I Am Back!

 

First of all I would like to thank my wonderful guest bloggers for doing posts for me in my absence.  I hope each of my readers enjoyed these posts as much as I did.  I noticed the page views for my blog were way up, which leads me to believe you too enjoyed seeing guest posts.  I will see what I can do about having more in the future.

 

My vacation was great!  I took a trip down to Westport, WA where I had Bennett's Seafood at both their fancy sit down restaurant as the fish shack. They have the best clam chowder! I bought some Taffy, took in the sites and was on my way.  Then crossed the Columbia River over into Oregon.  While I was there I went through Astoria, which is one of my favorite places.  Now I want to watch The Goonies again, being this is where the movie was filmed.  Most of the day was spent in Seaside where I bought more Taffy at The Candyman (tons of flavors you would not find anywhere else).  I also bought a new jacket and frequented the many shops before taking off to my next destination. 

Tillamook cheese factory was not as good as the last time I went.  My breakfast was no where near the tastiness it was when I had it before.  Miniature golf was a blast, being we needed to do something between breakfast and getting ice cream (a must have if you visit the cheese factory).  The Air Museum was neat to see.  It is in one of the few remaining blimp hangers.  Unfortunately the museum is being forced out over the next year.

 

 

The drive down to Newport seemed so long and I was glad that we stopped in Lincoln to do some shopping before continuing down the coast.  Newport was wonderful as always.  We ate at the original Izzy's Pizza (yes, lots of food on this trip) and it was great!  The beach was a blast!  Cooper loves sand and was going crazy for it! 

 

 

We also stayed in Florence, did some shopping and played 3 rounds of miniature golf.  The highlight of the stay here was the ride out on the sand dunes.  My favorite part was our third round of golf.  We all had fun and our scores were within a couple points of each other.  I even managed a couple hole-in-one's!

 

 

The next stop was Crater Lake, which was breathtaking!  I took so many pictures.  The dogs even had an appreciation for the view.  Cooper any time that I would look away would bark at me to turn and look.  Although I feel took some great pictures, I also think they do not do this majestic view justice.

 

From here we made the LONG drive up to Mary Hill, which is right along the Columbia River.  We crossed back and forth between Washington state and Oregon state several times during our stay.  There is a replica of Stonehenge up the hill from where we stay.  It was nice getting to see what Stonehenge looked like when it was first built.  Someday I hope to go and see the original.

On our way to our final destination, we were in three states in one day (Oregon, Washington and Idaho), something each of us found cool.  We stayed a couple nights and spent an entire day at Silverwood Theme Park.  

 

 

Then it was off to home.  Although I have been home for a couple of days now, I am still trying to get unpacked, take care of many things that were waiting for my return and getting back into the swing of things.

 

As I see several people have noticed, I released Drifting prior to my vacation.  I was curious to see how well my new novel would do without any promo behind it.  Needless to say, it has been selling better than the previous ones have.  This has been exciting to me.  Over the next couple of weeks I will be doing a couple of guest blog spots, a few interviews and features.  I am going to be doing this gradually, to be sure I do not over do it.  I also hope to get back into the swing of writing and have the new book out sometime in the fall.

 

Thank you for the messages inquiring about how I am doing and letting me know what you think about the new book.  I am happy to read every bit of praise (as well as the criticism, though there has been little).