Liz Hartley

The Long and … Longer … Road

Drive or Rent?

One of the first decisions my traveling companion, Dash, and I made when we discussed driving Route 66 was take a car or rent one in Chicago. Taking a car won. But that meant ferrying the car across 2000+ miles from Oregon to Chicago. Dash was committed elsewhere, so that meant a long drive with me talking to myself. (Books on tape are too distracting especially in Montana mountains during a downpour.)

Along the way there was incredible scenery…

But there were consolations. One large one being…Montana.

Yes, I was assured by residents that I was seeing Montana at its best–freshly watered and green. But jiminy. Mile after mile of gorgeous mountains, valleys, rivers and that famous “big sky” was almost more than I could absorb. And who would have thought that any state could harbor a bird as exotic looking as the black-billed magpie with its extraordinary long tail. (The photo at the Lyric Bird Food website is superb.)

And massive sculptures…

North Dakota can’t help but know that, for those of us driving in from the west, Montana is a tough act to follow. So sculptor Gary Greff came up with the Enchanted Highway–thirty two miles of gigantic welded metal sculptures. Worth the detour.

After 1500 miles of easy but very looong driving, I took a welcome break in Fargo (yes, Fargo) where the tendency to giant sculptures continues with a large wooden chair just crying out for a selfie. I resisted.

Then time to move on to the source of the Nile, so to speak, the head of Route 66, and time to get this show, as they say, on the road.

Liz

And P.S. for newsletter subscribers…

For those newsletter subscribers following the adventures of Kat and Tish, the second chapter of The Illinois Caper, in The Route 66 Steal series, has been posted today.

June 4, 2022 By Liz Hartley

A Gift For Newsletter Subscribers

Today is the day!

Newsletter subscribers get a sneak peek at The Illinois Caper, the first book in my Route 66 Steal series. I’ll post a new chapter each day I’m on the Route researching the series.

Want to read the book but not a subscriber?

It’s easy! When you see the pop up when you come to my website, simply fill in the form. (This is different from subscribing to my blog, which you’ve already done in the sidebar to the right.) When your subscription is confirmed, you will get a password. Then go to the website www.route66steal.com. You’ll be asked for the password the first time you click on a post.

Remember you can unsubscribe to the blog and the newsletter any time you wish.

Enjoy, and see you on the Road! The Mother Road, that is.

Liz

June 3, 2022 By Liz Hartley

8 In Liz Travels: Route 66

Route 66 Trip Countdown

Hard to resist the call of the open road.

Where has the time gone?

I just realized I have less than a month before I head to Chicago to meet Dash and head out on Route 66. And so much yet to do! We’ve been actively researching since spring of 2021, yet suddenly, time is short, and there is a rush to finish the planning stage and start the traveling stage. How does this always happen?

We have all of our hotel reservations made, special events along the way ticketed, lunches with friends scheduled. We’ve made lists of hoped-for stops, consulted maps and websites, and planned roadside cemetery searches. We’ve included history, architecture, iconic Route 66 motels, diners, and kitsch.

I also have a list of locations to scout out as research for a series of novels: The Route 66 Steal. More on that this month as I get the website for it set up. We had hoped to leave room for serendipity, and although I’m sure Route 66 will force serendipity upon us, it may have to stand in line because we have a jam-packed itinerary.

I’ll be keeping everyone posted here. So follow my blog if you want to follow Dash and I on our adventure on the Route! Pack your bags! I’ll be packing mine soon.

April 28, 2022 By Liz Hartley

2 In Liz Travels: Route 66

Dreaming of the Mother Road

Route 66 shield on the highway. Gabriel Millos. It’s almost un-American not to feel the pull of the open road.

No doubt eighteen months of lockdown and cautious venturing out have left its mark on all of us. One of the marks it’s left on a friend and me is, as John Steinbeck wrote in Travels with Charley, the “urge to be someplace else.” And so, we have begun, a good year in advance, to plan a road trip. Not only a road trip, but a Mother Road trip, a journey down the “Main Street of America”: Route 66.

Technically, Route 66 doesn’t exist any more. It was decommissioned as a highway in the 1970s, and large sections of it are missing, paved over, or derelict. But the sections that are left still exert the call of the Sirens to some of us.

Continue Reading →

September 6, 2021 By Liz Hartley

0 In Liz Writes

If Steinbeck had trouble…

“When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages a sick sense of failure falls on me and I know I can never do it. This happens every time. Then gradually I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all I can permit myself to contemplate and I eliminate the possibility of ever finishing.”
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley, 1961

September 1, 2021 By Liz Hartley

0 In Gems & Jewelry

Gem-Medicine

Blue, the color of the Virgin Mary’s robes in many church paintings, was considered a celestial color. Even today, seeing the intense blue of this 22.70 carat Arizona azur-malachite could leave one feeling blessed. In addition, the way the band of malachite splits the azurite in two, might be interpreted as looking into the fields of heaven through the vault of the sky. Strong medicine indeed. Photo Mia Dixon, courtesy Pala International.

Can gemstones heal?

Gemstones that have been known in the world for millennia have collected any number of myths about their mystical and medicinal properties. But could gemstones really heal? Possibly.

Many myths about gemstone medicine developed in the Middle Ages, which, for the bulk of the population meant a world of gray—especially in northern Europe and Great Britain. Gray-brown clothes, rarely washed, edged with mud and dust. Gray-brown houses of mud and straw and mildewed thatch. A gray-brown world of poverty, pain, ignorance, illness and superstition.

Now bring into that world the blazing color of an emerald, ruby, sapphire, opal—stones the color and value of which the people could barely conceive. The stones would not even have had to be of high quality as long as the color was rich. Tell someone that these gems—ground and drunk in wine, held in the mouth, worn around the neck—would heal all manner of disease.

Is there any possibility that your cure might work?

Maybe… Depending…

Continue Reading →

August 27, 2021 By Liz Hartley

0 In Gems & Jewelry

Birthstone Friday: Magic, Mystical, Medicinal Rubies

A little wine with your rubies?

In times past, rubies, among other gemstones, were considered medicinal and magical. Hold them under your tongue, wear them, or grind them up and drink them down—probably in wine—and they were alleged to cure a number of ills. (Or maybe it was just the wine.) The catch was that often any red stone was considered a “ruby” and an appropriate amount of cash was charged for the cure. When the potion failed to work, it was easy to blame the failure on an adulterated powder or a stone of impure color. Of course, if the patient did not survive, there would be no one to complain, so…

Rubies have a way of getting under your skin…

Continue Reading →

July 30, 2021 By Liz Hartley

0 In Liz Reads

Re-Embracing the Art of Idleness.

Bring back those lazy, hazy days of summer.

My favorite memories of summer—and probably yours—are those idle days of doing nothing: climbing a tree with a book, lying in the grass checking out the shapes of clouds, tooling up and down the street on my bike with no destination in mind, sitting on a dock with my feet in the lake letting the minnows snack on my toes.

The modern world—at least that part occupied by adults—has forgotten how to be idle, writes Celeste Headlee, in her book Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving. In the post-World War II boom, Americans had an unprecedented amount of leisure time and they used it creatively with hobbies: making models, jewelry, mosaics, painting by number, learning ham radio, cutting rocks, racing soapboxes, collecting stamps, minerals, butterflies. Communities abounded with hobby shops and clubs.

But we’ve forgotten how to relax.

Continue Reading →

July 30, 2021 By Liz Hartley

0 In Birthstones - April/ Diamonds

Birthstone Friday

April 9, 2021 By Liz Hartley

Older Posts

Newer Posts