The wind was blowing so hard Friday night and yesterday morning that I’m surprised our motorhome didn’t set off seismographs in California! It never let up for hours, and you could almost get seasick just sitting still, the motorhome was rocking so hard.
We decided that we were going to skip the Memorial Day parade and the classic car show. We’ve seen parades and car shows before and there wasn’t any reason to go out in that mess to see another one.
Just as I had the day before, I spent most of the time at my desk writing and knocked out another 3,500 words or so on my new Big Lake book. I have been trying to use Dragon Dictate voice to text software for about six months now, and even after I bought the Dragon training DVD and tried all of the suggestions there, I’m still not impressed with it. I’m pretty much a two finger typist, and not very fast, but I find that I can type a chapter faster than if I dictate it to Dragon and then have to go back and make corrections. So the final vote on Dragon is keep your money or invest in typing lessons.
Some writers I know need absolute silence to get anything done, but I like some background noise. Usually I’ll tune in one of the music channels on Dish Network, but yesterday I turned on the television just as the NASCSR race was coming on. I’m not sure I see the big attraction in rednecks hauling ass and turning left, but at least there were a couple of crashes to liven things up.
Speaking of books and writing, the printed edition of Big Lake Lynching is now available on Amazon. For some reason, they have it listed as Volume 1, even though it’s the only print volume of the book.
The wind died down sometime last night, and according to the weatherman it’s supposed to be calm for a few days. Assuming that’s true (and we all know about assumptions and the accuracy of weathermen, don’t we?), we’ll probably hit the road Monday. We’re getting close, and Terry and I are both more than ready to scratch our hitch itch.
Our tentative route (which is always subject to change at the whim of our inner children) is to take State Route 260 to Springerville, where we’ll pick up U.S. Highway 60 and follow it east across New Mexico and into Texas. U.S. 60 is a nice laid back two lane route, and we much prefer it over the much busier Interstate 40. We’ll spend at least one night in Amarillo, and then head for Larned, Kansas, to visit Fort Larned National Historic Site, and the Santa Fe Trail Center. From there, we’ll stop at Blue Ox in Pender, Nebraska, and on to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to get our drivers’ licenses renewed. That’s about 1,400 miles, and we’ll probably get to Sioux Falls sometime around the weekend. We’re in no hurry, it will just be great to get back on the road.
Thought For The Day – I think I ate too many Rice Krispies as a kid, because these days all my body does is snap, crackle, and pop.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Enjoy your thoughts and comments, Nick. Better get your map and compass updated, though; isn’t it SpringERville, and won’t you be heading EAST?
I tried to use Dragon Dictate and another voice to text software several years ago and gave up on them as well. I did have Dragon fairly well trained after about six months but then a hard disk crash lost all my training and I did not want to go through THAT again, so I never restarted it. I even had Dragon trained for both dictation while driving and dictation while in office (quieter).
don’t forget to stop in Pie Town N.M. for a slice of your favorite pie big feller.
Heading west across NM to TX is surely the long way around! Going east would be a lot faster.
Darn, Kathe beat me to it. 8^}
I just thought fulltimers travel in a zig-zag pattern. We are in West Point, NE, at their little city park ($10 for E) and we’re traveling up Highway 20 WEST across Nebraska. We’ll be to Rapid City to pick up mail probably Wed, or maybe Thurs or Fri, definitely before next weekend. That’s probably about 500 miles. Some FTers travel at a snail’s pace, hee, hee.
We could stop at Blue Ox in Pender because it is only about 19 miles NORTH of West Point.
Sometimes I throw those kind of things in just to see if you are all paying attention. 🙂
Shouldn’t Big Lake Lynching be Volume 2 since it’s the second book in your series?