On July 23, I drove 625 miles from Longview, Washington to Twin Falls, Idaho, exactly a thousand kilometers for those who prefer the metric scale.

Why such an exhausting day of travel? An out-of-control wildfire known as the Durkee Fire closed Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge interstate-highway from Pendleton to Baker City, forcing us to cross over the Cascades to US Highway 20 where we motored through the mind-bending scenic Malheur Canyon. a seldom touted area of East Oregon west of the town of Burns.

The remaining 500 miles on July 25 transversing mostly interstate highways through Salt Lake City to Grand Junction, Colorado, was a relative piece of Angel’s Food Cake. Arriving shortly after 5 pm, I chose to celebrate the safe end of our sojourn at the Grand Valley Grill’s happy hour, sipping on godmothers (Amaretto and vodka) while feasting on a savory large slice of meatloaf with mashed potatoes and green beans. The complete dinner was only 10 bucks.

Whoopee! Accompanying me on such a treacherous sojourn was Mary Schenk (shown above), who volunteered to host my hasty retreat from the Washington townhouse that was sublimely decorated by my late love in life, Alice McCormick. I could not have pulled off such an audacious relocation without generous assistance from Mary, a former neighbor who grew up several houses away from my childhood home in Hialeah, Florida.

In case you don’t know, during the 1950s Hialeah contained America’s premier thoroughbred horse racing track. I was too young to enter the grounds then, except for Sundays. Since no racing was allowed on “the Lord’s Day,” the general public was admitted free to gawk at the hordes of white and pink flamingos taking up South Florida residence around the racetrack’s encircled manmade lake. Needless to say, I was enthralled.

Now that I have my computer finally set up, I am prepared to deal with the aftermath from Amazon’s unreadable publication of my memoir/love story, “How I Became a Lesbian (and other stories)”. And I think there is a solution. A professional musician in the foothills of the Poconos suggested I create an Audible version of the book before attempting its reissue. “More people are listening to Audible than are buying books,” he said. Considering my regard for his musicianship and history of providing assistance to fellow musicians, I have decided to follow up on this plan of action.

What do you think? Would you be interested in acquiring an Audible copy of the book? Does this idea sound good to you?

Feel free to give some feedback, because I don’t need a different kind of feedback while narrating my story in a recording studio. And if you don’t understand my play on words here, wait until you hear all of it!