Patricia Stoltey

Author

I is for Illinois Weather

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Friday’s travels were seriously complicated by the storms that passed through Chicago in the morning. As you know, flight delays snowball and affect travel and connections all over the country. My trip went something like this: 9:30 AM — Arrived at University of Illinois Willard Airport in Savoy and returned my snazzy red Camry rental …Read More

H is for Home

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Home has meant a lot of different things to me over the years. I was born in Chicago. I grew up on a farm in east central Illinois, just west of Champaign-Urbana. Oklahoma City was my home for one year before I returned to Illinois. In 1969 I moved to Muncie, Indiana, and that’s where …Read More

G is for Gourdon, France

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My husband and I lived in the South of France for a couple of years in the mid-80s. You’ll hear more about that later in the alphabet. Today’s post is about my favorite perched village ,located well inland from the Mediterranean, roughly north and west of Nice in the Alpes-Maritime of Provence. Gourdon (and you …Read More

F is for Fiddlesticks, Family and Friends!

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The fiddlesticks part: Who knew it was going to be this hard to write blog posts on the fly? I sure wish I’d followed Alex J. Cavanaugh‘s good example and written at least this first week of posts in advance. I won’t give up, even though I’m out of town visiting family… The family part: …Read More

E is for Estes Park, Colorado

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I wanted to write a short post about one of the “E” places I’ve visited, but had a lot of trouble picking one over the other. There’s Everglades National Park with its elephant-sized mosquitoes. Or Eze in the South of France, with its exotic gardens and incredible scenery. I also loved Eltz Castle (Burg Eltz) …Read More

D is for Double Duty

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I’m here to file a “D” report when I’m actually supposed to be at Chiseled in Rock with my usual Tuesday post. Since CIR is not participating in the A to Z Challenge, the post there is a video from You Tube that shows exactly how far authors (especially mystery authors) will go to get …Read More

C is for Cinque-Terre, Italy

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I’m going to cheat a little bit on today’s post because I’ve already told the story of my trip to the Cinque Terre. Last December I wrote a Friday Field Trip for Terry Odell who blogs at Terry’s Place. This one was a photo essay about a hike my husband and I took back in …Read More

B is for Belgian Trappist Beer

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My husband and I had the pleasure for visiting old friends in Belgium a few years ago. This is when we first tasted the incredibly rich and intoxicating beers brewed in a few of the Trappist monasteries there. Our friends served Chimay. From our friends’ home in Wavre, we took a long drive that included …Read More

A is for Airports

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Here we are. It’s day one of the A to Z April Blog Challenge 2011. By the time you read this, I’ll be somewhere between Northern Colorado and East Central Illinois and won’t return to Colorado until a week from today. During this first week of April, I’ll be on dial-up on my mom’s phone. …Read More

Hey, What’s So Funny? by Alan Orloff, Guest Blogger

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I’m honored to welcome Alan Orloff back as he celebrates the release of Killer Routine, the first novel in the Last Laff mystery series. His debut mystery, Diamonds for the Dead, came out last April and was nominated for the Best First Novel Agatha Award. There’s a good reason for that. Diamonds for the Dead …Read More