Category travel
Getting Back in the Water Again
When Left Coast Crime in San Diego was abruptly cancelled after a single day in March 2020, many of the attendees left wondering when and if we’d be able to gather again. We learned more than we ever wanted to know about Zoom, remote working, vaccines, and quarantine workarounds. When we had a dip in […]
Travel Roulette
With a few open days on the calendar before the upcoming book launch, I took my son up on an offer for a quick trip to Las Vegas. You can’t beat the people watching in this town. The spectacle begins when you step off the airplane into 115 degree heat. That ant under the magnifying […]
Can You Read The Signs?
Where would we be without someone telling us where to go, what to do and how to get there? Thankfully, there are an abundance of signs out there to guide us poor, aimless creatures through life. Without a nudge in the right direction, it seems, we would follow the way of the lemming and fall […]
I Like To Watch
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Shhhh… I like to watch. No not that way! Get your mind out of the gutter and go say three Hail Mary’s and a couple of Acts of Contrition. Throw some salt over your shoulder for good measure. I’m not watching in that way. I […]
Getting Twisty With It
I’m writing along, laying down the manuscript for the sequel to AT WHAT COST and the urge to pull off the path gets stronger as I go. I don’t seem to be in control of the wheel anymore and I can feel It jerk out of my hands when I try to steer it back on […]
Shut Up And Drive
Pardon me whilst I squeeze into my ranty pants. I don’t remember them being this tight. Ahem… This morning I had the occasion to venture out in public and join in the mass migration on the public thoroughfare. Interstate 5 is a sprawling mass of asphalt and cement, up to eight lanes wide at some points to […]
When Did Travel Become Survival of the Fittest?
Travel used to be something fun. You remember vacation, right? That time you earned to go and get away from it all. What happened? The fun and excitement of getting away from it all has been replaced by fear and loathing (sorry Hunter S. Thompson). The entire process of getting overpriced tickets, checking in, and […]
Killing Time (At Airports)
I’ve been in a couple airports over the last few weeks, LAX, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Sacramento. Airports, as it turns out, are great places for people watching to pass the time. And there always seems to be time… I do the whole people watching thing and scoop up character details for new stories. You […]
Is Our Guest Room Ready?
I don’t blog about politics, but I often touch on social issues in posts, from human trafficking, to violence and crime. All great makings for flashy television news ratings. I’ve been watching the coverage on the Syrian refugee coverage for months. Nearly 5 million refugees have fled the country, and another 6 million displaced within […]
Summer Road Warriors
The Road of the Damned Sounds like some Trucker Noir, novel, doesn’t it? A lonely truck driver makes one last run to pay off a shady loan shark or lose his rig… While that might be a pitch for a new pulp fiction series (It would have to be in audio book format, because truckers can’t hold […]
James L'Etoile
James L'Etoile 