We left L.A. a little after eight this morning and encountered no traffic to speak of. I wasn't even sideswiped by a truck this time like I was in my first attempt to leave town on the last book tour. The radar detector did the job and we made very good time to Quartzite, Arizona where we stopped for lunch.
Colin, being English and a fishetarian, ordered the daily special at the small diner in the very small desert community - fish and chips. It didn't, apparently live up to its counterparts in the UK, although he implied that he's had similar served in his native land. He was, as is the usual case with foreigners in America, flummoxed by the enormous portion that was put before him. Quite sensibly he didn't eat it all. I ate all of my club sandwich, but it was smaller and not fried.
Then we went to visit the naked bookseller. I first heard of him on Lee Goldberg's blog and had been awaiting my next opportunity to pass through Quartzite to visit his store. There isn't a whole lot to say beyond this picture of Colin and Paul Winer the naked bookseller:
Next time you're passing through Quartzite, I suggest a visit. The store has an eclectic and interesting mix of books as well.
We did finally make it to Tucson. I always forget what a long drive it is. Our event at Clues Unlimited was fun. We enjoyed putting it on, Chris Acevedo the bookstore owner enjoyed it, and the crowd (okay, six people - what do we authors have to do to get more people to book events? Maybe if we were naked? Nah!), anyhow, the crowd enjoyed it too and they also enjoyed scarfing up all the Asian snacks that we'd brought along - as well as drinking up some Beer Lao - quite possibly the best beer in Asia.
Earlier in the week we kicked off the DisOriented Express with an event at The Mystery Bookstore in Los Angeles - sort of my headquarters mystery bookstore. We had about 20 people who also seemed to enjoy our extravaganza. It was our first show and we had a few minor kinks that we worked out. Good to do that at home before hitting the road.
Tomorrow - later today I guess - it's on to Scottsdale to Poisoned Pen, then a baseball game at night. Sunday to Sedona - The Well Red Coyote - where we will present a workshop on researching exotic locales. Basically - go there, have fun, be observant. Well, there is more to it than that, sort of.
Eventually we will make it to Madison, Wisconsin for Bouchercon, where among other events, Colin will be presented with his Dilys Award - for having written the favorite book to sell of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association last year. He doesn't know it - and unless he reads this I probably won't tell him - but I was handed the award in a box and asked to deliver it to Bouchercon. It's currently sitting on the floor of the backseat of my car, right behind where he has been sitting.
I'm tired and tired of fixing my typos - even in blogging, neatness counts - so I'm afraid I will have to shut down for now and come up with pithy statements and fascinating observations some other time.
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