Tour Day Sixteen - 9/28/2011

Day Sixteen I didn't get many pictures either, but we had a few school talks and a book signing.

And on the way to the school, we saw Mount Rainer, and that was pretty cool.


Funny enough, this picture of me was taken in the same spot where I took the picture of the mountain, and the mountain was crystal clear in person, but in this photo, you can't see it at all! Yet it was right there in the center between those two trees.


After the school I got to see my good friend Anna, and we were able to talk for awhile. I hadn't seen her in a year or so.


After that we returned to Christopher Miller's house. He is kindly hosting us while we're in the Seattle area.



I don't think my dad was ready for the picture to be taken. :P

Tour Day Fifteen - 9/27/11 - Welcome to Washington?

On day fifteen we had a few school talks in Oregon before driving to Vancouver, Washington.

We had three or four talks at the Albany Christian School in Albany, Oregon. Definitely our most enthusiastic group yet. :)

Thank you Carol for hosting us!

Vinnie guarding the projector

Nearing the Washington border

So we saw this sign ....

And we were looking for a 'Welcome to Washington' sign, but there wasn't one! How disappointing!


After Albany we did a writing seminar with a homeschool group.

And went out for ice cream.
This is a picture of Matthew, the guy who set up the event for us and bought us ice cream. He has this hat that he likes to get pictures of with authors wearing it. Apparently Ted Dekker has worn it as well. But I bet I look cuter in it. ;)

Day Fourteen Video!

Here is day 14 video. :)

Tour Day Fourteen - 9/26/11

Day Fourteen! That was almost three days ago. Wow, am I behind. :)


On this day we were in The Dalles, Oregon. We spoke to two classes at The Dalles Middle School before driving off to speak to a writing group near Portland Oregon

Speaking to a class at The Dalles

Lots of cool scenery

Tired of it yet?

I think it's pretty

And speaking to the homeschool group

This group we did a 5 hour writing workshop with before rushing off to a TV interview. I didn't get any pictures there, nor do I know the channel, sorry!

Is there anything in particular you'd like to see in these blog posts? Pictures you'd like to see? Behind the scenes footage? I'm open to suggestions.

Vinnie's Find - Drawing for the Audio Book (Take 2) - The RESULTS

And we have the winner of Vinnie's second drawing

Sorry it took so long to put this up. We've been swamped. I'll write more about our schedule later. :)


And the winner is . . .

Noah B. Somerville!


Noah, please email me at amanda(at)daviscrossing(dot)com with your choice of one of the MP3 books of the Dragons in our Midst (except Circles of 7) or Oracles of Fire.

You must send me this email within 48 hours (by 9/30/11 8:30PM (Pacific Time) or I will pick another winner.



We had only FOUR people answer this last one correctly. Our last scrambled name, 20 people answered. Maybe you'd like to know the correct answer for this one?

Remember the word?




The answer is . . .

Alfred

Alfred is a character in Precisely Terminated.

Day Thirteen Video!

Tour Day Thirteen - 9/25/11

Day thirteen was pretty easy for us as well. Sundays are supposed to be, right?

We had one book signing at a Barnes and Noble in Eugene, Oregon.



While there were plenty of people in the store, no one wanted to come see my dad's books. The manager wasn't able to get Precisely Terminated in time, so I didn't have anything to do except hand out bookmarks to people.


But on our drive to The Dalles, Oregon later, we saw this rainbow. =)



Video to come

Tour Day Twelve

This is kind of embarrassing.

I have no pictures for day twelve, and only a little behind the scenes clip of video.

On day twelve we had three book signings. Two at two Parables and one at a Barnes and Noble. Some people came out to see us and we had a good time talking to them. :) It was a slow day overall, a nice change to our hectic pace.

And I did laundry, as you'll see in the video, if you care to watch it. There's no word of the day in it.

Anyway. This day's mileage was about 64.3 miles. Not very many. Wow, we're boring. :)

Tour Day Eleven

Day Eleven we had a writing workshop and a drive to Oregon.

At the workshop I got to see a friend of mine Shalana. :) I haven't seen her in years, so it was nice to get a chance to meet up with her again.


After the workshop we got to hang out with a fan and her family. Unfortunately, I managed to not take any pictures! Sorry!

On the drive to Grant's Pass, Oregon, we saw this metal dragon.


And a lot of pretty scenery.


Including Mount Shasta


Yay! Oregon! No sales tax in this state! But they do have full service gas station. Bleah. :P



Once we got to our hotel and were all checked in, we met this guy. He was playing a saw with a violin bow. (See our Day Eleven Video to hear him play it)

And he showed me how to play and let me try it out, too!


It was easy to get a note from the saw, but hard to put them together into a tune.

Day Eleven Video

On 9/23/11 (Day 11) we had to do a writing workshop and drive to Oregon.

I took a short video of what we were doing and then a longer video of the entire workshop. Here's the short video, and I hope to have the longer one soon. You'll get to watch the ENTIRE workshop in separate clips. It's really educational and if you want to better your writing, you'll watch it. Once it's done. I have to finished putting the clips together.

For now, here's the shorter video. Which might have one of the words of the day.

Tour Day Ten

This day was a very short one for us event wise. :)

We had one school talk in California. It's only been two days yet I can't remember where it was! My memory must be bad. :)

Ah, yes! Loomis, California.

Our crowd of kids was great! They asked a ton of questions and were really interested in our talk.



After the talk we invited people to come out to a restaurant to hang out and talk to us. Three young ladies came out and talked with us for awhile. They drove from a long way away, too!



After the talk we had a long drive to get to Redding, California.



Total miles for the day: 259.9

Precisely Terminated Amazon Blitz is TODAY!

Today is the day to participate in the Amazon blitz for my book, Precisely Terminated. Click here for details.

Day Ten Tour Video

Here is the Day Ten video!

I still need to do the blog post, I know, but I don't have time at the moment - maybe later. :)

Day Nine Videos!

Whew. We certainly have a lot of videos from day nine. FIVE of them!



First we have our regular short video, which most of you are probably more interested in.

We also have one video with my short little author talk in it. I'm still not very good at public speaking, but you can still watch it.



Then there is a three part video of my dad giving his 'Fantasy in the Heart of a Child' talk. It usually has Lord of the Rings clips in it, but I cut them out. I hope to put them in again later, but at the moment, they are not there. Just imagine them. He describes them pretty well.

Vinnie's Find - Drawing for the Audio Book (Take 2)

Vinnie found another scrambled name for you guys to figure out!



It says

D-R-A-L-E-F

It's the name of a character from one of my dad's books or from mine. You'll have to figure that part out. :)


If you figure it out, email me your answer, don't post it here, that would spoil the fun for everyone else, and you won't be entered into the drawing.

Everyone who sends me the correctly descrambled name will be entered in a drawing for a copy of one of the Dragons in our Midst (DIOM) or Oracles of Fire (OOF) books on MP3 disk. It's your choice of which you would like if you win (Circles of Seven is not included in this list because we don't have any more of them. :) ).


Please only send me your answers within 48 hours of this posting. I will not accept anymore emails with the answer that are postmarked after 9/25/11 - 8:30AM Pacific Standard Time.


Send your answers to amanda(at)daviscrossing(dot)com (replace the (at) with an @ symbol and the (dot) with a period).

Have fun!

Tour Day Nine - Napa, CA - 9-21-11

Yesterday we were in Napa, California. A really pretty place full of grapes. ^^

When we were almost to our destination we noticed on our GPS our elevation and found it amusing.


And then the next change was even cooler. While in Flagstaff, AZ our elevation was 7,000 something, so this is a big change.

We spoke at one school that day. Two talks total for me, three for my dad. Our audience was attentive and seemed like to hear us speak.


We set up a book table outside where the parents picked up the kids, and sales were great! Thanks so much everyone who was there!


This is us with Menolly, the girl who invited us to come to her school and helped set up everything. It was great to see you Menolly. :)


We got some video, too, but I haven't edited and spliced it yet, so you'll have to wait a bit for that. :)

Total Mileage for the day: 32.1

Vinnie's Find - Drawing for the Audio Book

We had the drawing for the audio book this morning!

And the winner is . . .




Ruth Shafer!


Ruth, please email me with your choice of audio book and your address at amanda(at)daviscrossing(dot)com.

Email must be sent within 48 hours (so received by the 24th), or we will do another drawing and pick another winner.

Video for Day 8

Here is day 8's video.

Trying to catch up with all the days I'm behind. :)

New Events Added in Washington

Here are some new events we added to the tour schedule:

September 28, 2011 - 4:30 pm
Dinner with the Authors (Feel free to join us, but you have to pay for your own dinner. Please let me know you are coming)
Old Country Buffet
4022 Factoria Mall SE
Bellevue, WA 98006

October 3, 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm
Lifeway Christian Store
9310 N. Division Street
Spokane, WA
(509) 487-6942

I don't always to remember to post news about events, so keep checking the schedule map for events near you.

Tour Day Eight - One School and Driving to Napa

We had only one school talk yesterday. We weren't allowed to sell books but the kids were very responsive to our talk and seemed to really enjoy it. We handed out a lot of bookmarks, so maybe they'll look up the books online or at the bookstore.







After the talk we rushed off to Napa for the next day's talks. We had to talk at 9AM and we didn't arrive at our hotel until 11:30 Pacific time. So we had another long day.

Video will come soon.

Tour Day Seven - Driving to LA

DAy seven was a few days ago, I know, but I've been so busy! You'll just have to excuse it. :)

Our first stop was new tires for the van because they were all messed up for some reason (see previous post). That took a very long time, and we didn't get to leave Albuquerque until around 10.

But I sold a Precisely Terminated to the guy who changed out tires!

Some pretty scenery

My cool socks. ;)

More scenery.
We had a 12 hour drive, so I had a lot of opportunities to take pictures.

A raven we saw at the Arizona rest stop

We drove all the way through Arizona with only one stop at the border.

On the way we saw about 7 of these trucks transporting these long white objects

We spent awhile guessing what they were.

We have an idea of what we think it is now,
but we want to know what YOU think it is. Or think it could be. :)

Finally in CA.

The drive to LA took much longer than anticipated because the speed limit for cars with trailers is 55 mph and everyone else gets to go 70mph, and when scheduling our time for travel, we thought we'd be going 70, too, not knowing about their trailer law.