About the New Book:
The Rambling Adventures of a Traveler and Golfer is now available on amazon.com or amazon.co.uk, both in print and on Kindle. The Rambling Adventures of a Traveler and Golfer is not a travel guide, although through the stories and vignettes you will get plenty of suggestions for what to see and do (or what not to see and do) on your own trips. After reading about St Ives and St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall you may want to visit one or both. Perhaps I’ll entice you to find more ghosts than we did in the English pubs or to hunt for different haunts. I certainly hope that any readers who golf will make the long trek to Scotland’s northwest corner for the great small course there (Durness GC). You’ll also read about Scottish, English, and Irish B&Bs—that’s where all the action is.
Rambling Adventures contains more than 170 stories about travel (land and air), attractions (the famous and the out-of-the-way), eateries and food, lodgings and lodgers, the people, the golf courses and the people who play golf, the culture, and even some good old family road trips. The stories are illustrated with more than 30 black and white photos. Rambling Adventures is the companion volume to Ten Years of Travel in Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales (also available from Amazon).
All these small vignettes were gathered by two retired teachers who began traveling (the British Isles, the European continent, Canada, and throughout the US) and writing when they retired from teaching. A three week retirement trip to Scotland for golf and whisky, and a two week train tour of Germany, Austria, and Hungary have turned into a love affair with self-guided travel. The stories Rambling Adventures are the results of those travels.
About Writing the New Book and my Other Books:
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| Canby Starbucks Crew |
A long time ago in a world far removed from today, I developed the habit of doing my best writing (assuming any of it is good) in a diner or coffee shop. Late night writing sessions in the Rocket Cafe in McMinnville just down the street from my fraternity house on the Linfield College campus were what got me through college. Position papers, analyses, term papers, debate cases, oratory and expository speeches were all written while munching the famous Rocket Burger, drinking pots of coffee, and chain-smoking (cigarettes, of course).
After college, the habit stuck. I would leave early for work and spend an hour in a coffee shop, whether I was teaching or working in the retail sporting goods industry (two years), writing poor poetry or writing magazine articles (sled dog racing, backpacking and hiking, or anything else I thought I could sell). As I worked on my Masters degree at (then) OCE, hours were spent in Jay’s Restaurant in Monmouth writing papers for professors Baker, Walking-Bull, and Rossi preparing for that degree. While teaching at Canby High I frequented the Cottage Kitchen and then Denny’s to write five books on debate and public speaking for Championship Debate Enterprises. Next came retirement and Starbucks.
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| I'm at work in my Starbucks office, my photos hanging on the wall for the month of March. |
On our retirement trip to Scotland in the fall of 2000, Anne suggested we write about the pubs, the B&Bs, the attractions, and the small golf courses in Scotland. At that point the Canby Starbucks became my office. I have now written, edited, proofed, and rewritten seven books almost entirely in that coffee shop. I’ve been asked, “How can you write with all the distractions in a Starbucks—the noise of the coffee grinder, the called orders, the people, the sweeping and cleaning?” For me it’s easy. For one thing, I’ve been ignoring those kinds of distractions for years. I‘ll let myself be distracted for a while if I want a break. I find, also, that the distractions at Starbucks are much easier to ignore than the distractions at home—the phone, the cat who wants out (or in or out or in),
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| Anne at work with me. |
Anne (the one who should not be ignored) calling out to me, the door bell, and any number of other homey interruptions.
Although the Canby Starbucks may not be as famous as The Elephant House in Edinburgh where Harry Potter was written, let this post be my thanks (my book dedication) to the Starbucks’ culture that has given me the place to write in an office away from home. In fact, on my last visits to Starbucks I have already started my next major writing project, a complete rewrite and update of our Ireland golf guide.
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| Canby Starbucks where all my latest books have been written. |
Next Blog Post: Our road trip to Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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