New blog feature for writers and a recap of my most recent travels

I'm instituting a new section of my weekly blog. I will be blogging a weekly writing tool. It could be a thought provoking question, a prompt, or other various writing exercises.

The prompts I like the best are ones that are a sentence or two to be included in your answer to the prompt. Feel free to change words around, use it anywhere in the prompt, or forgo its use and simply use it as the inspiration to get you writing. I'd love to see the response, so make sure to comment them to me! Also... if the amount of response is good, I will turn my prompts into a challenge and provide either weekly or monthly prizes to the winner, so spread the word!

September 23rd Prompt:

He strode across the lawn with one purpose, delighting half of the onlookers, and horrifying the rest.

All genres welcome!

Now... onto my travels...

Some of you may not be aware that I have been traveling on and off since February. I was laid off in January and have been jet setting ever since.

Feb-March: Oregon
March: Cincinnati and Manteca California
April: Michigan (home state) sick as a dog with H1N1 I swear!
May-July: California: Manteca, Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Cruz
July: Texas, Oklahoma
August: Michigan
September: Chicago, IL and Colorado/ Denver, Boulder and Estes Park

Here are a few perks of my trips!

Silver Falls, OR: How postcard-esque is that! I hiked 4 miles around Silver Falls up and down throughout the gorges and peaks of the region. This was the first waterfall I saw that day--not the tallest or the biggest, but I had to go out of my way to see it and am damn happy I did. It houses faeries, I'm sure of it.

And now for a different part of my Oregon trip. I love guns and a friend from Eugene, OR was happy to take me out to the middle of nowhere to shoot his handgun. He took pictures the whole time and actually caught a muzzle flash! How cool is that! This pic ladies and gents has not been altered, that is truly what a muzzle flash looks like. Oh yeah, and you get to see my kick ass gun shooting stance.

This is a picture from the tallest point in Oklahoma. This is where the deer and the antelope (read prairie dogs) roam. Home of buffalo and long horn steers. This is the range and many people call it home. I went out there twice in the span of a week. The next picture will explain why.




AHHH! Meers! Possibly the best burger I've ever had. This place is literally in the middle of NOWHERE in Oklahoma. You drive down a windy road, make a turn, and slam on your brakes because people are walking out in front of your car to go to this place. Some of the open spaces in the previous picture are Meer's Long Horn Steer grazing territory. This restaurant was voted to have one of the top 10 burgers in the nation by family owned businesses. It has been open decades (getting close to a century now.) Not only are their Meer's burgers delicious, but their peach cobbler and homemade ice cream is to die for. The restuarant started as a smallish building, and they added several shanty's onto it. Makes for an uneven floor, but I'm happy they added space! As a recovering vegetarian of 10 years, I stared at the Long Horn Steer head mounted on the wall, took a bite of my burger, and thanked it for having such a delicious cousin.



Estes Park, Colorado: Home of the rock formation Twin Owls. This is not the most scenic picture I took. Come on, I was in the Rocky Mountains people, majesty abounds in that place. But we've all seen picture after picture of the Rockies (and yes, it really does look that amazing) But the Twin Owls kind of stole my heart. They truly do look like owls all huddled up to one another and I'm a sucker for rock formations that look like things.


You may notice I don't have any pictures of California. I didn't have my digital camera and didn't have a chance to do much site seeing there due to other responsibilities. However, I did manage to make it out to Santa Cruz--talk about the epitome of a beach boardwalk town. It took us 2 hours to make it around the town twice (a small town) just to find parking. At one point we were on Beach Blvd and people walked,rollerbladed, meandered, skateboarded in front of us for 20 mins while we stood still. Santa Cruz, or Santa Carla as some of you may recognize it from The Lost Boys...