Sheila's Guests and Reviews

It's the longest drive I've ever done entirely on my own--Salt Lake City, Utah to Portland, Oregon. I decided to make sure I stayed awake by stopping at every rest area and view point. All those stops, lots of coffee, bottles of Coke in Utah and Idaho and Pepsi in Oregon (I'm not sure what the logic was to that) ... and gluten free granola bars definitely helped. Utah's hills and mountains are always beautiful. Oregon's eastern valleys are separated by picturesque passes. But Idaho... One thing I learned is that Idaho is wider than it looks, and emptier, and its plains go on forever, and the gaps between its rest areas are big. Still, perhaps it just suffered from lying between destinations. And perhaps, now I'm getting back to writing, I'll have to be careful that the middles of my books don't get too long and boring either, but provide suitable entertainment and refreshment to the reader.

One thing about growing up in England is you're never very far from the sea. Even in the days of our grandparents, a trip on the back of a motorbike to walk on the front and paddle in the waves wasn't such a rare occurrence. I've seen photos of my parents courting on the beach long years ago with my uncle and aunt. And my childhood holidays (vacations in American) just wouldn't have been the same without buckets and spades. Which is why Salt Lake City, while beautiful, could never quite feel like home though we lived there for a while. There's the Great Salt Lake, of course, which is great and salty, but it's not the sea. And there's desert, but it's not the same sort of sand. When our son went to college in Los Angeles, our occasional visits to him felt like going back in time. We just had to stand on the beach at some point in each trip and taste salt on the breeze. We've moved to Oregon now, of course, and every Christmas visit from my Mum is acco...

I used to hear about, and read about, people doing serious road-trips, like crossing the United States from coast to coast. It sounded such fun, though of course, I never expected I'd get the chance to do it. Then our oldest son, recently graduated from medical school in Los Angeles, got ready for a move to Texas and invited us along. So, if you've been wondering why my blog's been so neglected and my comments so sparse (or non-existent) for the last week, that's where we've been. On Saturday we flew to Los Angeles and walked the beach and touched the sea. Then on Sunday we loaded the car with boxes and cases (people too) and set off. Buildings gave way to agriculture, to windfarms (quite a surprise), to desert and hills. I wanted to photograph every tall white cactus at the start, but soon I realized they weren't going to go away. Then I watched the scrubby bushes grow shorter and sparser as the land grew more dry. Breakfast in Los Angeles, lunch in Phoenix, di...