Book Birthday and Off-roading Part 2

We have a birthday to celebrate at my pad! It's the birth of my new picture book, Don't Feed the Elephant!

Blurb:  People say you're not supposed to play with your food. But the adventurous little elephant in Don't Feed the Elephant never got the message! This charming children's story won't just entertain kids with its hilarious descriptions and zany main character. It will also educate them about the alphabet and help them learn the order of letters. As the elephant works his way through food stuffs, each new dish features a new letter of the alphabet. From animal crackers to zebra cakes, the elephant is enthusiastic to gobble everything up, even when it lands him in hot water.

Here are some sample illustrations:

It's available on Amazon as a Paperback book.

Also, my publisher for Bubba and Squirt's Big Dig to China (release date September 2018) asked that I promote my Amazon Author page. If you would please visit and "Follow," it would be much appreciated. Thanks!


Now for the story:

Some of you had asked that I share more about the return trip from my last hiking adventure. If you recall, my son, Bubba, and I hiked to see the Papermill Ruins.

It was a precarious journey, because a tree had fallen and blocked our path. We had to off-road it, wandering through the woods along the steep bank of a river. We weren't exactly sure how we'd make it back to the parking lot. Do you know why? Because I didn't know where the parking lot was. It was a wild guess. By the time we left the ruins, the sun was getting low in the sky. It would set in about an hour.

I looked around and listened. I heard cars. Civilization! We followed the river toward the sounds and arrived at a bridge.

"That's the bridge we drove over to get to the parking lot," I said. "We could probably follow this road. It's about a mile or two, I think. But'd we'd get there."

Bubba shrugged. "Sure, Mom. Whatever you think."

Then I thought some more. The road had no sidewalks. It was hilly. And there were lots of twists and turns. Probably not a great road to walk along, especially since it was getting dark.

I scanned the area. "There has to be a path along here somewhere."

Sure enough, there was. And it followed the direction of the road. "Let's take this. It'll be safer."

For a while, all was well. We were going in the direction we needed to go and made good progress. But then we saw the sign: "Closed for Re-vegetation."

Our trail was closed. I frowned. It was the middle of winter. What kind of re-vegetation could possibly be going on?  "This is brilliant," I said. "Now what?"

We spotted another trail to our left. It went further into the woods, away from the road. "I don't think we have many options here," I said. "Let's see where this goes."

It twisted and turned and finally came to a fork. I'm really bad at forks. Inevitably, I take the wrong one. There were no trail markers to point the direction, so I had to make a wild guess.  "I think we should go that way." I pointed to the right, because that made sense. We wandered that way for a while, but then it curved. It was heading in the wrong direction.

"Ugh!" I said. "This is ridiculous!"

Meanwhile, it was getting darker. I was worried. Would we ever make it back to the car? We could retrace our steps can find the road. But then it would be black outside.

To make a long story short we kept going on the path. Then  we came across some other hikers.

"Excuse me," I said. "Could you tell me how to get to the parking lot?" (Being a woman, I wasn't afraid to ask for directions!)

"Yes," they said. "We're going that way, too. Follow us."

They seemed harmless enough–two kids, a mom, and dad, and two dogs–so I figured it would be okay.

It was. We had to go on yet another trail, and another, but we finally made it back. And we did it before the sun completely set!