A Road Trip To Damascus and Beyond

Like an old Bing Crosby and Bob Hope movie I was off on the road to... well Corning NY, this last Saturday, which of course coincided with the first snow of the winter. While I did not meet Dorothy Lamour (am I sounding old) along the way, I did get to meet some great people who'd I previously spoken to only on my radio program "A Book and a Chat".

The idea of the trip was to go and share the performance Tine Field Howe's “Alysa of the Fields”. Tina received received a 2009 Artist Crossroads Grant from the ARTs Council of the Southern Finger Lakes to create an audio book of this her first book in the The Tellings of Xunar-kun Series. The second book of which "The TrailFolk of Xunar-kun” - has won First Place in The Written Art Awards, Science Fiction/Fantasy Category.

The performance of snippets from the audio book with many actors who took part in the recording was being held during the "SPARKLE FESTIVAL" at Corning, NY.

Thinking this would be a nice trip for the family to see the delights of the Sparkle festival as well as meeting Tina and the cast as well as signing a few copies of my own book "Across the Pond". We had planned for all of us to make the 600 mile round trip to Corning. However the night before the children went down with some sickness bug leaving me to make the trip on my own.
This meant many last minute changes in plans, booking a hotel etc.

You might not think 600 miles is a huge distance to drive in US terms, however the most I had done in one trip since having my back surgery was about 90 miles. Still I set off in my little car to drive over the Catskills and make my way to Corning. Some of the towns I passed through or near made me chuckle, I passed Damascus (did not have any visions on the road to Damascus), which was closely followed by Jerusalem. I did wonder at a town called "Deposit", did one purchase a wall or two there, then come back when you had enough money to buy the rest of the house?. The hotel I stayed in was near another wonderful named town of Horsehead, I was waiting for somebody to make me an offer I couldn't refuse.


As mentioned it of course started to snow, as I started to climb the mountains, still me and my little Kia battled on eventually getting to Corning late Saturday afternoon.

The evening was great fun, meeting the author and the cast, I even joined in an narrated a little of the story, and sold several books.
A couple of hours sleep and I was once more on the road at 4am, heading back to Connecticut. Why so early? I had a DJ show to perform at a Lions Club Senior Christmas Dinner at midday.... but that's another story.

Barry



BARRY EVA (Storyheart)

Author of Young Adult Romance/Fiction book