Patty and I enjoyed our road trip to Rapid City, South Dakota, where I received their award for my book. It was a new experience for us. I felt out of place without a good Stetson on my head! But it was fun meeting a lot of very prolific Western authors, poets, singers, etc. Some had written over 75 books. I was almost embarrassed to be getting an award for my very first book. I'm constantly told that my readers couldn't put the book down, that it was a great read for them, so I guess I'll go with it!
We spent some time with friends we had made in April at the Cowboy Festival. And Vernanne Garner Alavarez Powell from our Westmont College days was there with her WWA member husband. It was great seeing them . My one-minute acceptance speech, okay I stretched it to three minutes, went well, as I found some humor to inject along the way. We turned the trip into a 4700 mile trip to visit friends and relatives in Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and California. What a beautiful country we are blessed to live in. I enjoyed photographing prairie dogs and bison in both the Black Hills of South Dakota and in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. All in all, it was a wonderful experience.
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