We all love our Home-Sweet-Home, but all year long we look forward to that vacation time away from it. Those are such special times, when we visit new and unique places. We take hundreds of photos since the digital age has changed the sparing use of film to capture the points of interest and family members posed in front of them. We remember these spots later at home by buying local souvenirs; t-shirts, local foods, mugs with maps on them. I had the habit of taking home a magnet. Inexpensive, and small enough to pack, but right there on the fridge to remind me of joyous times spent with friends and family.

But now I have a new hobby. When I'm traveling, I visit the local bookstore. I look for the section that features local authors. It all started in West Virginia, while visiting family. The first visit I picked up The Well Ain't Dry Yet by Belinda Anderson. I reconnected to her memorable characters in the collection of short stories as they reemerged in her next volume The Bingo Cheaters which I bought on a subsequent trip.

Last week I was in Idaho for the first time, up in a town named McCall. While wandering through the small stores there, I found a book called Home Mountains, reflections by Susan H. Swetnam, who discovers a love of the Intermountain West when she adopts it as her new home in her middle age.

I also found one called For Better or Worse; the Legacy of William "Deadshot" Reed The subject lived with his wife and twelve children in the rugged Idaho back country in the early 1900's. I can't wait to read that one by Kathy Deinhardt Hill!

Now that I initiated this new souvenir hobby, I have to get started on these two books so I can hit the road again!

Happy Reading (and exploring),
Frances