JA Jance writes an enjoyable mystery series that's set in Cochise County. Her main character, Joanna Brady, is the County sheriff. Jance's descriptions of the country-side (and the passages about the length of time the officers spend in their cars) are spot-on. The author lives in Tucson and in Seattle (where she has set another mystery series). But she grew up in Cochise County and obviously knows and loves the area. One day when we were driving around looking for the post office we happened on the sheriff's office complex at the outskirts of Bisbee. You almost expected to see Sheriff Brady and her deputies. We wondered what the real-life officers think about their fictional counterparts. So this got me to thinking about other places we've been where favorite books are set.
This is the "Little House on the Prairie" in DeSmet, South Dakota. In September, 2004, we actually drove quite a few miles out of our way to stay in this little town, where there is the church that the Ingalls family attended and a little museum dedicated to Laura Ingalls Wilder and her books. It was a pleasant little town and a nice drive out to "Laura's Living Prairie" the homestead claim where the family lived. (This was the second place the family homesteaded -- maybe the last five or six books). Bill didn't mind the trip and enjoyed looking at the old home and farm tools -- but it would have been a good place to be with somebody else who remembered reading about and loving the family; the Little House series really is kind of a a girl-thing.
Later on that same Fall -- across a few states and after several other interesting stops-- we stayed at the Mark Twain Caves RV Park in Hannibal, Missouri. The park is located near the cave that Mark Twain is said to have visited and written into his story (the Becky Thatcher cave). From Old Town Hannibal, we took the Mark Twain River Boat Excursion for beautiful views and an overview of river history from the guide. The next day we toured Sam Clemons' boyhood home and a museum in the old Hannibal drugstore. In the visitor center, we bought new copies of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer to re-read and then to give away, because it had been such a long time since we'd read those wonderful books.
Bill really likes the Dave Robicheaux series by James Lee Burke -- those are set in the Bayou country of Louisiana, an area which we both love.
Pre-retirement, we spent quite a bit of camping time in Steinbeck country in California -- and he's one of our favorite authors still.
It's fun to see places that you've only read about and interesting to realize that the fiction we enjoy most is regional -- we get travel books and good stories all in one that way.
And then, of course, there was our trip to England. Here's where there are people who plan all their travels and recreational time around their favorite authors. We just stumbled across these places by accident. We saw where Jane Austen lived in Bath. And a whole lot of places where Charles Dickens hung out and wrote. The Trafalgar Tavern here is one of them. And then there was that other guy, William, whats-his-name ... oh, Shakespeare!
So, that's the end of the post because I've worked up from books we read now to books we read in the past, to books we re-read, to books we should read someday, if only we live long enough!
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