Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Last month I took a "little" road trip to New Mexico, by way of California. The California part was family business, but once I turned my nose south and east from there, things got fun. For one thing, I spent the first night out in a favorite camping spot, and the weather was perfect. Mono Lake at sunset. The lake and the Sierra Nevada mountains in the morning. I then took some fairly obscure roads south through Nevada. I had to stop a couple of times for the flowers on the roadsides. The next day I stopped at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, a place we visited when I was a little kid (I also always have to correct myself when I call it "Petrified National Forest"). I found the locations of a couple of old photos we'd been looking at recently, which was kind of fun. The Visitor's Center area. It was noon, and pretty hot, but the wind was blowing enough to make it bearable to be out for a while. I checked out the short trail and trees by the Visitor...

Another selection from my "random historical stuff nabbed from the library" collection.   Title: Maiden Voyages: Magnificent Ocean Liners and the Women who Travelled and Worked Aboard Them Author : Sian Evans Publication Info: Macmillan Audio, 2021, 11 hours. Original publication by Two Roads/Hachett UK, 2020, 355 pages hardback.  Source: Library Publisher's Blurb (via Goodreads): Migrants and millionairesses, refugees and aristocrats all looking for a way to improve their lives. After WW1 a world of opportunity was opening up for women ... Before convenient air travel, transatlantic travel was the province of the great ocean liners and never more so than in the glory days of the interwar years. It was an extraordinary undertaking made by many women. Some travelled for leisure, some for work; others to find a new life, marriage, to reinvent themselves or find new opportunities. Their stories have remained largely untold - until now. Maiden Voyages is a fascinating...

I wrote a partial draft of this during the last session of the writing class I've been teaching, then realized I needed a different approach, so I rewrote it, cut it down by several hundred words (it's still too long, at 1140 words), and here it is.    Seatmates Keri James settled into the window seat at 47A with an air of excitement that drew cynical smiles from her fellow-passengers. A sixteen-hour flight in economy class wasn’t going to be fun for any of them. Keri knew that. They’d have to use a crowbar—or a crane—to get her out of her seat when they reached Aukland. She’d drooled over the business-class seats, with their little cubicles and seats that made up into beds. On her budget, she’d have to settle for airsickness meds that would put her to sleep. Keri occupied herself with setting up her little space, everything she might want during the flight within reach. She’d change to slippers once they were airborne. Earbuds, e-reader… she knew what she was doing. I...

Way back in January (feels like forever--I've been home for over a month! How can I bear it!), I took a little trip down to Sedona, Arizona, to find a bit more sun and daylight. The weather cooperated, mostly, and my friend Jan and I had a good time. Funny thing about Sedona: because I'm not into the New Age aspects of the place, I've tended to avoid it (well, also because that New Age stuff draws a lot of tourists during the season). January proved a reasonable time to go--though there were plenty of tourists around, they weren't overwhelming. And the landscape is sufficiently amazing that it needs no mystical stuff to make it a place to visit. The trip started with an amazing flight south (in part because it wasn't full and I had a whole row to myself!). It was very clear and very calm and the pilot got permission for a close fly-by of Mt. Rainier. How close? Close enough it was almost scary! If there'd been climbers on the mountain, I'm pretty sure I coul...

Here are the links to post #1     post #2     post #3   and post #4   of the 2-week trip, for those who want to read it in order.    We left off early on Day 6, as I headed into the Far North. Day 6 (Sept. 16): Sea Birds, Sea Stacks, and my Farthest North When I left Asbyrgi about half past 8, after my 45-minute explore of the canyon, I left the beaten track and headed for as far north as I could get. Most of the point was, in fact, just to drive the far north coast and see what it looked like. I did have a couple of goals in mind, however. First, I wanted to visit Rauthinupur, not far short of the northernmost point, and with a couple of cool seastacks notorious for the seabirds. I wasn't sure there would be birds, as late in the season as I was, but it seemed worth walking a couple of miles on a scenic coast to find out.  I came across that spit of land to climb the bluffs towards the lighthouse and the birds.     Probably at...