| Did you know that camping and glamour
don't necessarily go together?
Yes, you might say, of course. Who wouldn't know that? Well, apparently I didn't. Sadly, it's true. Upon deciding to do
a booksigning tour to promote the release of WHITE EAGLE'S TOUCH, my husband
suggested that we take the motor home out on the road as a sort of promotional
tour vehicle.
|
| Because I wanted to combine the tour
with a research trip to the BLACKFEET Reservation in Montana, the motor
home seemed the perfect choice. And so, off we went, my husband and I,
after a terrific round of cleaning the motor home and getting it ready
for the 3,000 mile jaunt into northern California, Oregon, Washington state,
Idaho and Montana.
It seemed to go well at first. We made it to each booksigning with what seemed to be little hitches. Ah, I thought. Cinch. |
Booksigning in Wal Mart Clovis |
At Wal Mart signing San Jose |
| And then reality struck.
We got the first notion that we might not know all there is to know about this motor home thing when we discovered that the pilot light had gone out on the home's refrigerator, spoiling all of our food. Well, I thought, who would know there was supposed to be a pilot light? Would you? |
With Hubby |
With Friend, Nancy San Jose |
| Then, came the hard part. Where, for
goodness sake, does one park this contraption at night? We learned that
not only did motor home parks cost almost as much as a motel room, they
were also few and far between on the stretch we were traveling. And so
we discovered the wonderful world of truck stops... which have such unique
and interesting things as... showers.
I did mention that I discovered that camping and glamour don't go together, didn't I? |
At Wal Mart in Yuba City, CA |
At Wal Mart In Redding, CA |
| We kept traveling north, and of course,
because the tour coincided with the tail end of El Nino, we hit the sort
of weather which is best experienced from the warmth and comfort of a heated,
dry house. (I never thought it was going to stop raining.) And then
there was the night when we had to park beneath the blooms of a willow
tree-- to which I am extremely allergic. Need I tell you how my eyes looked
the next day?
I didn't fail to enlighten you about my original discovery with this glamour and camping thing, did I? |
At Waldenbooks, Sacramento, CA |
At Wal Mart, Verdale, WA |
At McMinnville, OR Wal Mart |
At Laurie's Paperback Etc. Oregon City, OR |
| As it got colder, the farther we went
north, we realized we needed the heater going throughout the night. However,
much to our chagrin, we discovered the the warmth of the heater went out
in the middle of the night, every single night, leaving us with nothing
but freezing air and cold temperatures to greet us in the morning.
Well, you can imagine we immediately figured out what the problem was, right? Since we didn't want to freeze? WRONG.
|
At B. Dalton, Billings, MT |
At B. Dalton, Yakima, WA |
|
But at last, once we had traveled to
mid-state Washington, we were treated to good weather which stayed with
us all the way home to sunny LA, where we again experienced rain.
 Husband, relaxing in Motor Home |
|
And then we were
off to Montana and the Indian reservations of the FLATHEAD, the BLACKFEET,
the CROW, and the Northern CHEYENNE. We visited the tribal headquarters
of the reservations, where we were treated with respect and great cordiality.
On the Blackfeet reservation, we were given a tour of the college which
sits directly on the reservation in Browning, MT.
A beautiful spot
in mid-state, WA
On the Flathead "rez" in MT |
Also, we visited the battlefield of
Little Bighorn (which brought on great sadness), and visited the college
on the Northern Cheyenne reservation.   |
| And then it was time to come home. Consulting with our fearless driver, we immediately decided to take the quickest route home. |
Our Fearless Driver |
On the Blackfeet "rez" |
| Once home, though, the booksignings continued on the home front every weekend, traveling to far off towns of LA like Victorville and Barstow. |
With Authors Diane
Pershing and Donna Davidson
 |
At a library lecture
|
But, as with all things, it was time
to begin something new, and not being quite tired enough from our excursion,
we decided to bring the trip to an end and, in the company of my daughter
and new son-in-law, we embarked on a "relaxing" tour of Disneyland...
  |
And so ends a book tour for yet another
year. It was an exciting trip, on filled with the pleasure of meeting old
friends, making new ones and coming face to face with fans, whose correspondence
I have enjoyed for years.   Karen Kay |
