On the way home...

Last night on the road. Our little jaunt through Arkansas to see the foliage, drive some coll mountain roads and eating some good food. Its been a nice relaxing week, perfect weather for driving with the top down. Nothing like climbing a steep hill in 3rd gear with the overdrive off easing through a couple of switchbacks listening to the GT's 4.6 liter growling through the dual exhausts!
Last night we stayed at the Mather Lodge at Petit Jean State Park. It is Arkansas' first state park and sits on top of Mount Petit Jean, about 1700 feet above sea level. The park was developed in the 1930s by the Civilian Conseration Corps as our country was in the grips of the Great Depression, as were many of our wonderful state and national parks. The room was rather spartan (but they had wifi!) and the bed pretty hard. But there was a roaring fire in a big stone fireplace in the main room and the view was great!
Wednesday we took a train ride from Van Burean AR to Windslow AR and back. Very relaxing ride in 1920's passenger cars just to look at the scenery on the Arkansas and Missouri Railroad. The cars had been refurbished but the hand worked African Mahogony was all original hand worked detail. Very nice! After the train ride we drov to nearby Fort Chaffee where the barbershop where Elvis Presley received his firsr Army haircut has beeb oened as a museum. As luck would have it, the volunteer guide just happened to bebthe photographer who took the famous picture of the haircut. He was very friendly and told us a great story about the event. Did you know that they brought him in at ten pm at night? To minimize the fuss. They have mananged to save the barracks where Elvis trianed and plan to restore it and expand their museum. Fort Chaffee was also the site of a German POW camp during WWII and was used for Vietnameese refugees from the end of the Vietnam War and Cuban refugees from the Marial boat lift during the Clinton administration. We also drove thru Mena AR. You should google these things if you don't know what I'm talking about. Especially Mena. (CIA, Iran Contra, guns for drugs...)
So. back to the grind next week, time to get back to work on my stories.  I have one marketing company reading Tycho Station right now, I should hear something from them next week. But they do marketing, not  publsihing, so I have to figure that out as well. I'd like to find an agent and a real publisher as opposed to the self publishing option. The scenario may be something like "We want to promote your book in our markets, but you have to get it published, e.g. you should self publish so we can do this right now...  I just don't know how it will all play out. And I still have to find a job to pay for all this. Now, if someone would just offer me a big advance...
Next week I want to share some of my DragonHawk Saga, some background and what is going on in the Star Trader Universe. I'l be anxious to read your comments.

Cheers!

Dave