Roadtripping (Part 2)
In which we complete our journey, have fun at a convention, reach a writing milestone, and talk about The Doctor and The Fox among other things.
We pick up our road trip as we head out of Baltimore after a week of visiting family and friends. But we couldn’t have picked a worse day. Our original scheduled destination for the day was Columbus OH, but looking at the radar and weather maps that morning we realized we would be in the worst of the massive storm that was hovering over the mid-west with hail and possible tornadoes forecast.
So rather than drive into that we took a 365-mile detour southwest into West Virginia in the hopes of getting around the south of the weather. Unfortunately, we still caught the edge of it on a few occasions. But after a few white-knuckle moments of aquaplaning on the steep wet roads, we made it to a hotel in Charleston for the night to let it blow over - and thankfully no one insisted we needed to dance!
The following day we stayed off the freeway as much as possible and it was an enjoyable, (and dry) four-state drive through WV, KY, OH, and IN that culminated in visiting family in Indianapolis for a couple of days.
After a relaxing (if somewhat chilly) few days in Indianapolis we started the trip south towards home with a straight four-hour blast down I65 from Indianapolis to Nashville. But of course, you can't really call it a road trip without a roadside dinosaur sighting - We checked that box, as you can see from the photo above.
Nashville turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. What they had failed to tell us when we booked our stay was that the hotel was undergoing renovations. Serious ones. The attached garage was closed, so we ended up having to park in a dodgy-looking garage across the street whose stairwells were full of garbage, and whose pedestrian access doors were locked so navigating with our bags meant dodging the incoming traffic.
Rooms weren’t ready so we had to hang around for two hours during which we were serenaded by the sound of drilling and jackhammers, which they kindly informed us would be a daily occurrence between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm - But please take a can of local brew beer in compensation.
Just as our room was declared ready the lobby filled up with coach loads of frat boys, their blonde girlfriends, and attendant beer coolers. Apparently, this was the weekend for the fraternity’s annual formal dance and members from seven different colleges were descending on the hotel - at the same time. To be honest, they were all very well-behaved and polite, but there sure were a lot of them.
It was at this point that we all discovered that the check-in staff had neglected to inform anyone that only two of the hotel’s four elevators were operating. It took 15 minutes to get from the lobby to our top-floor room.
Driven out by the sounds of construction we decided to head into downtown Nashville to find an early dinner. Another splendid miscalculation on our part as there was some sort of festival going on that meant every bar, pizza joint, and restaurant had a live band in residence and were packed to the rafters. It was too crowded and too noisy for us, so we took a diversion down a side street, and just one block away from the crowds we ended up finding a nice quiet Italian restaurant in which to have a fancy dinner to celebrate Gill’s birthday.
Despite all the craziness, the day ended well with a spectacular view of the sunset from our top-floor room.
The following day’s drive from Nashville to Little Rock had its moments too. Overall it was a sunny and clear journey, but it was also six hours of navigating around the heaviest concentration trucks on a highway I’ve ever seen and avoiding the idiotic driving of those who feel they need to squeeze into any gap no matter the size. A special shout-out goes to the star in the red pickup who almost wiped us out with the taco trailer he apparently forgot he was towing!
But we made it to our hotel in Little Rock and rewarded ourselves with good road trip food (i.e. burgers) at a local diner, and spending far too much at the nearby Barnes & Noble.
Our final leg of the trip was the day before the much-vaunted eclipse and we had some concerns about the potential traffic, especially after being informed that every hotel in a fifty-mile radius was fully booked. We decided to head out from Little Rock really early and when we got to the Texas border we got off the Freeway and headed cross country.
It turned out to be a good call. It was an excellent relaxing drive on quiet country roads with hardly any traffic. (Although every RV park we passed was full of eclipse tourists.)
After only seven and a half hours driving, with a stop for lunch at a great roadside local Tex-Mex restaurant somewhere in small-town Texas, we were at last home.
What a great, fun, entertaining, and exhausting two weeks on the road it had been.
Other Stuff
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And a special shout out this week to the new subscribers who signed up at the Carpe Fabulam event in McKinney, TX last week. Welcome aboard.
Brabazon Bits
While traveling earlier this week I spent my hotel evenings throwing a couple of thousand words at the Brabazon manuscript, and can now declare that the first draft of "Bristol Brabazon: Lost Ocean Liner of the Skies" is now complete.
I’m now going to let it sit for a couple of weeks while I work on a short story.
Then it will be back to add a few bits of new research, polish up the prose, and build the supplemental material.
It feels good to have reached this milestone.
Word Slinging
Last Saturday I had the pleasure of spending the day at Carpe Diem Comics in McKinney, TX for their Carpe Fabulam (Sieze the Story) in-store mini-convention. It turned out to be a successful day, not just in terms of sales (although those were good), but also in terms of the steady flow of folks entering the store from the arts festival happening in the town center to the fun conversations along the way, and the interest and support of the store’s regular patrons.
Thanks to everyone who stooped by for a chat, and a special shout out to the kind folks who picked up a book or two along the way.
And of course a big thanks to Shado and Lys for setting up and running the event, for inviting me to participate, as well as providing the Comfiest Convention Chair. Ever.
Pages and Screens
Books Read in 2024- “Henry V” by William Shakespeare
I needed to reread and make notes on Shakespeare’s Henry V for an upcoming project, and rather than mark up our copy of The Complete Works, I picked this cheap study guide edition to work with instead.
Having rewatched a few movie adaptations recently (Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 remains my favorite) it was good to go back to the original text and revel in the flow and power of the Bard’s storytelling.
I was also fascinated by the Plain English ‘translation’ which overall did a pretty good job at making it more accessible to anyone coming to Shakespeare for the first time. However there were clearly points where the more modern version struggled to deliver the nuances of the original language, and I didn’t always agree with some of the sidebar contextual notes
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If you enjoy the books I review here, you may want to check out my Instagram account where every book I read gets a quick review as I finish it.
We’ve also updated our online bookstore at Bookshop.org with a list of the books read in 2024 to date, so you can pick up copies of any that interest you, while also helping out local independent bookstores.
Podcast Pocrastinations
The guys at The Doctor’s Beard Podcast were brave enough to invite me back to once again waffle on about one of my favorite Doctor Who stories. This time around we discussed what I consider to be my quintessential Jon Pertwee story as the Third Doctor and gang tackle The Demons. But beware this story contains an appearance by one of the scariest things ever to appear in Doctor Who, at least as far as I’m concerned.
You have been warned, but if you insist you can give it a listen right HERE.
The Long Box Crusade crew invited me to join them for the start of Saturday Matinee Theatre’s look at the 1937 ZORRO RIDES AGAIN serial!
Needless to say, I had comments.
You can find out what they were HERE , on your favorite podcast platform, or YouTube:
Bond Briefings
In the latest edition of our bi-weekly James Bond Lexicon newsletter I take a look at our trip to the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. and sadly say farewell to another couple of members of the Bond family.
If you enjoy the worlds of 007 and haven’t subscribed, you can join us at the link below
Before They Were Beatles Updates
The next episode of THE FORGOTTEN BEATLES podcast now live and available on your podcast platform of choice or directly at the link HERE. I
In this episode, we cover the 3 Cs - George’s stand in Vince Calandra, acapella group The Chants, and drummer Norman Chapman.
The March issue of the Before They Were Beatles newsletter in which formally introduce one James Paul McCartney to our story is now online. If you don’t want to miss out on the expanded story of the early Beatles history when they are published, you can sign up for a subscription below.
Weekly Web Round-Up
Batman On The Cover - The journey through Batman’s comics publishing history continues this week we continue our journey through January 1969 with books published in Brazil, Denmark, France, and Germany
My pick of this week is another Brazilian take on the Justice League in Os Justiceiros (Quadrhinos) #17. This time the local artist has taken a stab at recreating the cover of the original Justice League #3, but reversed the angle, slimmed down everyone, and added Batman to the mix. I’ve also included the original US cover for comparison.
Where on the Web is Alan?
You can now find links to all the places you can find me online, websites, newsletters, social media, and more in a single LINKS page - on my personal website.
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See you next time
Alan J. Porter
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