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Like John Steinbeck and Charley, I am happily exhausted. The two really did go across country in a pickup truck covered with a cab. The journey started off up in Maine and ended at home, New York. I enjoyed Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck because of the author's ability to nab the seemingly most significant thoughts to share about a place.  In Maine, he talked about the Canucks. This is a group of ethnically related people like, I guess, the Cajuns. Then, way down in Texas, John Steinbeck shared how the really rich people dress down. The worn boots, worn blue jeans meant that guy had real cash, the big bucks. I thought that was interesting. However, Mr. Steinbeck had no great love for Texas. He wrote some people get lost there and never find there way out again. It seems Texas just sprawls all over the place like an unwound ball of thread. Down in Alabama and Louisiana, he wrote about race issues. I could tell he was trying to handle this part of the book very delica

http://bookjourney.wordpress.com I have about one chapter left in Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. I have really enjoyed their travels. This week I need to not fool around. I want to finish up Breaking All The Rules by Rhonda McKnight. I also need to finish The Devil Riding by Valerie Wilson Wesley . It's for Animal Book Challenge hosted by Socrates Book Reviews. 

" " I went into a state of flight, running to get away from the unearthly landscape. And then the late afternoon changed everything. As the sun angled, the buttes and coulees, the cliffs and sculptured hills and ravines lost their burned and dreadful look and glowed with yellow and rich browns and a hundred variations of red and silver gray, all picked out by streaks of coal black. It was so beautiful that I stopped near a thicket of dwarfed and wind warped cedars and junipers, and once stopped I was caught, trapped in color and dazzled by the clarity of the light. "

The statements: ___ is my favorite thing about ____  ____ tastes like ____ When in doubt, ____________ Is ________ the secret of life? http://feelingbeachie.com 1.Planting flowers is my favorite thing about summer. 2.Ravioli tastes like spaghetti. 3.When in doubt, stop and think. 4.Is a faithful practice of religion the secret of life?

http://fredasvoice.com " Lying in my bed under the weeping night I did my best to read to take my mind out of misery, but while my eyes moved on the lines I listened to the night. On the edge of sleep a new sound jerked me awake, the sound of footsteps, I thought, moving stealthily on gravel...Then, Charley roared his warning and I opened the door and sprayed the road with light. It was a man in boots and a yellow oilskin. The light pinned him still." http://fredasvoice.com

" " WHEN I WAS VERY YOUNG AND THE URGE TO BE someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch....Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don't improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself." http://rosecityreader.blogspot.com

  http://bermudaonion.net Trattoria / A trattoria is an Italian-style eating establishment , less formal than a ristorante , but more formal than an osteria . There are generally no printed menus, the service is casual, wine is sold by the decanter rather than the bottle, prices are low, and the emphasis is on a steady clientele rather than on haute cuisine . The food is modest but plentiful (mostly following regional and local recipes) and in some instances is even served family-style (i.e. at common tables). Wikipedia Julia was perhaps one of the only Boston elite who greeted the recent influx of Italian immigrants with anticipation, in hopes that the otherwise derelict South End might soon be awash with little trattorias, not that Chev would probably ever take her there. "   What Is Visible by Kimberly Elkins