Coast to Coast across the United States

When I wrote my third book, Double Time on the Oregon Trail, it actually was the first book that I had started but the research and a strange reluctance to stop researching and write, kept me working on it slowly while finishing the other two.

you can find all 3 books on my Amazon author page

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2

I was immersed in the details of how difficult it had been to travel across this continent when you had to go on foot with only a few water passages and a few animals to help with the burdens like when Lewis and Clark did it, and how 50 years later, with big wagon trains and a series of maps and guides to follow, and a system for getting some news back and forth between the two edges of the continent, it still wasn't much easier.

Because Double Time is a book with two characters in two different times, even the modern girl in 2002 had it differently than I did this summer when my aging Mom, and my 38 year old brother with Down's Syndrome, moved across the country from me and I travelled from the Pacific redwood coast to Washington DC to visit them.

I had a lot of issues and delays, but the knowledge of the 6 months journey involved mot all that long ago, kept my problems in perspective

I thought how old fashioned these looked now that everyone has cell phones, but at the end of my trip I wished I was prepared and could find one

At first I had a very small drive (90 miles) to get to the "local" airport. And then the fog delayed the arrival of the plane I needed to catch to get to my one hour layover in San Francisco.  So before I even got in te air, I knew my connecting flight had already been missed, but the next one would take off an hour after my predicted new arrival

The first plane I rode

 Once I got to San Francisco, on the opposite side of the terminal from the gate I was leaving from, I caught a tram, and several moving walkways and tried to make the 45 minutes work.  I shouldn't have worried, that planes departure was seriously delayed as were all of San Fran, due to the closure of one runway because of the wreckage from the korean jet just days earlier. In fact we landed almost on top of that wreckage it felt like.

 So I spent a lot of time watching the children's playland area.  It was filled with hands on science things like at the exploratorium and I wished my kids were still young enough to give me an excuse to be in there swirling the steam and making the electrical lightning flash upon the wall.

 the Asiana plane crash was another reminder that the delayed flights were minor details in the grand scheme of travel and life.

 And the plane finally was loaded and ready to depart, when thunderheads between Lake Eerie and Florida meant planes were being diverted to DC and we were being delayed on the tarmac for 2 1/2 hours so we were told to go back in the airport.  Then pulled up across from the wreckage and parked instead.

 Finally in the air, and due to arrive at midnight instead of 540 PM - I sent a text to my brother and my phone died.  He didn't get it, and I landed in a nearly deserted Dulles airport with no idea of where to meet him, and with no idea of his cell phone number or how to reach him.

The kindness of strangers came into play many times on this trip and people helped me find a place to charge my phone enough to get a text to my brother. He had just given up and gone home so by the time he came back for me it was 2 AM when we got to his house.

Then things got pretty good. I got ten days of family time, seeing my brothers, and my Mom and a niece and a nephew and visiting the Smithsonian and seeing an old Wyoming High School classmate there.

Lance, after 18 years at Walmart has a new job driving and feeding animals around a farm in Virginia

Mom, can't always remember our names, but can still enjoy many things with her family

 ll too soon it was time for me to leave, and th return home was even more complicated.  In DC the thunderheads returned, so there was another 2 1/2 hour wait in a plane parked on the tarmac, and I missed the flight I was connecting with in Sacramento, but this time that 9:30 flight didn't have another until 6:30 the next morning, so I ended up sleeping in the Sacramento Airport's quiet room. Again the kindness of strangers was wonderful, and I got to visit and talk to many people, but whrn I went to the quiet room to sleep, there was only one other person there, a young woman who now lives 1500 miles from me, but was in my son's first grade class.

 we watched the sunrise together

 and then there were only 3 passengers on the plane I caught that finally brought me home.

 DC had been 40 degrees hotter than the redwoods every day I was there, and frankly, the fog and coolness and relief from the sticky humidity was a wonderful welcome home.

To see a great review of Double Time by a book reviewer in India

http://www.booksonmyshelves.blogspot.com/2012/10/double-time-on-oregon-trial.html

 http://www.amazon.com/Double-Time-Oregon-Trail-1/dp/1478160926/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341504499&sr=1-3&keywords=double+time+on+the+oregon+trail

Not just Duffy's Mom

I call my Blog "Duffy Barkley's Mom" because I created the character of a young boy with cerebral palsy and an allergy to being told "no." He stars in two of my novels. But there are two wonderful young men who are the only people in the world who get to call me "mom" and neither is named Duffy.

I wanted to be a Mom for my whole life, but it took a long time to happen and yet happened unexpectedly fast.  For 10 years i couldn't get pregnant and then I was trying to adopt older children, or handicapped or a sibling group, when suddenly i found out i could bring home a newborn and his birth Mom was 2 weeks overdue so in 3 days I suddenly had a baby, and then found out shortly after that I was pregnant and then there were 2. 2 boys in 1 year.

I needed advice, and fast.  The best advice I ever got was, "When they are cranky, put them in water." It worked for cranky moms too.  Water or anything messy, anything that meant washing in water would be required later.

 I think I got pretty good at being a mom.  I think that because I had so much fun at it, and also because both of my babies became young men who make the world a better place by being in it.  Kind, creative, loving, hard working and wonderful, but I could be biased.


'Hmmm. No I'm not.  I asked an objective opinion from their dad and he agrees.

 Anyway, the problem with developing the skills to be a good Mom, is that those skills are not really needed for as long as it takes to develop them.  By the time you learn to ignore the minor details and focus on the fun and creativity.  By the time you know a thousand kids songs and can mix playdough and finger paint from common kitchen ingredients, by the time you can smile and get giggles while cleaning up a baby with the flu.  They are not babies.

 Then you find yourself in the grocery store, buying groceries for two middle aged empty nesters, next  to an awkward young father trying to juggle two kids and the debit machine, and you know if you offer to help, he will wonder what kind of weird stalker creep is trying to get close to his babies. Suddenly you know all the skills you have built up in a lifetime, are not wanted anywhere.  And it shakes you to the core.

 Then you get lucky, because life keeps changing and moving on, and there will be other laughing toddlers and exhausted parents, who say yes to Grandma when she wants to have the kid for the weekend

 and once again I got to soap the floor with bubbles and mop it by skating on wet towels. I got to see messy face break into giggles as I sang about baby whales and little white ducks.  So Sorry Duffy, but you have to share, because the best job I ever had, was being A & E's Mom.

Free Kindle ebook version of Duffy, AKA Tales of Uhrlin #1

Once again my first Duffy Barkley novel is free on kindle for today through June first

Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog

 kindle http://www.amazon.com/Duffy-Barkley-Tales-Uhrlin-ebook/dp/B004478F5M/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

Dixie Goode Amazon Author Page will tell you more about it and about my other books

Amazon link:  http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2

one of the best reviews that book got was not on Amazon but from a book reviewer in India

http://www.booksonmyshelves.blogspot.in/2012/05/duffy-barkley-is-not-dog.html

I am so grateful to the people who have read my books and taken the time to write a review of course.  I am even more grateful for every time I get to talk to kids about what it means to hold on and pursue a dream.

I hope that if you read about poor, Bullied Duffy struggling with his Cerebral Palsy and his crutches and a school shooting, that you will stick with him until the end when he shows that there is a voice singing in the darkness and it will lead you home.

Only So Much Imagination

 Lately I have been wondering why the very idea of writing, which I love, makes me feel blank and stalled and like weeping.  I stare out the window and finally jump up and grab a mop or my camera or my car keys and head anyplace but the keyboard.

 Looking at my life at the moment however, reveals a simple answer and gives me permission to tell myself that this is temporary and I can relax about it.

 I usually substitute teach, and yet I have been subbing full time for the last quarter of this school year, in a very difficult class with 8 students and 7 assistants to deal with.  I love the kids, but they kick, pinch, bite and spit on me.  I love the assistants but they need directing, and have schedules to balance and inter-relationships that work or not as the situations come up.

 I have been struggling to create situations at school where everyone gets along without feeling stressed to the point of exploding and honestly, that requires a lot of imagination. And I have been creating art projects to teach them and doing my own 365Project photography, and dealing with a very broke time of our life. Money and old everything, house, cars, clothing add stress and require more creative solutions.

My husband and I just had our 29th anniversary and our hundredth battle over my own agoraphobic tendencies.  I love that guy and his patience with me, but his patience tends to evaporate just when wqe are most overwhelmed and my courage is at its lowest, of course.

 Then I have aging Mom and aging friends and suddenly everyone I care about seems to have health issues to deal with, and my kids are young, just post high school adults who need support as the parents also need it, and that requires more imagination and a lot of love and patience, and exhaustion.

Yeah, I know, It is not called the sandwich generation without cause. I just wish my sandwich had less jam right now.

Some days I don't even consider writing, or promoting the three books that are out there neglected, on the shelf.  Then I feel guilty. Everything makes me feel guilty lately.  Then I get a exhausting day, and I'm walking out to my car and a teacher tells me, "Hey, our bookclub wants to pick your book to read. The Oregon Trail one?  Would you be up for coming to talk to us, Say in October?"

I smile, and laugh and say, "I'd be honored."

and realize once again, that everything that exhausts me, also recharges me in a wonderful cycle.

Life IS Good.