on my mother's passing.

I just can't come up with anything to write at the moment, which I realize is a rare thing for me. So I'm posting here what my sister wrote:

It is with great sadness that my brothers, Mark Richard Hunter, Jeff Hunter, and I along with our stepfather (Harry Taylor) would like to let everyone know that our mother/wife passed away this morning due to complications from her stroke in August. Arrangements for a memorial service are pending per her cremation next week as were her wishes. We will all love and miss her dearly, but know she is in a much better place.

Mom had been in failing health for some time due to a stroke along with complications from diabetes and congestive heart failure. The service is going to be sometime toward the end of next week here in Albion, after the cremation--I'll post further details when I have them.

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Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Doug and Jill Mapes

Okay, so I'm a bad dad for not getting these photos up before. It's a long story, but never mind me: On August 18th my youngest daughter, Jill Hunter, became Jill Mapes. That's right, she entered the witness protection program.

No, no -- she got married!

That's Jill on the left, and Doug on the right. You probably already guessed that.

They have a lot in common. This cute little Lilly, for instance.

Big Sis was there too, naturally.

With big Sis came, of course, little nephews:

Hunter ...

And Brayden

It's been a particularly busy summer since then, but my only real excuse is that other people got better photos than I did. Many happy returns!

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Horsing Around at the Pokagon Saddle Barn

The saddle barn up at Pokagon State Park is still open on weekends after Labor Day, usually until the weekend of Halloween (depending on the weather). But for some reason a lot of people don't know that, and since it's where my wife works:

The Pokagon Saddle Barn is still open on weekends after Labor Day. There. The first trail ride leaves at 10 a.m., and the last at 5 p.m. When you consider they start setting up an hour early, and have to put everything away after the last ride returns, that makes for a long day.

Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to take a few photos while everyone was opening up the barn for the morning. Not to worry: I was on the not-getting-stomped-on side of the fence:

When the gate is opened in the morning, some of the horses come running.

Some of them kind of just ... hang out.

In fact, if you look at this photo carefully you can see Emily way off toward the back of the pasture, where she had to go chase a few of the horses down to the gate.

And here Emily has caught up with one. Don't let the size difference fool you: The horse knows who's really in charge.

Emily's boss was also there that morning, wrestling the horses into submission. And no, I'm not exaggerating.

Lead, Follow Me, or Just Watch the Videos

I used to blog every day, after hearing authors say it kept their names in front of their readers. Then I realized blogging every day left me with no time to actually write anything for readers to read. Also, I'm not interesting every day--even after editing myself.

But this time I've been away from my blog for two whole weeks, which might be a record. I actually had a real vacation, by which I mean I not only didn't do my full time job, I didn't even work on  writing. (We did spend a portion of our vacation in medical facilities, but that's tradition.)

I missed it. The writing, not the full time job. But sometimes a guy's gotta take a break.

But I wasn't totally offline. We've taken some very short videos in places we visited--I've posted a half dozen on Instagram so far, and they cross posted to Twitter and Facebook. They're fun videos, kinda, and give you a little sense of where we were, maybe, and if you turn the volume all the way up you can hear me, sorta. (I'm new to the video thing, and haven't gotten the volume part quite figured out yet. Some so far unpublished videos will probably have to come with subtitles.)

Having had very little luck posting videos to Blogger, I'd like to steer those who are interested over to my other accounts. I get videos and pictures up on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

Although I once swore never to go there, I'm a Tweeting Twit at:

https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

 When my first book came out Emily set me up with another account at https://twitter.com/StormChaserbook, but let's face it: The same stuff mostly goes up on both.

There's a similar thing going on at Facebook, where my regular account is at

https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

Personally, I'd rather everyone follow me on my author's page, at

https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter/

 Why? Because as I understand it, it's easier to find what your favorite author is up to that way ... and don't you need someone else to fill in the time between hearing from your favorite author? Gaiman and Martin don't exactly post every day, you know. (By the way, I loved their comedy routines.)
Also, I've been hearing noises that small businesses (which is what authors are) are going to have a harder time promoting from personal FB pages, but we'll see. In any case, I'd very much like to avoid losing track of people who might someday want to read one of my books.

Or--and I hate to say this--you could do nothing. Because let's face it, you'll see the best of the photos we took right here, sooner or later, whether you read this on Blogger, Livejournal, or any of the other places I post to. I kind of like the little videos, but they'll never be nominated for a ... do they have an Internet Video Award?

I just realized that our only big news from vacation was that we bought a car-top carrier for camping gear. It's a nice change, to have no major accidents or illnesses.

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Maybe for vacation we should book a hospital room

I expect you won't hear much from me for the next couple of weeks, because right after Labor Day we'll be on "vacation". The quotes are because our vacations in recent years have been of the kind people need a vacation to recover from.

My wife or I--or both--have been either sick or injured on every single vacation we've taken since the moment we met. Two years ago she was sick on vacation when a guy hit our car head on, leading to both of us being injured. In a variant of that, five years ago we were happily vacationing at a state park along the Mississippi River when we found out my father had been rushed to the hospital with cancer. (He's fine now, by the way.)

So I'm not expecting much.

In the run-up to this upcoming vacation my mother was hospitalized, and we got bad medical news about two other relatives, which I can't help thinking was a shot off our bow--a little warning that maybe we should just build a panic room and stay in it for two weeks. But no, we usually go for it; and Emily and I are fond of camping, hiking, and traveling to places where we can camp and hike. The question of what could possibly go wrong easily answers itself.

We also like to climb, as you can see from this photo of Emily at Prophet Rock, in west-central Indiana.

That answer may have come early this year. Maybe it was the hospital chairs, which were about as comfortable as the iron throne made of swords on Game of Thrones. Maybe it's because I've been wearing a knee brace, which could have caused me to lean more heavily on other muscles. Whatever the case, this week I've had the worst back pain since I pulled a lower back muscle three years ago--while on vacation.

It's in my middle back, in the area where I first hurt myself way back in 1983 at a business fire in downtown Albion. We wore heavy steel breathing air tanks back then, and I wore one for way too long, and you can guess the rest. (No, I wasn't on vacation at the time.) Instead of the dull ache I experience almost all the time, this was a sharp pain that refuses to be ignored, kind of like the American election cycle. It hurt so bad that for a few days I couldn't even concentrate on writing.

I could still read. Let's not get silly. (Oh, and about the end of the third Game of Thrones book: What The Living Heck?!?!)

So now I face going into vacation with back pain (oh, and knee pain), which might cut into my hiking time. I know what you're going to say: "Just relax, sit around the campfire with a good book and some music, have a beer ... you know, relax".

I hate beer. More to the point, according to Emily, I suck at relaxing. At the moment I'm thinking road trip, since I can still drive, and there's a lot of road we haven't seen.

On any road trip, there are certain roads you should avoid.

 In the evening I could work on a new story, which to me is relaxing. I also have a book to finish editing, which is not quite so relaxing, but might be if I'm typing on a lounge chair along Lake Superior.

There's also the fourth Game of Thrones book to read ... but man, those gargantuan kill-fests aren't so relaxing. Just the same, Emily and I do want to get away for awhile, kind of an escape from reality thing.

At least, until one of us gets sick.

 

"Nobody asked if *I* liked to climb."