All Summer in a Day

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Today is arguably the last Monday of summer - next week is Labor Day, which is always bittersweet as it heralds the end of the season (if not, for some of us, the end of suffocating heat!) This week on JRW, our attention is going to turn to the World Mystery Conference, Bouchercon, but before we do, let’s take our traditional accounting of what summer pleasures we did and did not manage to fit in between Memorial Day and now.

What I did: Saw family. I saw SO much of my family, I’ll be happy not to spend any more time together until Thanksgiving. I love you, kids.

Went to a Sea Dogs game in Portland, with much of the aforementioned family. It was a rare perfect sunny day in what’s been a wet, cool summer here in New England, and we had a great time, even though the Sea Dogs went down 7-5.

Celebrated the Fourth of July by watching Independence Day with the Maine Millennial on Monday and had an amazing indoor (that rain again) BBQ at a friend’s house on Tuesday.

Took a mini-writing retreat with Jessica Ellicott and had the great pleasure of spending a whole day writing and talking craft and business under the shade of her gazebo in utterly perfect July weather.

Went to the movies in person, which used to be a summer standard, but has become rare for me since the pandemic. Youngest and I saw MEG 2: THE TRENCH, which was the perfect tongue-in-cheek action flick.  I even bought movie popcorn: I know it’s all oil and chemicals, but it’s so tasty.

I had a whole watermelon to myself!

What I didn’t do: It’s a long list. No trips to the beach, no grilling outdoors, no summer theater (which I managed to do even during the shut downs in ‘20 and ‘21.) No swimming at Celia Wakefield’s Lake House, or in the nearby Saco River - there was so much rain my area was closed to swimming due to bacterial contamination!! No Chamber Music Festival. No hanging out with a book and a glass of chilled rode on the patio. No garden other than what sprung up from last year. 

All I can say is, 1) this fall had better be spectacular, and 2) the next time a family member calls with a crisis, I’m pretending I broke my phone and hiding until it passes.

How about you, Reds?

RHYS BOWEN:  I always have plans for the perfect summer: picnics at the beach, a book beside the pool, an adventure once a week. And then suddenly it’s September! What happened? Our summer in Marin County had not been stellar. A lot of cold foggy mornings. And I have escaped to the beach a couple of times. But still…. Not that perfect lazy, hazy days of summer 

I must confess that five weeks of it were spent in Europe so no whining here! England, Jersey, Brittany. All good. And lots of family encounters. Also good. And a new irrigation system that now has plants covering my bare hillside. I’m off to Bouchercon on Wednesday and hoping to steal away to the beach when no one’s looking!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I have no idea what I did. Yes, I do, it wrote. And was on book tour. It was great, and wildly successful, and hurray, but yikes, it’s about to be September. We didn’t grill, because it seemed to be raining all the time or SO HOT!

A new house went up next to us, so we were in a constant din–truly one day, there were TEN guys on the roof next door with nail guns. Just imagine. And they started at 7. AM. 7 AM!!

We didn’t sit by the pool, because see above. But we had so many bunnies! BUT I did do some fantastic full-house signings, really amazing, and interviewed Shari Lapena in person, taught at the Writers Digest Convention and saw Hadestown with Hallie–she mentions it below, too! AMAZING, as she says.

AND sold two more books, book 16 and 17 no under contract! So yay. Somehow, even with all the rain, it was still lovely.

JENN McKINLAY: This was not the summer to miss out on a trip to my mom's cottage in Nova Scotia but I did miss it and lived through every day that was over 110+ here in AZ. Blerg.

Instead, it was the summer to spend repainting the interior of our house, rebuilding the catio, revising the next romcom, and swimming with the dogs in the pool every single day. I also got to spend a glorious time literally up in the trees with the Hub and the Hooligans in Flagstaff, where we did an extreme obstacle course 30-60 feet up in the air which included jumping from swinging log to swinging log, climbing fishnets hanging in the tops of the pines, and zip lines. Truly, it was like something out of American Ninja Warrior. Hooligan 2 also turned 21 and wanted to visit a casino. Kid won $600 off a slot machine. We told him he could never go again because he’d never be that lucky again. LOL. 

HALLIE EPHRON: Oh, Jenn, you were due for a good summer. Hope you’ll blog about what that obstacle course was like. Sounds terrifying.

My summer began with July 4 on Peaks Island (off the coast of Portland Maine) with family. Fireworks and barbecuing, long walks and swimming.

After that, I taught at a bunch of writing conferences, including an old favorite on mystery writing at Book Passage in Marin. And another favorite, at the Willamette Writers Conference via Zoom.  And I was thrilled to get invited back to the Writers Digest Annual Writers Conference in NYC at the Hilton in Midtown. Great meals, and I got to hang out with Hank(!) and went to see Hadestown which was AMAZING! 

Next week I go back to Peaks for a Labor Day weekend relax-athon and hangout with the spectacular Franny and Jody, my grands.

So all in all a pretty terrific summer. Oh, and I also got named my town’s Writer in Residence for 2023-2024. Which gives me lots of good stuff through to anticipate.

Life is good. A year ago I would not have said that.

 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: The traveling part of the summer was terrific! In early June I flew to LA for the California Crime Writers’ Conference, my first conference in three and a half years, and it was wonderful to see friends, make new friends, and talk writing again! I didn’t mind the “June glooms” a bit. Then a whirlwind week at home, then off for almost a month in London. What a great trip. Mostly nice weather other than a couple of too-warm days, loads of terrific research for the book in progress, and an unexpected side trip to Bath.

Alas, I arrived home mid-July just as the triple-digits-no-rain remainder of the summer set in, and have spent the last six weeks just trying not to melt and to keep the poor plants alive. 

One fun thing–we’ve done a lot of work on our pond and added new fish (after losing all but one of our huge koi last October) and have really enjoyed watching the little swimmers in the few minutes we can stand to be outside!

 

 LUCY: I think you've already heard about our multiple family visits and the lovely food I've been eating, so I won't belabor that. Most unusual and fun event? I played in my first ukulele "gig" last weekend. Remember the band I hired for John's big birthday bash? Turns out one of them runs a ukulele club at the Scranton Library and my pal Steve and I have been attending. Fred the leader encouraged us to play in public at a festival on the town green. It was very low pressure (read, low attendance) and super fun! Other than that, writing, writing, writing.

JULIA: Hallie definitely wins the award for "Best Spent Summer," with Debs in the No. 2 spot. How about you, dear readers? How was your June, July and August?  

 

Photos courtesy of Rebecca from Pixabay, freepix and Flagstaff Extreme

Labor Day 2021 - the Ideal and the Real

To all our friends celebrating, Happy Rosh Hashanah!  

Shanah tovah um'tukah.  

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Labor Day is truly the Janus of holidays. New Year’s Day actually takes place in the month named for the double-faced god who looks both ahead and behind, but nowadays we tend to do most of our reminiscing about the previous year in the run-up to New Year’s, and save the actual day for black eyed peas, hangovers and planning for the days to come.

But Labor Day is genuinely divided between looking back to the summer now gone and looking forward to the fall. So, for a change, I’d like to pause directly on the day itself. Usually part of the last long weekend for a while, Labor Day Monday is often spent mostly on the road by travelers who need to get back to the city from the shore/lake/mountains. But this year, of course, a lot of us are staging closer to home. And the mass get-togethers of the past are also fewer and further between right now; ball games, big BBQs, outdoor concerts. After all, it’s not just an ongoing pandemic out there - to paraphrase a tweet I saw, half the country is on fire and the other half is underwater.

So Reds, let’s plan our ideal Labor Day for 2021. Where would you be? What would you be doing? And most importantly, who would you be doing it with? 

LUCY BURDETTE: I know what I’ll actually doing--not much! I will be making fried shrimp tacos for the back of book #12, and maybe lying around reading:). However, I read an interesting article in the Real Estate section of the New York Times on Saturday about how renovating old motels is a new trend. There was a photo of one with ten rooms and a big outdoor kitchen and lounging area--wouldn’t that be a perfect place for a Jungle Red writer get-together and writing retreat? I think I’ll go with that… 

 

JENN McKINLAY: I’m on deadline so that’s what I’ll be doing. Wah! Although, I’m planning what would be my ideal Labor Day weekend for Thanksgiving. A family vacation to San Diego with a house on Mission Bay/Beach near Belmont Park (amusement park). Hub and I will ride bikes, skateboard, boogie board, and stand up paddle board and then eat our body weight in fish tacos. The Hooligans will join us with their Plus Ones - for the first time on a family trip - and I expect we’ll only see them at meals or when I badger the bravest among them to go on the old wooden rollercoaster with me because I love that stupid thing so much. Let’s hope this trip actually comes to fruition because...2021 has not proven much better than 2020, at least to me, and frankly I could use a break. 

 

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Lucy, LOVE the retreat idea. I am now in fact, in full retreat. I have so much to do that this morning it crossed my mind--what if I simply don’t do it? What would it really matter? And then I went back to work.

What I’d love to do:  float on rafts in the pool and read in the sun, with maybe lemonade and bird song. If the baby children came to visit--that would be great. 

What I will do: Labor. Type type type type type.  And in the evening, we will have a gin and tonic, and prosciutto and melon, and cook out, and count blessings that we are not sick, not underwater, and not on fire. And that the lights go on. YIKES. 

JULIA: Hank, that should be our new standard for complaining. Am I sick? Am I underwater? Am I on fire? If no, then all is well.

HALLIE EPHRON: I’m just back from a week on Peaks Island in Maine - the perfect end of summer break with walks and beach and time out for special meals in Portland. The grands doing cartwheels on the lawn. It was nippy enough to need my sweatshirt,and we were only grazed by Ida. And when I got home my basement wasn’t flooded. Come Labor Day I’ll be home… which is pretty much my favorite place to be right now. Boring, I know. But it’s my cozy place and as the weather turns, it’s what I yearn for.

RHYS BOWEN: Jenn, your wish was exactly what we did this summer with the whole family. Big house on Mission Beach. Lots of paddle boarding, kayaking,boogie boarding and eating. Perfect

But Labor Day usually depresses me as it means darker days are coming. This year I’ll be packing for a trip up the coast the next day ( a consolation prize for the canceled trip to Hawaii). A few days getaway over the ocean should revive my spirits 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Lucy, sign me up for the motel REDS get-together! I wonder how much of the motel renovation trend is due to Covid and how much to Schitt's Creek?

 

But until then, I'm voting for somewhere at least fifteen degrees cooler than it is here in Texas.  Whenever I hear about other people's Maine adventures, I think that sounds perfect. Maybe we'd get a couple of cabins, one for us, one for the kids, and do all that beach/lobster stuff that sounds like so much fun--especially the part where you don't melt the second you walk outside...

 

 

JULIA: So far this weekend, I've gotten to have a pretty-close-to-perfect Labor Day experience, with a lobster bake at friend-of-Reds Celia Wakefield's place, and the following day a luncheon (and private communion service, which probably isn't everyone's ideal) on her deck overlooking the lake. The only thing missing is my traditional visit to Maine's largest white sand beach, Old Orchard, but I'll be hanging out there later this week with author Jessica Ellicott!

 

How about you, dear readers? Share your ideal - or actual - Labor Day! 

 

Reds vacation, staycation, & naycation

HALLIE EPHRON: It's the last week of August... where did the summer go? My husband and I took a much anticipated Alaska cruise (more on that later in the week) but today I want to talk about family vacations. 

Today we're with my daughter and her family on Peaks Island--a short ferry ride from Portland, ME--where the bikes and golf carts far outnumber cars. Their house there is basic, a Victorian gingerbread cottage with a floor that slopes down down down from one end of the house to the other. Across the front is a screened  porch where we spend copious down time inhaling the view and enjoying our little people (that's my grandson at the door to the porch of the cottage on Peaks.) 

Oh, and eating lobster pulled fresh out of the sea, and each morning walking two blocks to Peaks Cafe near the ferry landing for the best breakfast sandwiches in the world.

As I get nostalgic for summer's end, I think back to our best family vacations. Topping the list is last year's trip to Puerto Rico, all seven of us (our daughters, one son-in-law, two grand babies). We splurged, and stayed in a fancy resort (but shopped for our food locally using the kitchen in our roomy "casita.") 

Enjoying kids requires extended time. Hours spent splashing in the infinity pool with a spectacular view, walking the beach, sitting on the balcony and bombing the shrubbery below with Barbie dolls.

LUCY BURDETTE: your week on an island sounds heavenly, Hallie. I wonder if we could get everyone to agree on something like that? Though, hmmm, maybe. When I suggested we'd pay for a place in Santa Fe after Christmas, there was a lot of enthusiasm. 

We had a staycation in July when all the family came to us to celebrate bunch of birthdays, including baby Dorothea's first. Hectic and exhausting but loads of fun!


Growing up, we traveled as a pack with my mother's sisters and their families. Most often we went to a beach house in Hatteras NC that used to be a coast guard station. Such good memories!

RHYS BOWEN: Last November we took our family to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for a week to celebrate our 50th Wedding Anniversary. Absolutely perfect. It was a big all-inclusive resort. The kids played endless games of water volleyball and swam in the waves. 


We took early morning walks along the beach, sat and read in the shade by the pool, had big noisy meals together and played late night games. John said afterward that not one cross word was spoken all week. I'll treasure this time forever.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Family vacations...when we were little, we'd pile into the station wagon-I always dibbed the wayback--and from moment one we'd start asking "Whenner we gonna BEEEE there?"  

At some point, my stepfather decided  to cut that off at the pass--we'd get to the end of our driveway, and he'd ask us "How do you like it so far?"  We'd laugh so hard--and we began to say that all the time. And I still do. 

We had a house in Acapulco too, so for many years we'd all go there for Christmas. Like Rhys said, not a cross word was spoken.


Anyway, now...often the family outings are at our house! With the backyard pool and parks nearby. We love it! We all just hang out and grill outside and soak up the niceness. Often it's Fourth of July week, so we go to the Concord town parade--which is adorable! 

JENN MCKINLAY: We are lucky to have a summer house on the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia where the Hooligans run wild with their cousins. Sadly, we didn't make it there this year as we were awaiting Hooligan 2's surgery (no worries - It went very well and just this past week, I saw the mischievous sparkle return to his eyes). Instead, we made sure to have a fabulous holiday season together last December - ugly Christmas sweater contest and all! 

We also have big family reunions every three years on my husband's side of the family - this past summer it was in Oregon. Being unplugged and enjoying nature is definitely how we spend our vacations. I am partial to beach time but I'm okay with mountains, too. Anytime there is no clock ticking, no phone ringing, and no texts to return is an a-okay vacation by me.

INGRID THOFT: Our annual family vacation takes the form of a long weekend gathering in my Massachusetts hometown.  I’ve written here before about these festivities, which include a treasure hunt, a badminton tournament, hilarious games of Scattergories, and time to catch up with everyone.

The more memorable family vacations from my youth were in our nation’s spectacular national parks.  My parents would pile the four of us (and often my grandmother) into a station wagon and hit the road.  In Yosemite, the station wagon broke down and a couple of hippies in a VW bus gave us a ride to the only available accommodations, “Fish Camp.”  Believe me when I say the name was generous.  

In Canyonlands, we explored the park in jeeps with a guide named Boyd.  That day took a dark turn when one of the jeeps got stuck in the sand, and a flash flood threatened.  The mishaps were part of the fun, and the amazing scenery and the Holiday Inn pools always made for a winning combination.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, I feel so left out here! We haven't taken a proper vacation in years. Between my trips to England and conferences and book tours, and DEADLINES, we just never seem to find a spot. Besides, Rick doesn't like to leave the dogs, even with a house sitter. We used to take the (late) two dogs with us on dog-friendly car trips, but we haven't done that in ages, either. And the kiddos and grandbaby are right next door, so we don't have to go somewhere to see them.

But we used to do so much with my parents. When I was younger, it was car trips all over the country. Later, my folks owned a house in Guadalajara and we'd spend a week or two a couple of times a year. Then, my parents had a house in Hot Springs, Arkansas for years. We always went for the horse races in the spring, then my dad organized a big golf tournament every Labor Day. It was all their friends and a lot of family, too. That was a big part of my daughter's childhood. 

I miss that, and am making a resolution that next year we will all do something fun.

HALLIE: And from our archives, here's a photo of our beloved Julia and Ross, vacationing in Maine from a few years ago. Waving, Julia!

And we're dying to hear about your family vacations... please share, where do you love to go with the dear ones you consider your "family."

AND our thoughts and prayers are with our friends in the Houston area. Stay safe, stay dry if you can. Wishing we could swoop in and scoop you up ...

Summer Tripping to Peaks Island, Portland, ME

Hallie Ephron: Today I'm taking you on a summer trip to  a little island in Casco Bay, just a 10-minute ride by car ferry from Portland, Maine. 

 

Most people haven't heard of Peaks Island, which it turns out isn't a bad thing since it's small -- a mile and a half long, about a mile and a quarter wide. Year-round population in 1896 was 343. Today about 860 people live there year round; with summer visitors the population swells to between 2,000 and 4,000. Most roads are not paved and there aren't many vehicles.

 

We park our car in Portland and walk to the brand new ferry terminal. It's teeming with people on Thursday afternoon, waiting for the 5:30 ferry.

But it's off-peak for cars -- only a few get on making the view from the car deck as we cross the bay nothing short of spectacular.

 Fifteen minute later, we're arriving at Peaks. Walk off the boat and up the hill to the little house that once belonged to my son-in-law's grandmother (or possibly great grandmother.)

Our itinerary always includes: A walk to the cemetery. It's got a fantastic view of incoming ferries, old gravestones with stories to tell, and trees that are teeming with cedar waxwings.

 

Take any street and you'll find Victorian cottages, the earliest homes on the island, and quirky vacation homes. This one makes a statement with an enormous guitar covering the front porch.

The main street features the world's only umbrella cover  museum, along with a couple of restaurants, an inn, an ice cream store, and a terrific coffee and breakfast sandwich place. Walk a bit further and you'll reach the public library and the laundromat. And honestly, that's about it.

But the beach, hidden away, is the big attraction. Here's me on Sandy Beach where the sand is fine and the water freezing. 

Just a short walk up along the back shore is the aptly named Stone Beach where visitors spend hours creating stone towers.

Dinner requires a walk back to the ferry dock to the Peaks Island Lobster Shack, hours of operation daily from 5 to 6 PM. Period. 

They haul the lobsters up from the ocean twenty feet below the floor of the shack. Cash only. And talk about fresh! Soft shelled lobsters, 5.99 a pound. Hard shelled lobsters, 7.99 a pound. We buy pound-and-a-half hard-shelled lobsters, take them back to the house, cook them with corn we've brought with us, and pig out.

Okay, I've shared mine... What's your favorite place for a quiet summer getaway?