So my husband and I just got back from taking an entire glorious week off from adulting! We drove from North Texas up to rural Idaho to visit some friends of ours. It was a nice break from reality, with friendly folks all along the way and some breathtaking scenery (some pics below). I’ve lived in North Texas most of my life and as a result am very appreciative of those places that have discernable changes in altitude.

Our friends live out on a small farm in southern Idaho and have two dogs – a gorgeous black Labrador named Spooky, and a horse. Literally. Marshmallow is a Great Pyrenees whose shoulders reach almost to my waist. I’m no giant by any stretch at five feet six inches, but this dog was massive. Fortunately, he’s also a very gentle and sweet soul and loves to be petted – so much so that I was unable to stop petting him long enough to get a picture! As you can probably imagine, coming home to our two little terrier mix furbabies was a bit of a shock – Compared to Marshmallow, our two look like teacup poodles…

The trip itself was amazing and I loved every minute of it… except for the drive back, because that meant that our vacation’s end was swiftly approaching (Insert growly-faced ‘but I don’t wanna go back to work Monday‘ here). Also, the drive back was exhausting – We did it in two days, versus the three days that we took to drive up. So we left our lovely friends in south Idaho behind around ten a.m. Friday morning, and we pulled into our driveway in North Texas at a little after nine p.m. Saturday.

And then, it was pandemonium the moment we walked through our front door. We’d have loved to taken the babies with us, but Scooter gets extremely carsick very easily – even a ten-minute ride to the vet is dicey. And while Harley does much better in a moving vehicle, he also tends to bark at any and everything and can be quite the escape artist (his official full name is Harley “Dig Dug Houdini” Hart for a reason). Trust me, it was much happier (and safer) for them to stay home and be completely spoiled rotten by my daughter while we were gone – although if I’m being honest, the furbabies were already pretty darn spoiled to begin with…

Okay, I suppose I ought to switch gears for a moment and talk books. I’ll be honest with you – I got zero writing done on this trip. But sometimes that’s what is needed, and it was nice to relax and just unplug from everything for a while. No worries, though. I promise you that House of Secrets will be ready and released as planned come December 2021. Just an FYI that it IS available to pre-order already, so, here’s the link to that if you wanna reserve your copy early! 

Well, I guess I’d better get going. Trip laundry to do, dogs to love on, and words to write! Talk to you next month!
Best,
D.F.

P.S. – The last picture is proof that Idahoans have an awesome sense of humor. That sign is prominently displayed out in front of a field full of lava rocks…..