Missouri-I was Just There!

  

I’m not a fireworks person. My kids partake, as do my grand-kids and my step kids and my boyfriend.  Pyromaniacs surround me.   

So we went on a mini-vacation last weekend.  We went to a far corner of Nebraska and camped in a beautiful spot.  Like a lot of people this year with this virus, we camp more.  Well, camping?  I’m not much of a camper without air conditioning and a shower.  My man’s got a nice camper with electricity and plumbing. 

This far corner of Nebraska, named Indian Cave State Park, happens to be half an hour from Missouri.  In Missouri, just across the Nebraska-Missouri borders set fireworks stores.  I counted eight.  

It’s definitely the place for pyromaniacs. 

We stopped at the first store just across the state line to check prices and vowed to return for the deals after shopping at the others. 

Upon entrance to the second store, the man at the counter immediately asked if we’d been there before.  We hadn’t.  He gave the three kids their pick of TWO fireworks from long tables marked 99 cents.  At the mention of FREE, I knew we couldn’t walk out of the store without purchase.  My man blew up $40. The kids each spent the $5 I donated to the cause.  I abstained.    

On to the next store right across the interstate. The sign outside said, “We Deal!” 

The kids browsed the selection of sparklers and things that explode.  Chickens and dogs that poop when their butts are lit? Really?  Does anyone need that?

The youngest firebug is eight.  She hasn’t reached the stage to make money doing extra chores like the older duo.  I bailed her out to the tune of $24 for a tank and a fancy sword.

The kids spent the allotted $5 I gave them plus more of what they had in their pockets. 

I’m not sure what the boyfriend spent. He said, “Don’t ask.”

My boyfriend, the leader of our fiery tour, stood in line while the three mini-me’s wasted their money. At his turn, he asked the clerk, “What kind of a deal can you make us?”

The friendly clerk added all the amounts and replied, “You can go back and pick $25 free fireworks.”

Half an hour later, we left that store with a stash of fireworks worthy of satisfying even the most experienced pyrotechnic.

We headed back to our campsite.

Except there was that one store we passed on the way with the big wheel to spin that stated, “Everyone’s a Winner-No Purchase Necessary!”

At the mention of FREE, what else could we do but stop and spin?

I won some fun little strobe lights.  Nice pretty quiet. 

The two older kids and boyfriend got some noisemaker miniature firecrackers.

When the youngest stepped up to the plate, I said, “Win something big!”

She spun and won $20 free illuminating pleasure.  What luck!  Her win saved me that last $5 I was going to dish out.

I wasn’t without the bug of explosives.  I picked out two packages of neon sparklers at a cost of around $3.

One the way back to the campsite, for real, we couldn’t visit the closed ice cream parlor in Brownville.  Because of the virus, we didn’t even attempt a stop at the vineyard to grab a bottle of their grape dessert wine that I love but the fireworks stores of Missouri were enough of a detonative adventure.   

So far, nobody’s lost any fingers.   

Check out all my work at http://annettesnyder.atspace.com/  or just click on the tabs to learn more.  

Have a great week and stay healthy. 

Subterranean Books-An Independent Missouri Bookstore

Located at 6275 Delmar in St. Louis, MO, Subterranean Books has a staff of 6 avid readers, or so the About Page says.  It looks cute and quaint and fun!

Here’s a bit from the About page from their website: https://store.subbooks.com/

We opened in October 2000 focusing on the independent book store best sellers, cult classics, small presses, timeless literature and anything else that catches our fancy. And, despite what the internet may have told you, you won't find any used books here. We still field calls on that account about every day, even though we phased out that segment sometime around 2004.  There are other stores in town, though, that have fantastic assortments of used books. Our big categories are fiction, essays, poetry, music, science, nature, mind/body/spirit, children’s, cultural studies, memoirs, history….Our smaller (but no less important) include graphic novels, film, art, religion, cookbooks, travel, and more.  We also stock journals, t-shirts, pins, tote bags, and whatever else catches our fancy!

They have this program that I find EXTREEMELY COOL-a Book of the Month program!! 

They select and send a book a month for the reader based on their preferences.  Here’s why I think this would be cool—my mom just entered assisted living and she likes to read and this program would send her a new book each month according to what she likes to read.  It would be something new each month for someone who doesn’t get around as much as they used to.  Just saying-I liked the idea.  It’s not that expensive either!  I know I’d like something like this. 

Check out their site.  They have a spot to browse and an employee read section for suggestions.  And the site itself?  Super easy to navigate.  https://store.subbooks.com/

(Anyway, all info downloaded from Subterranean Books https://store.subbooks.com/)

Missouri Wine—Who Knew-Joyce Ann Brown!

What does the state of Missouri bring to mind for you? The Gateway Arch in St. Louis? Kansas City Jazz and bar-be-que? Branson country music?  The Ozark Hills? M.U. football for you sports fans. The state is also recognized for the Louis and Clark river journey, Samuel Clemens writing as Mark Twain, and Harry Truman helping to end WWII. There’s a lot of terrain diversity in the state, too, from rolling farmland in the north to mountains in the south and lowland Mississippi flood plain in the Bootheel.

You might be surprised to know Missouri is also prominent as a wine state, with a long history of viticulture. German immigrants settled along the Missouri River and found ideal conditions for growing grapes, long, hot summers, good sun exposure, and the rocky Ozarks soil. The moderate average temperature in the area allowed for natural cellaring. The immigrants developed local varieties that had been grown by Native Americans. Later, winemakers from Italy found the state favorable for wine grapes, also. In the 1800’s, the wine corridor along the Missouri river valley became known as the Missouri “Rhineland”.

Hermann, Missouri was settled by Germans in 1837, and by 1848 winemakers were producing 10,000 gallons of wine per year expanding to 100,000 gals by 1856. In the 1880’s, the state was the largest producer of wine in the nation. Stone Hill Winery in Hermann became the second largest winery in the U.S. and the third largest in the world, its wines winning awards at world fairs in Vienna and Philadelphia. Missouri grape vine root stock, resistant to the pest that was destroying the French vineyards in the mid-19^th century, helped save the French wine industry. Before Prohibition, Missouri was the second-largest wine producing state…but the shutdown of the wineries destroyed its wine industry for decades. 

Since the 1960’s there’s been a revival of vineyards and wineries in the state. I, for one, have enjoyed the resurgence. For years, Hermann has been one of my husband and my destinations for fun, food, and fine wine tasting. There’s a train from the Kansas City area that we can take to the town. We’ve camped in our fifth-wheel in the area and visited the wineries on the Hermann Wine Trail and the Missouri Weinstrasse, in Augusta wine area, (also called the Meramec River Wine Trail) which was designated as the “First United States Wine District” in 1980, since wines were produced there prior to the Civil War. 

 Those aren’t the only wineries we visit in Missouri. There are at least 130 wineries and ten or eleven recognized wine trails in the state, and one of them is the Kansas City Wine Trail, convenient for us. Also, just north of Kansas City is the Northwest Wine Trail that winds through charming Missouri towns near the Missouri River. Others are Route du Vin in the Southeast corner of the state where the French settled, the Ozark Mountain Wine Trail that winds through picturesque terrain in southwest Missouri, the Aux Arcs Wine Road that takes its name from the original French name given to the region now known as the Ozarks. There’s a Missouri River Wine Trail and a Mississippi River Hills Wine Trail. I can’t leave out the Lake of the Ozarks Wine Trail, right in the heart of the Missouri playground, perfect for people visiting Branson or the lake. Some folks recognize the Winestein Trail north of the Northwest trail. Go to http://blog.visitmo.com/10-wine-trails-missouri-adventure/ to learn about the wine trails. More than 130 wineries are included, and they use grapes from the many vineyards in the state. 

My favorite wines are dry reds and whites, and my favorite Missouri red variety is Cynthiana/Norton. Nortons have won wine awards for years. In fact, there’s a 170-year-old Norton/Cynthiana grapevine in the OakGlenn Winery’s vineyard in Hermann. Chardonel is my favorite white. It’s a cross of the traditional chardonnay grape and Seyval. Dry Vignoles has won awards for dry white, also. All the wineries I’ve visited have sweet wines and fruit wines, also, which have won awards. So if you are a fan of sweet, Missouri wines will fill the bill.

I write the cozy mystery series, Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mysteries. In the books, Beth, the landlady, and her husband often relax on the patio or balcony with a glass of white wine. Good thing the tales take place in a Kansas City neighborhood with all these great wineries close by. Maybe it’s that relaxation and enjoyment that helps Beth with her sleuthing abilities. Sylvester, aka Psycho Cat, doesn’t drink wine, but he appreciates relaxation—his cat naps prepare him for sniffing out clues.

I’d love to read your comments on this post. One commenter will win an e-book copy of one of the four books in the Psycho Cat series, Catastrophic Connections, Furtive Investigation, Nine Lifelines, or Tailed  

Author's Bio: Joyce Ann Brown was a librarian, a landlady, and a Realtor before becoming a short story, blog, and novel writer. Author of the Psycho Cat and the Landlady cozy mystery series, Ms. Brown spends her days writing (with a few breaks for tennis, walking, and book clubs) so Beth, the landlady in the series, and Sylvester, aka Psycho Cat, can solve who-done-its connected with rental properties and condos in the quaint Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City. Ms. Brown lives in the Kansas City area with her husband and two mischievous cats. They travel the country in an RV to visit family and gather snippets for her stories. When not working on a new book for the series, the author creates award-winning short stories for magazines and anthologies.

(Info provided/released by author)

Revisit Missouri

 A year ago, my daughters and I went to Hannibal, Missouri for a weekend. Pretty little place on earth and inspiring.  No wonder Mark Twain got ideas there.  Well worth the visit. 
Here's another blast from 2010!  Enjoy!

Sometimes it seems a writer spend all his or her time undoing cliches.

For instance, familiarity breeds contempt.
Really?  Indifference, maybe, but I’ve never found contempt for the familiar.  Not if it was truly familiar.
 

I was born and raised—and still live—in St. Louis, Missouri.  Most of my childhood I dreamt of being Somewhere Else.  Nothing seemed to happen in St. Louis.  It almost never came up in movies or stories (except a silly musical with Judy Garland, and how exciting could that possibly be) and it felt like all the really interesting stuff happened elsewhere.  Washington, Berlin, London, L.A.—in fact, anywhere but my hometown.

 

So I spent a lot of daydreaming time elsewhere, even elsewhen, and the destinations kept getting further and further away until I left the solar system altogether.
Writing science fiction seemed the ultimate in getting away from home.
 
But like all cliches, the truth is something else.  Contempt can stem from a facile, preconceived, assumed familiarity born of disinterest, of not taking the time or trouble to become honestly familiar with a place or a person.  It’s a pose, an excuse, a way to say you’re more dazzled by what you can’t have, by what is too far away or removed to allow you to become familiar with it...which allows a kind of laziness that masquerades as sophistication, of cool, of unearned cosmopolitanism.
The more I write, the more I find myself writing about St. Louis.  Even the science fiction.

One of my earliest stories, Reveleven, was set in St. Louis, though the city is not named.  But my first novel starts forty-odd light years away and then, presaging my own literary journey, came inexorably home to Earth.  Compass Reach, which was short-listed for the Philip K. Dick Award, ended with action in Istanbul.  Perhaps too close for comfort, since my next novel, Metal of Night, stayed well away from Earth.  But the next one in my Secantis Sequence repeated the homeward voyage with a return to Earth.  But Peace & Memory promptly left home again for farther fields.

 

In the meantime, I tried my hand at police procedural and wrote a novel set in the near future, about F.B.I. and Treasury agents working together to solve a mystery set in...St. Louis.  It felt simpler to do it that way.  I never intended to stay.  Realtime was just a short visit home, a brief stop on my way to more interesting places.

 But it seems that once I started really looking at my home town, the more interesting it became, and suddenly I found myself setting my next—my current---project, an alternate history, right here, in St. Louis.  But a St. Louis that might have been, a maybe city had certain historical occurrences not taken place.  What if Napoleon had never sold Jefferson all this land?  What if the United States had ended at the Mississippi?  What then?

 

That’s the sort of thing you do in science fiction, you ask those maybe questions and try to answer them, not to be predictive—prediction has never been what science fiction is about and it has a terrible track record—but just to entertain the notion of other possibilities, systems in flux, the why of things.  It’s what I enjoy about the genre and I no longer feel compelled to find distant cities, alien climes in which to set stories.  (Samuel R. Delany has said that no matter where his stories have been set, on distant worlds, far in the future, in other dimensions, he’s always writing about his home town, New York.  I understand that now.)
Once I started looking at my city and learning about it—becoming genuinely familiar with it—I found any shred of contempt vanishing.  Familiarity has done the opposite for me, made me more appreciative, respectful, and interested.  So I’ve written a historical set in the earliest days of St. Louis.  Not science fiction, at least not overtly (but go back in time and treat an era honestly, try to tell me you aren’t visiting another world, with aliens and exotic locales), but a sketch of our beginnings.  St. Louis began as a village, and for nearly three decades was home to a thousand people.  Not until Americans began arriving in the aftermath of the Revolution did the population start to increase dramatically.  In some ways, that village is still here, at the core of the many layers that have been added since 1763.  At one time St. Louis was the fourth largest metropolis in the country...and then, as if traumatized by the possibilities that implied, shock by its own boldness, St. Louis drew a sharp line around itself and cut itself off from expansion.  The county around it continued to grow, but St. Louis has become a kind of pocket city, an enclosed rete of associations grown from a long history of involuted transformations from village to metropolis to civic palimpsest.
 
Once I began seriously to write, I discovered Missouri’s literary heritage, which is considerable.  Obviously, Mark Twain, but also Kate Chopin, Tennessee Williams, T.S. Eliot, Robert A. Heinlein, among many others.  Names to conjure with.  It seemed a good place to be from (and as Vincent Price once famously remarked “Isn’t everyone from St. Louis?”) and as good a place as any to work in and write about.
 
Like my characters, I once thought to relocate, live somewhere more interesting.  But I am less and less inclined these days, having finally recognized what my home possesses.  All journeys start from home.  The best ones return us there.  Having returned, we may find that we never really knew the place.
 
Please visit Mark’s Website http://www.marktiedemann.com   As a multidimensional artist of the written word and photograph, his talent is worth exploring.

Joyce Ann Brown’s Missouri Extremes

In a previous post, Julie Lynn Hayes wrote an informative article about St. Louis and Eastern Missouri. I’ve lived on both sides of the state, but the Kansas City metro on the west side of the state is my home and the setting for my Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mystery series. Kansas City is the largest city in Missouri, although the St. Louis metro is larger. It would take months to visit all of the attractions in either city, but there’s something for everyone. And, by the way, the name of the state is Missour-ee, not Missour-uh, although there are folks who would disagree.

For lovers of the arts, the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum has a diverse collection, including one of the largest of Asian art in the country, rotating exhibitions, and stimulating events that provide endless attractions. The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts provides a distinctive theater, music, and dance performance venue for several professional companies in the city.

For sports enthusiasts, the 2015 World Series champion Royals, the football Chiefs, and Sporting KC soccer are the big leagues among all our other hometown teams. Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead Stadium are loud, noisy, and aromatic from all the tailgaters on game days. 

 

Museums are too numerous to list here, but two of my favorites are the National World War One Museum at Liberty Memorial and the American Jazz Museum at Eighteenth and Vine. Yes, that’s the street corner made famous in the song. At the jazz museum, pretty little women and everyone else can listen to the music of the best jazz musicians in the genre’s history of development. Also, I love the Arabia Steamboat Museum in our River Quay/City Market area near the Missouri. The steamboat and everything in it was preserved under tons of mud after it sank in 1856. Then, the river changed course. Modern archeologists located, retrieved, and preserved it all. I must like historical museums. Yes?  

Towns not far from the urban area have their own historical pasts and museums to keep them alive in our memories. The Pony Express Museum in St. Joseph is worth visiting, and at the Graber Farm Tour near Jamesport one can visit a working Amish farm and learn about this part of Americana. 

I can’t leave out our visiting gardeners who would love the Overland Park Arboretum and Powell Gardens, on opposite sides of the Metro. Kids won’t want to miss Worlds of Fun/Oceans of Fun and Schlitterbahn Waterpark. Science City at the gorgeously renovated Union Station, Basketball Experience at the Sprint Center, the Sea Life Aquarium at Crown Center,  LEGOLAND Discovery Center and our fantastic Kansas City Zoo are on the kid-friendly list, too.

Hikers, bikers, and people who just love the great outdoors, take a look at this Kansas City Trails blog. Beth, the landlady in my series, speed-walks the Trolley Track Trail in midtown nearly every day, but it takes years for anyone to explore the many area trails. I should know. (Okay, okay, it’s my blog. Look through it if you’re coming to K.C. It suggests local places to eat, too.)

Kansas City’s neighborhoods are the primary attraction for its residents. From downtown lofts to small farms on the outskirts of its suburbs, everyone finds a friendly place to call home. Kansas City incorporated many of the smaller surrounding communities that grew up in the 1800’s. The town of Westport, which served and organized wagon trains headed to the trailheads, is now part of midtown. Many other K.C. neighborhoods have histories as pioneer towns established well before their identities as part of Kansas City.

The Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mystery series is set in Brookside, which started as the first suburban shopping center developed for automobile traffic. Built at what was in 1920 the far southern fringe of Kansas City, the area is now a neighborhood of old, well-maintained homes with shops and schools within walking distance. The Country Club Plaza grew to outshine Brookside, especially in the winter when the Plaza lights are glowing, but that’s fine with the Brookside folks who love their quiet section of town.

Beth, the landlady, lives in a Brookside Tudor from which she manages duplexes and condo units close by. Those rental units seem to invite trouble, but with his keen feline sixth-sense, Sylvester, aka Psycho Cat, helps her get to the bottom of each disappearance, theft, skeleton in the attic, fall from a balcony, or murder. Introducing the neighborhood and the crime-solving characters, Catastrophic Connections is also available as an audiobook. Furtive Investigation goes back and forth in time as Beth investigates a cold case. Nine Lifelines, the third book in the series, published in May, 2016, takes place in a ten-story condominium building in Brookside made fun of by locals for its incongruent sixties style.

Joyce Ann Brown is a landlady, story teller, retired school Library Media Specialist, former classroom teacher, former Realtor and now a freelance writer and author. She loves to play tennis, walk with her walking group, and spoil her kitties when not writing.  

Joyce’s  pieces have appeared in local and national publications.  Besides her cozy mystery series, the Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mysteries, her contributions are included in a book of mystery writers’ recipes, Cozy Food, available on Amazon and in Murder U.S.A., a book of exerpts from twenty-four mysteries, also on Amazon. Joyce writes for her blog followers and contributes as a guest blogger on such sites as Fifty Authors for Fifty States and Creatures ‘n Crooks/Buried Under Books. Catch a glimpse of her writing about all cozy subjects on her blog at: http://retirementchoicescozymystery.wordpress.com/ and her hiking experiences at http://hikingkctrails.wordpress.com . Connect with her on Facebook or Twitter. Friend her on Goodreads.

Joyce offers one of her books to a person who comments on this post. She loves to hear your thoughts.

(All Info Provided by Author)

I’m from Missouri--Julie Lynn Hayes Shows You!

This might not be the official nickname of the state, but by Golly, it’s pretty true. Just look at our license plates. We’re proud to tell you. We’re also known as “The Cave State” because there are more than 6000 recorded caves in Missouri. While I haven’t been in most of them, I’ve been in a few, and it’s quite the experience.

I’ve lived in Missouri most of my life and I think it’s one of the most beautiful of the fifty states. Of course, I might be prejudiced a little bit. However, if you want to really annoy me, mispronounce the name of my state. It’s “Missouri-ee”, not “Missour-uh”, despite what some people on the other side of the state might tell you. Here in St. Louis, we know better.

Missouri sits smack dab in the middle of the country, which is a decided advantage for travel and trade purposes. Overall, the cost of living is lower than on either coast.  We have a lot of rivers and lakes, including the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks, located in the Ozark Mountains. Don’t let the name fool you. They aren’t really mountains,’ cause they’re not tall enough to qualify, but they sure are beautiful. Get in a boat and go out on the Lake, it’s gorgeous.

The largest cities in Missouri are St. Louis, Kansas City, and Jefferson City. St. Louis was the starting point for the Lewis and Clark expedition, and if you go to historic Fort Bellefontaine, you can see where the explorers began their journey.  

There are many parks located throughout the state, and they offer a variety of things to do, including fishing, boating, hiking, and camping. And of course, there are the caves, many of which offer guided tours. You can visit Jesse James’ hideout in Meramec Caverns. I’ve been there more than once myself. You can tour Daniel Boone’s home, or the home of Ulysses S. Grant. If you go to Grant’s Farm, in St. Louis, you can ride the train, see the animals, and receive complimentary beer (if you’re of age!).  The St. Louis Zoo is one of the best in the country, and it’s free! Or go to Hermann, and tour some of the wineries! Don’t forget to visit Hannibal, home of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. Six Flags is located in Eureka, if you’re looking for anamusement park.

Recently, I took my daughter and her friend to Laumeier Sculpture Park here in St. Louis, and she took some pictures of a few of the interesting sculptures we saw. This is a great place to picnic. And if you’re visiting St. Louis and want some great Chinese food, go to Old St. Louis Chop Suey.

Did I mention I have a prize to give away? I do! A copy of anything from my backlist. What do you have to do? Just comment. Tell me something interesting about your state.

When Will I Be Loved is the sequel to When Will I See You Again. The second book is about Miller Fenwick, best friend of Alexx Jameson. I have to say if not for one of my readers, this book would never have come to be, so thank you very much, Shorty!

Blurb:

Fairy tales can come true…

Miller Fenwick wants the kind of happy ending his best friend got, with the hunky werewolf of his dreams. Trouble is, there doesn’t seem to be a Prince Charming on the horizon, and casual encounters don’t cut it anymore. Now that Alexx and Raoul are engaged, Miller is becoming resigned to being the bridesmaid, never the bride. But a chance encounter with a sexy stranger at Charisma has his hopes soaring, and his heart is wide open to possibilities.

Holt Wynne is the head of Helios, the largest vampire organization in the country. He’s a very influential and wealthy man, with a deep-seated hatred of werewolves. His running into Miller at Charisma isn’t entirely accidental. He’d meant to wait, but his emotions got the better of him, and he couldn’t stay away. And now see what he’s done…

Wait until Miller finds out he’s sortof just gotten married to the sexy vampire who hates the people who are Miller’s best friends. Sparks are gonna fly—and not just in the bedroom. One thing for sure—life in Crescent Bay is never dull!

Julie Lynn Hayes first began publishing short stories and poetry in the 1990’s, when it was a different ballgame altogether, and Ebooks hadn’t been dreamed of yet. That changed in 2010 with the acceptance of her first romance novel. She’s come a long way since that first book appeared, and is finding the journey a very educational one.

She lives in St. Louis with her daughter Sarah and her cat Ramesses. She often writes of two men finding true love and happiness in one another’s arms, and is a great believer in the happily ever after. She likes to write in different genres, to stretch herself in order to see what is possible. Her great challenge is to be told something can’t be done—she feels compelled to do it.

When she isn’t writing, she enjoys crafts, such as crocheting and cross stitch,  needlepoint and knitting, and she loves to cook, spending time watching the Food Network. Her favorite chef is Geoffrey Zakarian. Her family thinks she’s a bit off, but she doesn’t mind. Marching to the beat of one’s own drummer is a good thing, after all. Her published works can be found at Dreamspinner Press, eXtasy Books, Wayward Ink Press, and Amber Quill Press.

 

Links to Julie Hayes work:

Blog:  http://julielynnhayes.blogspot.com  Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ShelleyRunyon

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/julie.l.hayes.7

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3442231.Julie_Lynn_Hayes

Dreamspinner:  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/AuthorArcade/julie-lynn-hayes

Extasy Books: https://www.extasybooks.com/?route=product%2Fauthor&author_id=979

Amber Quill Press:  http://www.amberquill.com/store/m/245-Julie-Lynn-Hayes.aspx

(Info Provided by Author and Author's Daughter)