Fade to Blue

 As anyone local will tell you, the news today is that we actually got some snow.

Here was the situation at 2:30 this afternoon. We got enough that it derailed a hike we had planned for morning. Several people could not get out. But the snow stopped before noon.

There isn't much else to report from today. I've started working on tax prep. How's that for exciting? Right.

But I love trying to catch the blue light of dusk in pictures. Here was that same scene at 6:20 which actually looks brighter than the shot in the afternoon.

At 6:25

6:30

And 6:35

Which shade do you like best? I particularly like that it is no longer pitch dark at 6:30!

I also did some editing today.

See Another Blue Dusk

Blue Trailer

 
I really don't have anything too interesting to share. The quality in the day for me was that I'm really closing in on having this book formatted. My goal is to get it to the printer on Tuesday, and then I'm going for a mini trip on Wednesday and Thursday.

No, the trailer isn't going with me. It's blue, waiting for more work to be done on it. I've been planning my next steps for it in my head. Can't stop myself from doing that. But it's good that it's the season to NOT work on it, because this book is the only priority right now.



I got the index all finished today. I got the Geographical Listing of Hikes all finished too- triple checked because I left out four chapters on the first pass!!

Rainy day, so I didn't get the exercise I was hoping for, but maybe tomorrow.

See Dusky Pastels

Seed Catalog Equivalents

 
You know what hikers do in the winter instead of looking at seed catalogs, right? They start planning the next hike.

I'm already getting excited about this, and I haven't even figured out dates yet. I knew there was one longish trail in southern Indiana, but I had no idea there were several. I either ordered or printed out maps of all those over 10 miles in length.



If I could hike every mile it would be about 210 miles. But some are loops with a trail across the middle, so to hike everything there would be have to be some duplication, resulting in additional miles. But I printed them all out to give myself options to look at.

Anyway, I'm not going to try to do them all. What I want to do is put together about 150 miles of backpacking, which will be pretty easy. In fact, since two of the trails are not loops, unless I can get some help with spotting my car I would need to do those trails in both directions.

For sure I'll do the Knobstone Trail, the Tecumseh Trail, and if possible the Adena Trace loop.

Then I can add on from the choices of the Adventure, Two Lakes, Shirley Creek, Mogan Ridge, Birdseye, and Young's Creek Trails.

These are all in the portion of this map shown in pinks and oranges. In other words, not the flat part of Indiana.

I'll need to study the smaller maps that I just printed more carefully. Actually, if I do the Knobstone and Tecumseh trails in both directions that would be almost 170 miles. That would mean I don't have to impose on anyone else to help me, but I'd kind of like to see more trails.

If I did Knobstone and Tecumseh one direction each, and added the Adena Loop with its extra spurs that gets me to about 137. Then I could just tack on one of the other loops to get over 150.

Let the serious planning begin!

We did get more snow, but not a ton. Maybe 4-5 inches.



In other news: I wrote all morning and formatted all afternoon. And I did the laundry. Enough for today!

See I Have Maps

More Fun with Dave

 
Dave has lived in the big city for the past 20 years, so he doesn't get many chances to get out on a forest trail. We caught a small break in the rain and went for a little hike on the North Country Trail



The only real color item was fungi. Yellow.



Brown or orange.



I particularly liked this one which is white if you look at it from one side, and dark brown from the other. It's almost hard to believe it's the same thing.





This is the area where there was a big blowdown 2 falls ago. The logs have been salvaged, and now it's just open.



Then we went out to eat and stuffed ourselves. A little more visiting and then Dave had to leave, but it sure was neat to spend some time with him when we weren't dodging around the chaos of everyone visiting at his house for the Flower Show.

Beautiful blue dusk. I love it when I can catch a picture just at the right time to get the blue.



In other news: I managed a tiny bit of writing and editing, but it was mostly a day to spend with a friend.

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI, South from Timber Creek at US to Wingleton Road and back. 3 miles.

See Small Hike in the Sunshine

Home from Holland

 
I just had to post a sunset picture. Mostly because we haven't seen the sun for days and it's really cheery. Picture taken by pointing the camera at the car window and snapping it without looking! There were some beautiful shots with rays I could have had earlier, but no place to stop on the freeway in time.



I left home in the dark this morning, and returned just at dusk tonight. But what a day!




This was the Holland Civic Center Vendor and Craft Show. There were 50 vendors- most of them commercial products but a few crafters.

There was heavy traffic all day long. This picture was taken later when things thinned out, so isn't representative. I did extremely well. Best sales ever. Most of the time I was selling books as fast as I could talk.



The booth across the way was Mary Kay cosmetics, and I made friends with Brenda (on the left). She bought a set of the children's books for her grandchildren. People were buying my books and then going and showing them to her, and saying they liked the books already. How's that for awesome! So she came and got some too. Two teachers bought the first one to read in the classroom.



And... a friend I haven't seen for years was suddenly standing at my table with a smile! That was a really cool part of my day. Busy, busy, tired. But it's all good. Bed early because I only slept about 4 hours last night.

If you think there is other news today, you would be mistaken.

	See Snowflake Sales Event
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Best Books Read in 2017

 
Caught a blue evening picture. That snow just keeps coming down! Now that I'm (really?) a writer, it sort of looks like some kind of writing prompt. Naw... just a pretty photo of the twin mulberries.



Apparently, I haven't been telling you what I've read for the past several years. I even temporarily gave up tracking my reading. What's up with that? And, I have to confess that the reading took a serious hit after I discovered a couple of games I really like.

I only read 26 books this year. Pathetic. (There may have been some I forgot about. I started tracking the reading mid-year and had to think back.) Also, the CD player in my car broke, so that ended listening to books while I drive. Actually, I started about five others that I'll never finish. I rarely used to give up on a book. Now, it just seems like there are so many good books waiting, why should I feel any kind of need to read ones I don't like. For the most part, I get free books from the exchange, take them out of the library, or accept piles from friends who want to offload them, so I haven't squandered any investment.

Worst of all, I only labeled seven of them as excellent. Here are those seven... for what it's worth, and your tastes may differ from mine. In the order read... I don't rank them cross-genre.

Title	Author	Genre
Brief Review
Hiking Without Dave	C.W. Spencer	hiking/ self-help
I met C.W. on a hike with Ester in Ohio. I thought I blogged about that, but I guess not. Anyway. We traded books. One never knows what quality of reading material will be received this way. This time, I hit the jackpot. C.W. weaves the story of his circuit hike of the Buckeye Trail (Ohio) with his personal journey through the grief of losing his brother to suicide. The book was so good I used it as one of my selections for my yearly book review newspaper column.
Ford County	John Grisham	Literary Fiction
This is out of the normal genre for Grisham- the legal thriller. It's a collection of short stories, featuring people and families from the South. Grisham's ability to observe people and tell stories is outstanding, as always.
English Country House Murders	Thomas Godfrey	Mystery
This was a cross between research and pleasure. Godfrey uses short stories and excerpts from over a century of mystery writers to exemplify the "English country house murder." He says that American writers can never get it right. Probably not, but my next Anastasia Raven book will be Dead Mule Swamp Mistletoe, and I'll be trying to at least write an American country house murder. Fun, and very educational for me.
The Woman Who Smashed Codes	Jason Fagone	History
This is the true story of Elizebeth (not a typo) and William Friedman who were the chief US codebreakers throughout World War II. The documentation of all this was recently declassified, and their story could be told. It's truly an amazing tale. Without these two people and a trusted staff that worked with them, things might have turned out differently.
Lydia of the Pines	Honore Morrow	Young Adult?
I blogged about this book at Shark Bytes and Tales. I sort of stumbled on this because I have read other works by the author. The book was written in 1917, just 100 years ago. The entire text was online, as part of one of those open book sites. I started reading it, and it was so compelling I couldn't "put it down." It's sort of a coming-of-age story for girls, and she does "get the guy" in the end, but it's not a romance at its core. It's about dealing with a life that isn't easy, and learning that people you love may not be perfect, and choosing to do what is right with your life.
Rule of Four	Ian Caldwell	Literary Mystery
This is sort of a highbrow Dan Brown kind of book. It's based on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a document which actually exists, and contains one ciphered message as to its authorship. The story involves several students and professors at Princeton University whose lives become entangled in discovering additional secrets hidden in the text. Especially after reading The Woman Who Smashed Codes (and it was pure chance I picked this up a couple weeks later) the plausibility of the story was impressive.
Murder on the Brewster Flats	Aaron Paul Lazar	Cozy Mystery
Aaron is one of my favorite cozy mystery writers. This book isn't even available yet, but I was one of his beta readers so I got a preview. Somehow Aaron manages to keep up pretty much non-stop action while retaining the nature of a cozy mystery. His books are always good, but this one was just fun from beginning to end. Hint: pirate treasure and secret tunnels. You can pre-order it at Amazon.

In other news: Worked 6 hours. Wrote Chapter 19- THE HIDEOUT, in The Secret Cellar. Knitted on the sock. Did some promotional stuff. Will be headed back to work in a couple of hours.

See Is It Compelling?

Dusk-y Pastels

 
These pictures were taken last week, just a few days apart, but I loved the clear colors.

I suppose it's no big deal when the sky is blue, right? But it was a foggy evening, and it was like the air was blue... hanging between the trees. I love dusk.



This was the color before sunset a few nights later. It's not often the sky turns such a solid monochrome pink.



Work was slightly organized chaos, and the rest of the week is probably going to be the same. However, they did hire a truck delivery person today. Maybe this one will last longer than one day. That would be fine! We of the mailroom are getting frazzled from doing everyone else's jobs as well as our own.

	See Blue and Pink
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