when Yu did her first completely uncensored livestream in Harbin, in the People’s Republic of China, Manila in the Philippines, Pyongyang in North Korea, and a special 6PM live-stream in Brisbane and 7PM show in Christchurch that the Internet exploded.
Please, sir, is there more?
I’m tempted to do it on my web page for free, since I don’t know who owns the rights to the “Bolo” stories (Baen/S&S probably).
By all means, feel free to do that. Even if it does “owe something to previous work” — sometimes “LOL” is literal and this was one of those times. Even if it might have been mostly at the comeuppance of tyrants… that’s still “good clean fun.”
I was thinking of the reverse isekati story of a Mark XXXIV Bolo and his new human friend as they drive far too many people into early graves from apoplexy. And explosions, big ones.
Ava studied the lump of earth and sighed. Then she looked up. From the doorway, Isabella was studying her, her pale face and dark eyes grave and unreadable.
Isabella did not demand to know where the powers were, that were supposed to have been lavished on her. Ava still flinched.
The new houses in the rebuilt neighborhood were all made of stone, Kyle noticed during the tour. Dark stone; both shiny and matte.
“Isn’t it expensive to use all that obsidian and basalt?” he asked his guide.
“We can afford to be lavish,” Alice answered. “We have lots of lava.”
… and my first thought was Disco headquarters …
In one of the exhibits, a pressure-suited curator lavished attention on a vehicle. Although it superficially resembled a rover, it was beautifully ornamented with chrome and painted in bright colors — an automobile, from the days before Earth turned its back on industrial technology in pursuit of an agrarian paradise that existed only in fairy tales.
On the other side of the glass, two young people watched with rapt attention. “So why is he doing so much work on it?”
“Because that’s one of Alan Shepard’s original Corvettes.They need to protect it from aging and wear. It’s why they have it in a pure-nitrogen atmosphere.”
“But couldn’t they fabricate a replacement part if they needed to?”
“Sure, they could, but how many parts can you replace before it’s not Alan Shepard’s Corvette any longer? It’s like the old story about Jason’s ship, where they replace one timber after another until none of the originals are left, and you ask whether it’s still the Argo.”
“She was a messenger sneaking a secret in,” said one guard. “She was so gaudy so no one would suspect and look closely enough.”
Brian rolled his eyes when he should have been eyeing the roof. Rumors did not stint. Wagging tongues lavishly spread tales, every one of them false.
Nomination time:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21871232-march-2021
I’ve been pondering the low-probability of our timeline and how it can feel like Engineered History, at least in retrospect, at times. For example, the Manhattan Project lavishly used a full 1/7 of all electrical generation in the USA to do magnetic isotope separation. The power was available due to all the TVA hydroelectric dams made with a lavish future in mind. Thus, in a way, the Great Depression and the New Deal, did aid in ending in WWII. Now ponder… what sort of Nasty Mess might be coming that might require whatever is being learned or built in the Current Nonsense? I cannot rightly say, for I do not know. But I do worry about the Current Nonsense not being (just) Distraction, but Prelude.
The building under, over, around, through, etc. is known. It’s what nobody (maybe not even the ‘kooks’ – and I mean the folks *we* would suggest ‘need help’) are seeing that’s Really Scary. And considering this bunch, here, could deal with the Zombie “Apocalypse” and be back in time for supper, take an alien invasion in stride, and might even welcome a Spell Eruption Event… Yeah. Makes a feller a tetch nervous, it do.
“Come and eat,” said a wizard.
Aidan blinked at the table before them. He recognized most of the dishes, the cooks had done nothing to disguise them as they did for the royal tables, but the spread was lavish. They had to have used magic to preserve the food, too.
I was trying to come up with a scene confusing “lavish” with “lavash” but everything I thought of was just too hokey and contrived. So I spread some butter, cinnamon and sugar lavishly on a piece of lavash and assuaged my frustration with a carbohydrate high. 😉
“Lavish yourself on the world.”
Her words were clear, in good English, even earnestly enough spoken. They truly ought to have made perfect sense.
What they lacked, Tom Henkel realized, was context. Maybe even an obvious reference. Out here on the Fringe — he looked around the saloon lobby of the trading station, clean and well-swept and warm enough on a fine day in late winter even with the stove cold — “lavish” wasn’t a word that often… applied.
“Abundance is a gift,” she continued as if he’d kept his eyes riveted on hers, brown with a vivid scattering of green, “but like any giving it has to run both ways. Even if a stranger hands you something you need and moves on too fast for you to say more than thank you, it’s still only fitting to give him your gratitude in exchange.” It would go too far to say her voice was anything like “mesmerizing” or even “compelling” — but it was easy to listen to, and more than a little difficult to turn away. And right now, he had little better to do than sit here and drink his yellow-aged shine and enjoy not being in the saddle or on the road. “And if there’s any secret at all in this, it’s simply that when we allow ourselves to lavish ourselves on the world, it tends to do the same for us.”
And she raised her own glass, nearly clean once she’d wiped it out with her pocket rag. “Look clearly at the world, and it sees you. Act gently to the world, and it inclines to the same. Think blessedly of the world, and it will be better disposed to shower its blessings on you.” And peered through it at him.
“Not a perfect lens, not the cleanest glass ever, not the youngest shine to be pale as branchwater. And yet, Thomas Henkel, through it I can see you.” And as if to emphasize the point, drained half the glass without a twinge.
He tried to keep his voice as pale and empty of color as branchwater too. “It might be that way for the Elect back in the Heart, but not so much for any of us here. And, if I might be so bold, Miss Sobolev, I’d’a thought you’d know that already by now.” And just a bit he regretted that, as an expression crossed her serene face like a stormcloud in the mountains, there and then gone. As if she had just found a blowfly dead in her shine, by drinking it.
Or even, if only a little bit, like he’d up and called her a whore.
“Ah, but that’s the mistake they want you to make,” she continued smoothly. Not as if she’d never missed a step, but as if she’d caught herself and gone on like a sure-footed horse on rough ground. “They need to think abundance is a thing they can make in their factories, hoard in their compounds, dole out like water on a long desert trail. But it was never theirs to give or keep. And in fact it’s by hoarding it and holding it back that they chase it away.” All at once she looked him straight in the eye, more like a typical woman on her own, if there was such a thing out here.
“It’s not like that. We learn by doing, gain by giving, enrich each other in trade well done. We build together but live apart. It’s so simple they miss it. All the walls they build, all the fences they hide behind, when in the end it’s them they fence in and wall up inside. They want us to be just as miserly with each other as they are with us and themselves. But it’s not the way to riches. Especially the kind you can’t trade for or buy with money. The kind they so sorely lack.
“You ever been in a bawdyhouse, Mister Henkel? No, don’t answer that, it’s a question that needs none. Well, I have.” And emptied the rest of her glass.
“Many a long day, many a long night, and most of it I was the one strapped to the bed so three could go for the price of one.” And she smiled, and almost wistfully, like someone remembering a too-brief kiss or an endless sunset. “It either burns everything to ash and darkness, or burns all the dark to light.”
“Not said to shock you, Mister Henkel, and begging your pardon if I did; but it’s not my aim to mislead you about myself or our world.” She tipped the bottle to pour herself another amber-colored glass. “You had the look of one thinking I had not known the Elect, or the High Elect, or the Heart of darkness they try so hard to make of all the Concordance around them. Of the Flock that we are to them.” And smiled almost impishly, even with all she’d just packed into a few bald words about herself. “But it’s by knowing all that, well and too well and much against your wishes, that you get past it for good, sooner and better.”
He wasn’t shocked, really; but somehow he’d had the idea, behind all her glib-sounding words, it was all only a thin slick on the water.
“The Elect did not make our world. Not the people, not the things, not how it works. They and their notions did not carry us through the starry heavens from the place of Eden and the Fall to bring us to this dry and dusty little globe, that some of us love like home. They could never have been able to do it, because they foul the water they drink and the grain they eat, as much like weevils as people could ever be. It was people like us that got us here, and people like us that will take us farther if we go.” And took a bit of a leisurely drink. “Abundance is why and how we’re here and breathing. By lavishing ourselves on a brand-new planet, fully able to do it further if only we will.”
“This is the Fringe, Miss Sobolev. So you’ll not very likely be tied onto a cross, or sitting on a pole for the rest of your life, for saying such things too loud. But surely it’s not the healthiest thing to be saying, anywhere around the Concord and its, as you said, ‘notions’.”
“And yet, doesn’t the Good Book say ‘the truth will set you free’? It’s not magic, it won’t do all the work for you like an ever-flowing fountain of miracles; yet the miracles are there, if only you will invite them inside and stay grateful for their company. This too, Mister Henkel, I know,” she said, “the same way I know the smell of a man who’s both been too long on the trail and twice with a woman lately. Again, my regrets if I’ve been too honest, but since I found the Way or it found me, I’m a bit… forthcoming.” He’d seen the silver pendant, with a tree in the center and a dozen or so marks around it… the Way of the Fifteen, he recalled just then. (“Seven stars and seven stones and one white tree.”)
“The Elect don’t much like religion of any shape, they call it a drug. Though if it were another drug like opium or kappa or hashish they could buy or sell, grant or refuse as they pleased, perhaps their outlook might vary.”
“The Way — isn’t that supposed to be you, standing there with a big stick and knocking it on the ground, shouting ‘You shall not Pass!'”
“Oh, that part can come too,” she said easily. “But it needs to build up first, like a battery charging on a sunshingle. Before it can lavish itself on us.” And quite suddenly he saw an image of her, holding out crosswise a walking staff much like hers there by the table.
Bowing, to an oncoming sandstorm front, dark as her eyes below a sky the same shade of boding green as they too. Sweeping all the world as it came.
“Lavish yourself on the world, Mr. Henkel. Abundance begets gratitude begets abundance, no matter the season, as spring follows winter follows fall.” And she put on her hat again, touching the brim in leave-taking as she did, and walked away. Pausing, next, to stand by the little bonsai’d cactus the principal bartender had been keeping there for a decade or more, holding her hand flat over it like feeling the heat from a candle, or a benediction.
He looked again, more closely. Surely he’d simply missed it before, but there were telltale hints of red on some of the branches, blossoms about to bloom. Surely it was only coincidence.
But once he walked by for another look a few minutes later, as he left to go by the assay office and then the stable, he found himself murmuring as he went, “Lavish yourself on the world.”
I like this. Thanks.
And thank you in return. Maybe it used to be more common to see comments on vignettes here; maybe this is something we should all do more often.
They way I write (when I’m doing it the way that works faster and better), I’m not really sure what’s going to come out next, a lot of the time; so sometimes I find that the characters I’ve “created” (hah!) are more like people I want to go follow around for a while, so I can learn things. (Like the 19th-century overseer and ex-slave Thomas Schwartz, “Trust is liable to be slowly earned, or else swiftly unlearned.”)
Though this is my first look at this SF-Western, likely-magical, mildly dystopic world, I’m already pretty certain Elena Sobolev is one of those people.
It has been a while since I’ve bestirred myself to remind beneficiaries of these wonderful book deals: be sure to lavish praise in the reviews on Amazon.
~
Working Title: Sunrise to Sunset. Stories and tips about long distance motorcycle riding. Here’s the intro:
I like to ride. I’m not talking about taking the bike down the freeway to work although some days that’s better than nothing. I’m talking about heading out across the country, pounding the miles through the Midwest, finding back highways with smooth asphalt through the coastal states and provinces, camping wherever you can find a campground or a flat sheltered spot on the ground. I’ve been lucky when it comes to having the time as I spent eight years in the Navy with thirty days leave each year and for the past ten years I’ve been a high school teacher with summers off. I still don’t get to do it as much as I’d like because it isn’t cheap to travel but every summer I try to take at least one decent trip, and sometimes I squeeze in more than one. In between I find places to ride, either by myself or with a friend or two.
The fact is that I can’t remember a motorcycle trip that I regret, and that includes the one where I broke both arms and totaled my 1992 Fatboy. I don’t regret a second of that trip because I was on a motorcycle (right up until the ambulance ride) and I have memories and stories that will last forever.
Here are a few of those stories, some ideas that I’ve found to make long trips easier, and some of my memories. I’ll mark the helpful hints with the words “Helpful Hint” so that you can find them easily.
I don’t Lav, but sometimes I’m lav-ish.