Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

What, is it Thursday again already? Time to share the thrilling tale of the search for Chevaya Falls, which many have sought and few have found. In our last, we had arrived at Clear Creek campsites for our second & third nights in the Canyon. Our layover was to be devoted to a search up the creek for Chevaya Falls, which is understood to be quite spectacular when it is running. Regardless of the status of the falls, which we considered should be running at that time of year, the canyon was pretty, intriguing, and worth exploring. Dawn start Lighting up the Canyon One of the most beautiful things anywhere--cottonwood trees in a red canyon. There was a trail, of sorts, sometimes... We all got a bit more familiar than we really wanted to with the pointy bits of yucca and agave. I still love the way they look. Agave, aka century plant, with the flower stalk just starting to shoot up. Last year's flower stalk Yucca has equally pointy leaves, but a different sort of flower head. Yucc

Title: We Also Served: The Forgotten Women of the First World War Author: Vivien Newman Publication Info: Pen and Sword Books, 2014. 224 pages Source: Library digital resources Publisher's Blurb: We Also Served is a social history of women s involvement in the First World War. Dr Vivien Newman disturbs myths and preconceptions surrounding women's war work and seeks to inform contemporary readers of countless acts of derring-do, determination, and quiet heroism by British women, that went on behind the scenes from 1914-1918. In August 1914 a mere 640 women had a clearly defined wartime role. Ignoring early War Office advice to 'go home and sit still', by 1918 hundreds of thousands of women from all corners of the world had lent their individual wills and collective strength to the Allied cause. As well as becoming nurses, munitions workers, and members of the Land Army, women were also ambulance drivers and surgeons; they served with the Armed Forces; funded a

Last month when I needed to get out of my house so the realtor could show it, I went a little farther than was required--I went to the bottom of the Grand Canyon with four backpacking buddies. I have lots of nice pictures, so I'm going to do more than one post on it. (That's a lie. I'm doing the first two days because that's all the farther I've gotten in editing the photos.) The route was down the South Kaibab trail, then out to Clear Creek and back to Phantom Ranch before going out via the Bright Angel trail. We did a couple of dayhikes on layover days (being unclear on the meaning of "rest day"). The South Kaibab descends 4740' in about 7 miles to cross the river and land at Phantom Ranch. Weather was more than cool, so we didn't make any extraordinary efforts to get to the TH early, starting down about 8:45. Ready to drop off the edge. The trail descends aggressively through the cliff bands, then traverses through the eroded slopes of less clif

It's been a while. I've not given up on blogging--not yet. But I have had to let it go while dealing with life. I think I'm back now, though the whole moving thing isn't over. Just one week ago, this happened. Yes, that's a U-Haul, and yes, I did at least some of the loading. I also owe huge thanks to the friends, relations, and neighbors who helped make it happen. The flip side is this:  That's my stuff going into a storage unit. Now I'm neck deep in trying to find my new home, learning the hard lessons about balancing dreams and reality, and still hoping for the perfect--for me--house. However, now that things are settling down to home tours and waiting, I'm at last back at work on the novel! I managed a couple of hours of work on it this morning, and am over 70K on the re-drafting. That is to say, I'm into the home stretch. If I can recover my vision I should be able to finish the draft in the next week and start finding out if I've improved m

    Mining for Murder (A Happy Camper Mystery) Cozy Mystery 3rd in Series Setting – South Dakota Lyrical Press (April 5, 2022) Print length ‏ : ‎ 275 pages Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0992TPJ24 Zo Jones is enjoying the sunny season at her Happy Camper gift shop in Spirit Canyon, South Dakota—when a murder reminds her all that glitters isn’t gold . . . The South Dakota Gold Rush might be long over, but Zo Jones feels like she’s hit the mother lode when she and her friends browse an estate sale, where a rare old book about the history of Spirit Canyon is causing quite a commotion. In addition to local stories and secrets, the book may even contain the location of a famous stash of gold—a treasure worth killing for. Zo’s friend Maynard Cline wins the bid on the book, to the chagrin of many interested parties, including the historical society and college history department. But when Zo and Hattie head to Maynard’s mansion to borrow the book for a library event, the only th

The writer update is pretty short and maybe not so sweet: I'm in the middle of moving from California back home to Washington, and writing... well, it's hard to squeeze it in when you're packing boxes all day and worrying about the effects of the rapid interest-rate hikes on home sales. So I've made only a very little progress on the novel this month, though I did manage to make some good notes and write a few pages. As for the Grand Canyon... I have an awful lot of photos to edit from a 6-day backpack trip to the bottom of the Canyon, so I'm starting with just a few shots from the South Rim, and a few from the trip out to the Canyon. I'll get back to that with more, too--I saw some nice places coming and going. I started the trip with a quick visit to the Bay Area, where I stopped in to see my grandsnake (okay, my son's pet Sinoloan milksnake). I took time for a couple of walks by the ocean, something I've missed while living inland. Then in was on the