This
summer's activities have certainly contrasted with last year's for
us.
Last year
at this time we were getting ready to take our fifth trip of the year – to
Dallas, for a writer's conference. We'd already been to Freeport, in the
Bahamas, for a week of sun, surf and sand in February. We'd hit Chicago in April
and Pennsylvania and Anaheim in July. This year, so far, while I
took a week in Florida for a writers' retreat, we've only been to Kansas City,
Missouri together. We will be heading down to Pennsylvania next month for a trip
that will be a combination of research and a visit with our friends. And that is
the second and last "shared" trip David and I have planned for the
year.
In
November, I'll be going to Texas for a couple of weeks—another writing retreat
and a visit with my publisher—and he'll be taking the girls—our daughter and our
"step-daughter" to Las Vegas.
More
shocking than the reality of our reduced travel this year is my beloved's
attitude on the subject. He told me that he's come to the conclusion that we've
traveled a lot over the last few years (which we have) and maybe it's time to do
other things, instead. Maybe we don't have to have four or five
excursions a year.
Yes, it
was one of those "who are you and what have you done with my husband" moments
for me.
We
have traveled a lot, and while at least half of those trips have been in
support of my career, the rest have been our attempts at feeding my beloved's
sometimes insatiable wanderlust.
Conferences and conventions are
important for my career, of course, and I've been happy to go, especially when I
can meet with my readers. But they can also interfere with the writing, even
though I generally take my laptop with me.
I'm not
as young as I used to be. And while I would not characterize my health as
"failing", I am at a level of challenge that makes me examine each proposed
journey and ask myself how important it is for me to go.
There is
no question about going to Texas. My best friend is down there and I need to
spend time with her—professionally and spiritually. Of course, the opportunity
to visit with my wonderful publisher is something not to be missed either. Both
visits will feed my soul, and that is worth the hassle and discomfort traveling
inevitably entails.
My
beloved still enjoys a road trip better than just about any other kind of
excursion. There are all sorts of historical and geological sights to see in
Pennsylvania. He's been underground more than once (I'm claustrophobic
and determined to stay on top of the grass), and we've been to the Steamtown USA
museum a couple of times, too. We've visited the sacred ground of Gettysburg,
and seen the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg.
Right
around coal country where our friends live, there's a wealth of historical
places. This is the area of the country featured in the movie the Molly
Maguire's, and yes, we've been to the haunted jail in Jim Thorpe where some of
those real-life men were imprisoned and executed.
Less well
known is the violence that erupted at the Lattimer Mine site near Hazleton,
Pennsylvania in 1897, an action against striking unarmed immigrant mine workers
that resulted in the deaths of 19 men.
And no
visit to the area, in my mind, is complete without a stop in Centralia. You can
see the devastation and sometimes smell the coal still burning deep underground.
It's not a place to travel through willy-nilly, as subsidence is a very real
danger here.
Northeastern Pennsylvania makes
for interesting country to set a suspense novel in, when you think about it.
Especially a novel that uses abandoned air shafts and possible redoubts built
into the heart of the Alleghenies as plot points. One's imagination can fly in
the mountains, and it's so different from where we live as to feel
"exotic".
And close
enough to home, that a day's drive puts us in the heart of research and
history-buff heaven.
Love,
Morgan
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