Well, I made it. Before the con­fer­ence even start­ed, I want­ed to turn around and go home. It start­ed with a car acci­dent that killed two peo­ple unknown to me, then con­tin­ued with a snow­storm that made my dri­ve scary, a sick dog (not mine), a pokey hotel shut­tle bus which caused me to be re-sched­uled three hours lat­er, main­te­nance issues on the sec­ond plane, lost lug­gage, rental car place run­ning out of econ­o­my vehi­cles, a painful rejec­tion scowl, then I was pulled over for speed­ing, and it end­ed with a reser­va­tion mix up that caused a $440 charge on my hotel. I had a pret­ty good cry­ing fit, and seri­ous­ly looked into an ear­ly flight home.

Then I was dragged out of bed by my fel­low LSB authors, and into the hotel bar where after one drink, I start­ed think­ing I’d be able to do it. Here I am with Ella Drake, Dee Car­ney and Michelle Picard Tina Burns took this pic­ture. Glad you can’t see the agony on my face!

By the time morn­ing arrived, all was well with the world. No, I did­n’t drink that much! I resigned myself to for­get what dragged me down, and focused on enjoy­ing the con­fer­ence. I attend­ed a pletho­ra of work­shops, most of them about sus­pense in romance.

Attend­ed a Faery Ball sans cos­tume, a Cave­man Mix­er sans red dress, a Vam­pire Ball sans fangs, and a mad hat­ters par­ty sans hat. Maybe next time I’ll be more pre­pared, but I enjoyed them any­way. Sat at my lit­tle cor­ner in the book sign­ing are­na (I was pre­pared for this one at least) Gave away plen­ty of swag, includ­ing my book­marks, which real­ly made no sense, they don’t work with ebooks. I did­n’t tell them that though. They’ll have to fig­ure it out themselves.

Here is the LSB pub­lish­er Tina Burns at the pub­lish­er table. She gave away a Nook to one lucky reader.

The return trip was­n’t near­ly as stren­u­ous. I took my time, and had a few days to goof off before I had to be in Philly for my flight home. I stopped in Annapo­lis MD for some his­to­ry and scenic views. The weath­er was beau­ti­ful, and I spent about half an hour just sit­ting on a dock lis­ten­ing to the sound of the waves.

I also stopped at almost any­thing scenic that was post­ed on the high­way. I know I looked like a doo­fus tourist, but I kept remind­ing myself that no one knew me! Found some great foliage here, and I wish I could some­how make this pic­ture a scratch and sniff. The clean air was filled with the scent of the tree bark, and flow­er­ing ground­cov­er. There were crick­ets, birds, and a soft breeze rustling the leaves. I could have spent hours here.

Once I made it back to Philly, I learned what scrap­ple was. Thanks, Lane for edu­cat­ing me before I ordered it. Flew back to Den­ver with­out a hitch (except for the guy who snored like a chain­saw on the plane). I did run into snow on the high­way in Wyoming. Can you believe that folks?! Nei­ther can I. I’m still wait­ing for spring.

I post­ed more pic­tures and cap­tions on my Face­book Page. Now I’m try­ing to catch up on laun­dry, edits, and rework­ing that reject­ed man­u­script to sub­mit to some­one. I can’t wait for next year. L.A., here I come!