Sarah E. Moffett

Barnes & Nobles of…
Colorado Springs, CO
Loveland, CO

Week 9.

Seven hours of traveling, 59 blackberry e-mails, and six voicemails later, I’ve realized there is an upside to traveling. You are incommunicado.

I wonder if my publisher would pay for a book event in Hong Kong.

With this positive perspective, Kerouac, the laptop, the favorite pen, and I took to the road again for book tour. Part deux. And I am here to say I should have started it in God’s Country, a/k/a Colorado. Before I even reached the first book event, I learned some extremely simple but highly important life lessons. Life really is better when lived in carbohydrated laced consciousness. (See SEM eating her first fresh, soft, warm bagel in years. Euphoric.) Renting a car without a driver’s license is slightly difficult. (See SEM walk off the plane in Denver, reach into her bag, and realize the plastic Virginia Bar Membership card is not a license.) The people at Denver Airport’s Advantage Rental Car Company should be canonized. (See SEM drive away with a free upgrade to an SUV.) The drive up I-25 from Colorado Springs to Loveland can be made in under 2 hours if one exchanges their muffler for a rocket booster. (See…never mind, my mother reads this post. I’m not admitting anything.)

The joys of returning to book tour. Particularly when book tour is taking one back to their roots and family.

Saturday morning started with a family breakfast, complete with Denise Moffett’s award worthy blueberry pancakes. I feel compelled to note this because I’m still on a sugar high from the amount of syrup I consumed. It was followed by quality family time with Chris, Jan, AJ, and Sophie, who serenaded us with an a capella rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at a decibel level just below that of a jet breaking the sound barrier. Three year olds rock. And so do aunts who loan you shoes when you realize the only thing you packed were flip-flops and boots.

I arrived at the Briargate B&N to meet the gracious community relations manager, partake of my ritual three Venti iced teas, and return to book tour.

Hooah.

Two hours later, hugs, photos, and a pen down, it was off to the B&N in Loveland, Colorado. It’s always nice to arrive an hour late for one’s own book event to find a third of the books have already sold just for being at the front of the store.

Perhaps there is something to product placement.

It was in Loveland, I met the world’s most talented PR man. Robert Ballentine. He single handedly convinced everyone that graced B&N’s doors that they didn’t just want Growing Up Moffett, they needed it. This was fine by me as it left me to catch up with more family—Abbey, Sher, Kerry, and Lynn. I didn’t even have time to read Big Sur. After Rob sold me out in approximately an hour, I joined three generations of Moffett related women at an Italian restaurant. It’s never a good sign when the waiter comes out carrying three plates on one arm, and one plate on the other. Particularly when that plate is the salad you ordered. The menu failed to mention it as the size of Rhode Island.

After dinner, I drove back to one of my aunt’s under a sky being painted deep velvety pink by the sun setting behind the front range. It made my heart stop.

It was good to be home.

Acknowledgments. The entire Moffett family, whether by blood or memories, you are a beautiful and powerful influence in my life, whether near or far away. Colorado. CRM’s Robyn and Vivian, Manager Valerie, and the Barnes and Noble staff, especially the person who keeps those Venti iced teas coming, my .50 cents of royalties should go to you. The new readers I met (Pickinpaugh Girls), those aspiring to write their own stories, and those who just bought a book because you were afraid of Rob, the other .50 cents goes to you. The people at Advantage, really, you’re my heroes. And my dear, beloved Blackberry, I really can live without you.

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