Meet the Authors

Last weekend Whit & I had an opportunity to meet 5 popular young adult book authors- Shannon Hale, Brandon Mull, James Dashner, Jessica Day George and Ally Condie(who all happen to live in Salt Lake area). The first hour to hour & a half, they were all up on a stage to answer questions. I enjoyed this part of the night the most because they were so funny together, bantering with each other, and having some great answers to questions!! And then it was to the book signing. I had 3 of the authors books already from home, but bought one of each of the other 2 I didn't have. I had to control myself not to buy more---much more! This year I've been trying not to buy books, but be a library user instead(which I have become--I don't even have to look for the books---I just put the books I want on hold on-line and I can go pick them up the next day at the front desk!). My total now comes to 5 new books I've bought this year which is a huge leap down from other years!! But I had to at least have one book from each author! We went to the 3 shortest lines first---leaving Shannon Hale and Brandon Mull to the last since they had the longest lines. By the time we finally got to Brandon Mull, it was midnight(and there were only like 2 people left in the whole place to get books signed)! So we arrived about 5:45pm and were one of the last to leave! It was fun to watch the authors be so personable with those who came to have their books signed(and it almost made me buy more books), especially with the kids who came! One girl had her dad fly her out from Los Angeles(because she found out about it on Shannon Hale's blog) and all these authors were favorites of hers---she had a whole book bag full of books! It was a long night of waiting, but that's what you do when you go book-signing! Glad I went! Now if they could just bring JK Rowling to town!

Las Vegas: Unstripped

My friend and I headed to Las Vegas for Spring Break(leaving winter temps behind)! We decided to explore a different side of Vegas---the regions around it. First we went to Mt. Charleston(35 miles NW)---it was too early in the Spring for trails to be open(except 1) so while we were looking in a Christmas store located there, I bought a disc sled and we found snowpacked areas to sled down! Very fun but very cold on toes, legs, fingers and butt! The token trail that was open---Fletcher Canyon---still had major snow patches on the trail so we didn't get to the end of the trail, but most of it. It was frightful to me to hike and think of not slipping down those snowy/icy areas--especially when the snow melt formed into a creek below---really didn't want to fall into that. But I survived--only had a few cuts and scrapes from it! The next day we explored Valley of Fire(50 miles N). It had tons of fun rock formations to climb on. The trail was mostly soft, red sand---so for the first time ever, I hiked barefoot! I had to watch where I was going though, so I didn't step on anything too sharp. My friend was not as lucky---she stubbed her big toe on a rock which took off some layers of skin--but she survived. Another place we visited was Red Rock Canyon(20 miles W). The wind conditions were extreme that day so we didn't do a lot of hiking(30+ mph---on news that night it reported that it got to 70mph in Red Rock Canyon). We stuck pretty close to the driving loop. But it was beautiful at all the look-out points too! Just a few miles south of Red Rock Canyon was a place called Bonnie Spring Ranch--it was a replica of an old mining town. It had fun photo ops and a petting zoo. Lastly, we visited Primm, NV(40 miles S). This place was chosen because of it's colossal Desperado Rollercoaster--the special feature on it was a high-speed dive down a 55 degree hill into a tunnel followed by a 155 ft second hill(higher that most coasters)! I loved the thrill of it! There were other "rides" there too---so we did the log ride and a 3-D glacier ride while we were there. Besides our "out of the box" LV adventures, we did see a couple of shows in Vegas: Blue Man Group and David Copperfield. The shows were unlike what I had seen before in that most "shows" you see, you just watch and leave. These shows are very casual and interactive with the audience! With Copperfield, I had only seen him on tv as a pretty boy who dressed nice and never said much---but at the show, he was making jokes and dressed casually---along with the magic tricks using the audience in every aspect of show! With the Blue Man Group, I was expecting more just muscial stuff, but they were very humorous too! And they used audience members a lot---it was amazing how much they could communicate without saying a word! And then we came back to winter-like conditons in Utah---roads were kinda scary at times! But I'm glad I got a break from the freezing weather---even if it was only 5 days of it!