Grand Tetons

The same day we left Yellowstone, Kelly and I drove on to Grand Teton National Park. There were less tourists and more natural walking paths.


We spent a lot of time separately at Lake Jenny, letting ourselves have time alone with our thoughts. I followed a path high above the water before finding a rock that jutted out. I perched there for awhile letting my mind run wild; I think this was the space where I realized what my next step in life needed to be. That time decompressing and simply listening to the water lap against the rocks totally cleared my mind - literally and spiritually.



See more photos from the Grand Tetons on Flickr.

An Author's Process - Guest Post by Emylia Hall

Today I have a really awesome essay from the author Emylia Hall. I was sent a copy of her debut novel, The Book of Summers, and was given the chance to host a guest post from her. I got to pick the topic, and after reading her book, millions of ideas were running through my mind. I finally settled on asking about her writing spaces and processes.

Travels with my book
by Emylia Hall

The aspect of the writing process that I most enjoy is the travel. Skipping the bonds of time and place and going just about anywhere, that magical feeling of sitting down at your laptop, or taking a notebook in hand, and transporting yourself. Fittingly, my first novel is also about travel – of both the practical, and the emotional kind. It’s the story of a young girl who spends her summers abroad with her Hungarian mother, in a place that seems untouched by the concerns of her world back home. They’re endless summer days where the night skies are lit by fireflies, glow-worms mark the edges of the forest, and languid, hidden pools tempt with their cool waters.


Emylia's writing space in the French Alps.

The Book of Summers was inspired by the family holidays we took as a child. My father was an artist and art teacher so come summertime we were all at liberty; we’d pack up the car and drive across France, Germany, Austria and Hungary, often for a month or five weeks at a time. Many of my memories of those sun-kissed days are written into The Book of Summers. However the narrative, the drama, is driven less by personal recollection and more by my interest in the relationship we each have with our memories. The human facility for recall – so exact, so very real, that sometimes if we closed our eyes we could just reach out and touch – seems to be our greatest gift and, somehow, our greatest tragedy. We can never go back, and the gilded days of childhood tempt us most of all.


Emylia's writing space in Scotland.

The Book of Summers began as just a few hastily-tapped paragraphs, saved on a floppy disc and tucked into a drawer when I was still working and living in London. After moving house, and moving countries, the disk went astray but there was something about the idea that stayed with me; the allure of the foreign, the clash of strange and familiar, a coming-of-age story about complex but well-meaning family relations. Several years later, in 2006, I was living in the French Alps - tired of my hectic London job in advertising my boyfriend and I were working in a ski chalet; I was the chef and he was the cleaner. It wasn’t the kind of work we were used to; we rose at dawn and worked until late at night, but we felt so, so free. When I wasn’t cooking in the chalet, or flying on my snowboard, I began to write. I remembered all of my childhood ambitions and knew that this was what I wanted to do more than anything. Inspired by the natural beauty of the mountain landscape, and delighting in the relinquishing of so much responsibility, my creative spirit soared.

I returned to England in 2007 and began to write The Book of Summers. My boyfriend and I rented a small flat in Bristol and lived on a shoestring budget. By day I worked part time in a marketing agency, otherwise I wrote – and with every page I travelled; desk-bound, soul flying. My novel and I also went on real, as well as imagined, journeys – I love the feeling of possibility and infinite freedom that comes with being abroad and it feeds into my writing. Some scenes were written on the shores of Lake Balaton in Hungary, at a terrace table, as I looked out over the shimmering water and remembered childhood days. I spent a rain-soaked week in the Austrian mountains, re-writing and daubing my manuscript with red pen. Even when I wed in Vegas and honeymooned in Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, the book came with me; a quick-thought scribbled in a roadside diner or a Santa Fe café. In wildest Scotland I worked for a week staying in a converted freight container at the edge of a loch, and in that bleak but beautiful landscape I wrote pages of background notes that delved deep into the emotions of each character; their battered souls and imperfections. At night it was very dark and very quiet and the story slept with me.


Emylia's writing desk on her home turf.

Five years after I first began writing The Book of Summers it was published, and I delight in the journey we went on together. Perhaps all writers have this relationship with their novels; they look at them and remember how they were written, where, when, and what the view was like from their window. The travels of my childhood are within its pages, as are the travels of my adult life. And best of all, I know that as a new reader picks it up and starts the story, they are travelling too. If that’s you, I thank you, and I hope you take pleasure in the journey.

- - -

Thanks for taking the time to share this with us, Emylia! Check out her novel The Book of Summers, which I'll be reviewing next week.

Yellowstone (for real this time)

After our car sleep, Kelly and I headed back in to Yellowstone. And oh boy did this place steal our hearts:

Just kidding. Remember the beauty of Glacier we'd just seen?


Literal yellow stone lookin' like yellow snow…


Once your hat blew into the hot spring, you were screwed. I only photographed
this one, but Kelly shot at least six others. It became like an "I Spy" game for us.


Ok Yellowstone, you've got a bit of color goin' on…


And some cute wildlife.


We saw a handful of geysers like the one above, but skipped Old Faithful. Yes, I know - the most famous of all! How could we? Well, have you ever seen the parking lot at Disney World? Picture that crowd at a national park - no spaces to be found and dozens of cars circling. Kelly and I figured a geyser is a geyser, this one in particular was not worth the stress of battling tourists, and decided to move on.

See more of my Yellowstone photos on Flickr.

Tucked in on the Passenger Side

After a beautiful day in Glacier, Kelly and I drove to Bozeman, MT. I'm a fan of "If you can't say anything nice…" so we'll skip over our Twilight Zone-y time there. As soon as we could leave the city, we made a break for it and headed to Yellowstone to camp out. Driving on a lonely country road, Kelly glanced in her rearview mirror and promptly pulled over. The sunset absolutely blew our minds:


We tried to take our trademark sign pictures at the park's entrance, but headlights aren't the best lighting:

We began driving through the park, which was a little unsettling at night. Even more so when we realized every camp site was full. (No real surprise, since we arrived after ten o'clock.) We noticed a few cars parked in pullouts meant for taking photos, so while Kelly drove I read the brochure's rules twice - nothing was mentioned about sleeping in your car in a pullout.
     Well, technically there was a rule that no camping was allowed outside of the designated sites. But we weren't camping, were we? Pitching a tent is camping, sleeping in your car is a step away from homelessness. We decided to go for it, found a pullout, and got out sleeping bags and pillows. (Ok, I guess that makes it seem a little bit like camping…)

We took some time to journal with the dome light on, then turned it off and reclined our seats. Animals outside screamed like demented hyenas. We tried to figure out what they could be, but were clueless. Kelly was restless, worrying about animals attacking us in our sleep.
     "Really, animals?" I asked. "I'm more worried that some crazy loner who loves nature and lurks in parks will see us sleeping here, break the window and shoot us."
     Kelly gave me a look I roughly translated to mean "I hate you."

The thing is, I wasn't really worried. I think about serial killers a lot. I read a lot about them, I seek out news stories of mysterious/random murders, I watch specials about them eluding police for decades, I studied their psychology as an undergrad. They're almost always in the back of my mind, though not in a paranoid "They're going to get me!" way. Therefore I promptly fell asleep, leaving Kelly to toss and turn in her reclined driver's seat.

We were woken an hour and a half later by a bright light illuminating the car and making it impossible for us to see what was outside. "Ranger!" a voice said, and Kelly promptly opened her door, even though I later told her that is exactly what a serial killer would have said to get access to us.
     The ranger told us sleeping in a car counted as camping outside of designated areas; Kelly said we didn't realize that since we had seen other cars parked around and all the sites were full. He let us off with a warning, saying that it would disappear unless we got caught doing something else dumb in the park. He added that he wasn't coming back to check this area of the park if we wanted to stay, but he couldn't guarantee another ranger wouldn't catch us and turn the warning into a ticket. Pretty nice of him to give us a heads up, but we decided to leave.

We headed down the main road, past motels since it would be pointless to pay for a room when it was already 1.30a. We found a space in a campsite at 2.30a and, too worn out to even contemplate pitching a tent, reclined our chairs again. I slept really well for being on a car seat six inches from another person, though I did have a nightmare: Donald Trump had hired my mom as a hit woman. Strange, yes, but overall not the worst car-sleeping experience one could have.

Crossing Borders

Julie and I returned our rental car to the Seattle airport; she headed home while I waited for Kelly to pick me up to continue the adventures. My first day with Kelly was spent driving, but the next day we headed into Glacier National Park.


The famous Going to the Sun Road had just opened for the season that day.
With good reason...

That. Is. Snow. More snow than all I have seen in my entire life added together.

Most of the drive was absolutely gorgeous:


Throw in a sprinkling of wildlife:


When we drove past this guy, all I could say was "Bear bear bear bear!" until Kelly realized I was not having a mental breakdown and turned around. He was so close to the car that we could hear him munching his lunch.

Glacier is known as the International Peace Park because it includes the Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada. Kelly and I both had our passports, so we drove up to visit our northern neighbors.
     For some reason I always get nervous going through customs, even if I'm not doing anything wrong. I constantly feel like I'm giving the wrong answer and acting suspicious - which I probably am, since I'm so anxious. Luckily Kelly was driving; she charmed the figurative pants off the officials, and we were allowed into Canada! With no passport stamp - bummer.



Red Rock Canyon


Waterton Lakes



See more Glacier National Park photos on my Flickr.

Published: In the Dark

When I had a break in traveling last year, I decided to get down to business and get back in the swing of submitting. I submitted three short fiction pieces to five magazines. The stories were written anywhere from spring 2008 to summer 2011 and had never been workshopped - not the smartest choices to submit, but I wanted to put something out there, to feel like I was getting somewhere.

One of the pieces was "In the Dark," submitted to two journals on September 24th.

Rejections to the other pieces dribbled in, and on January 24th, I received a rejection email for the piece in question. The editor wrote four paragraphs of notes, ending his message with "I've never written a rejection like this." Though I've gotten personalized rejections before, I'd never gotten a rejection like that. I meant to rework the piece and resubmit it, but my design work picked up and I didn't think about it again.

Last week I got an email: Bastards and Whores wanted to publish that piece in their 8th issue. I had thought all the pieces from that round of submissions were rejected; needless to say, I was stoked. It came at the perfect time, when I had just made a huge decision yet wasn't entirely sure that I was on the right path. The acceptance came exactly two hours after I had closed the door on one part of my life.

The next week was busy, and while I never forgot my acceptance, I just assumed issue 8 was a month or so off. On a whim, I checked the website and what's on the front page?
Issue 8!

So, with nails bitten to the quick, I give you "In the Dark."

Affording College with CampusBookRentals.com

*This is a sponsored post because both the company and I thought my readers could benefit from the services offered.

Traveling with two of my best friends that I don't get much in-person time with means that we had a lot of catching up to do. We also had a lot of brainstorming about what our futures might hold. We're all at great places in our lives - everything is open to us! We're not tied down, we're free to go where we want and take new paths.

One thing we all have on our minds is returning to school. Julie just graduated and is contemplating med school. Kelly and I met in an MFA program we promptly dropped out of, but are now thinking of finding schools that are better fits for us. One of the biggest concerns for all of us, though, is money. College is expensive, and while some programs offer tuition assistance, there are still tons of expenses you don't really think about until it's time to fork over the cash.

As if reading my mind, CampusBookRentals.com sent me an email outlining the perks of renting textbooks instead of buying. Besides their books being 40-90% off of bookstore prices, they have flexible renting periods. You're even allowed to highlight in the textbooks!

I used to purchase as many of my books as possible from a used book website, but prices weren't guaranteed to be more than 20% off, and once the semester was over, you were either stuck with the book, or had to sell it yourself. A perk of CampusBookRentals.com that blew my mind was that they offer free shipping both ways. Shipping is definitely one of those charges that adds up before you realize how much money you actually paid for a book.

I still have one of my psychology textbooks on my shelf and decided to look it up on CampusBookRentals to see how much I could have saved. I bought my Abnormal Psychology textbook used from the campus bookstore for $125. ("Buy Used, Save Money!" the sticker on the spine says. The list price, for the record, is $152. Didn't save too much…) The same textbook through CampusBookRentals?


I could have saved $100. AND it wouldn't be sitting on my shelf
three years after completing the course.
An added bonus to this company is that they have a "Making a Difference" program. For every textbook you rent, a portion of the fee goes to a humanitarian project fund. If saving money on textbooks wasn't enough incentive to use this company, the fact that they're committed to helping others definitely sealed the deal for me.

Troll Under the Bridge

Julie and I left Oregon to spend our last few days together back in Seattle. There were some roadside attractions I wanted to see, like the Fremont Troll:
It might not look like much in this picture, but this troll is huge. He's hanging out beneath an overpass in Seattle, and takes you by surprise even if you're actively hunting him. I thought I was only afraid of animatronic creatures, but this guy had me shaking. Julie took this photo for me so I could drive by without looking at him a second time.

We went to Warren G. Magnuson Park to search for the Sound Garden, where wind blows across pipes, glass, and other objects to make noises, and yes, where the band got their name. It's only open during the week though, so we settled for a walk through the park's beautiful community gardens.

Alkai Beach is across the sound from Seattle, so we hit that up to still be close to the city while feeling far away.

Not many people in Seattle spoke to us on the streets, but a man passed on the beach and, without any prompting from us, said "There's a dead sea lion on the beach you'll want to take pictures of," and walked on. Julie and I exchanged baffled looks at the randomness of it, but stopped to check it out - and of course I took pictures. It's like that stranger looked into my soul.


Later that night we went back into the city to see Collective Soul perform
some of their classics - it's totally still the '90s!

Photo by Julie.

See more photos from Alkai Beach on Flickr.

Falling Water

On our last day in Oregon, Julie and I trekked out to the country. A New Friend we made at one of the breweries had told us about a beautiful hike in McDowell Creek Falls Park, so we drove down to check out some waterfalls with him. It was so refreshing to be in nature after being in downtown areas of major cities for so long!





These walkways took you close to the top of the waterfall, but
New Friend and I wanted to get closer. We climbed down the rocks
(in flip flops…) and slowly made our way to the waterfall.


Photo by Julie. We eventually made it about 5 feet from the waterfall (on the far
right side of the picture), but it was starting to get dark and we still had to,
you know, make our way back out of the water and hike to the car.

See more photos of the waterfalls on my Flickr.

Coffee & Doughnuts, Portland-Style

Monday, day six, was pretty low key - we wandered around downtown and went to Powell's, the largest independent bookstore in the world. We had lunch at Sizzle Pie and coffee at Grendel's - tell me those places don't have the best names!

Tuesday was day seven and we kept the relaxed vibe going by starting the day (in the late afternoon) at a brewery - the breweries will have their own post later. A fellow patron recommended dinner at City Grill, a glass restaurant on the 30th floor of a downtown building.


You know dessert had to be Voodoo Doughnuts - I loved it last time!


What goes better with doughnuts than... coffee? We ventured to the Rimsky-Korsacoffee House, an unmarked, creepy-looking yet beautiful house.

I read about it on Roadside America; it's rumored to be haunted, but it might just be the mood lighting. There is something that'll you scare you in the bathroom - even if you're warned about it beforehand. (I know that sounds like a subtle poop joke, but I promise it's not. Stop looking at me like that!)


Julie sneakily took this photo of me and I love it - it looks like I'm hard at work,
not drawing mustaches and genitals on art in one of the coffee shop's books
(they encourage you to add to the book, I promise!)

Ramona Forever

On Sunday, day five, we took a ride to Grant Park to see an exhibit I read about on Roadside America: statues commemorating some of Beverly Cleary's characters. In the corner of the park are Henry Huggins watching his dog Ribsy and neighbor Ramona Quimby frolicking in a fountain.







Titles and dates of Cleary's books were on bricks around the fountains, along with quotes from some of the books.

After leaving the fiction realm for reality, we continued on to the Portland Rose Gardens - expanses of unique roses that were so vivid, it looked like they had been dyed.




Our daily coffee was consumed at Paul's diner, where we had a delicious late breakfast.