There’s something about traveling to new places that makes life sweeter. I write this post from Florida, where I’ve been staying in my college friend’s house for the better part of two weeks. Prior to this April, I’d never set foot in Florida, not even in one of its airports during a layover, even though it was a place I really wanted to see. Now that I’ve been here, I will be coming back — hopefully more than once.
Everything is a bit bigger and better in central Florida, including an Adirondack chair outside a lakeside restaurant. The food is awesome, the weather is glorious (at least now in April, that is), and the people are extremely friendly (probably because of the great food and amazing weather!).
My college friend enticed me down with a promise to help set up a few book appearances for me, which she did. I have two this coming Monday and Tuesday before I head back to Nebraska, but I had one this past Wednesday at a book club meeting at a retirement complex in Mount Dora, Florida.
That event drew eighteen people — 18 people came to listen to little old me, an indie author from rural Nebraska. They’d not heard of me before. I had no publisher pushing me onto them. All I had was the word of one longtime friend who knew one person in that retirement complex who then got the organizer of the book club to agree to host me.
I was the very first author they’d ever had come speak to them! The very first. Wow! Waterman Village Retirement in Mount Dora, Florida. Look it up. It’s a big place with a lot of residents. They came, they listened, they asked great questions, they bought some books, and they and I all left that room extremely happy.
Why is it that a place 1500 miles from my hometown has more interest in me than many of the towns in Nebraska that I’ve contacted to try to set up appearances? If you know the answer to that, let me know, because it really frustrates me. However, it absolutely THRILLS me to have appearances in Florida and to have people here rave about my speech and my books. Absolutely thrills me!
I can only hope that the two remaining appearances will go half as well as the first one did. Waterman Village Retirement’s book club has already extended an invitation to appear there again if I’m ever back in Florida.
Aside from doing those three book appearances and catching up with my college friend, I’ve had so many wonderful experiences during my short stay in Florida.
I’ve been to both sides of the peninsula and “discovered” the gem that is Cedar Key on the Gulf side, I saw my first alligators not in captivity as well as a manatee and more types of birds than I could ever name. The sheer number (and size) of trees here is mind-boggling. I’ve added to my Harley t-shirt collection as well as to my book collection, and I’ve swum more in the past few days than I’ve managed to swim back home in the past year.
The much anticipated solar eclipse happened while I’ve been here, and my boyfriend brought special glasses along so we could view it. It was only half an eclipse down here, but I wouldn’t have seen it at all if not for those glasses.
None of the trip would have been possible without my friend, though, who graciously offered to set up the appearances and gave us her house in a lovely gated community to stay while we were here.
So, here’s a toast to her.
As much as I love my daily home routine of writing, reading, walking the dogs, and doing other simple things I enjoy in relative solitude, there’s something about travel that thrills my soul. I love seeing new places and experiencing new things.
A great thing about Florida is there is so much to see and do that a person could spend years here and only scratch the surface. Unfortunately, it’s also much costlier than this little indie Nebraska author could afford, so I must limit my visit to a couple weeks only — this time around, at least.
I’ve now been to most of the states on the eastern side of the country — Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire still await my presence, but I’ll bump them up the list now that I can cross off Florida. I still need to visit some of the large western states like Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, and Utah, as well as Alaska and Hawaii, but I’m definitely one state closer to visiting all 50 states. I should probably add Michigan to the list of those I need to visit for more than a quick stop and Wisconsin — thus, I’m only 12 states away from seeing all 50 in some capacity.
The United States is such a vast country that anyone who manages to visit all 50 of its states has really accomplished something. Travel changes a person — for the better, in my opinion. It opens one’s mind and improves one’s empathy. My life is so much richer for all the places I’ve been.
Some of my favorite places in the United States — so far — have been San Antonio, Manhattan, San Francisco, all of the Smoky Mountains and the portions of the Appalachians I saw in Northeast Tennessee and western North Carolina, Johnson City and everything around it, Cedar Key, the Black Hills of South Dakota, Niagara Falls, Boston, Nashville, and the open and wild terrain of Western Nebraska and Montana.
Outside of the United States, I absolutely love Holbox Island in Mexico where I’ve swum with whale sharks (my favorite animal besides dogs) on two different visits, anywhere in Spain but definitely Cordoba and Barcelona, Rome and the Amalfi Coast of Italy, and the heart of Mexico City. There are far too many places abroad that I’d still like to visit for me ever to list them all, but high on the list of places I want to see are Portugal, parts of Germany, all of England, the Baja portion of Mexico, and anywhere else in Italy.
The drawback to traveling, for me as a writer, is that with so much to do and see, I don’t write as much as I should. I have managed to type up a bit more of my next novel — the first draft of it, that is — so I will share more of that below for my paying subscribers. If you are a free subscriber, you will see a paywall — if you want to see and read what’s behind it, then please upgrade to “paid.” Once you become a paying subscriber, you will have full access to the archive and to all the previous posts where I shared the first 10,000+ words of my next novel, a suspense/mystery called “Last in Class.” You’ll notice my love of travel (and of Mexico and Italy) in this week’s portion that I’m sharing below.
Until next time. I hope you visit somewhere interesting between now and then.
Tammy Marshall
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