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The last day of tour began in Kansas City, and I wish to remark upon a stroke of real fine luck. Prior to departing for St. Louis, I stopped in a coffee shop (let us not burn too much time contemplating the damage one might inflict on one’s carefully-crafted image as rustic steel-toed scribbler should it be determined that one took advantage of the wi-fi in an earth-toned establishment called Latte’Land) (furthermore  located next to the Tommy Bahama shop in the Country Club Plaza) (one did not have a latte’) (one did have the FTO Timor Emera) (French-pressed and mighty fine) (I own a pitchfork!) and caught up on some emails and thank you cards (yes, Mom, a postcard to every bookstore) and blog posts and such. Prior to leaving, I noted that the Timor Emera had infused my cerebrum with an audible hum and thus for purposes of recalibration I ordered a soothing and rehydrating herbal tea (essence of apple) (Steel toes! Pitchforks!) for the road. I had driven a remarkably hilly two blocks (including one right turn) before reaching for the tea and realizing I left it on the roof of the car.  Drawing the vehicle to a stop as gently as if my lap had been homesteaded by a bowl of steaming weasel soup, I climbed out to find that the tea was riding proud and I had just wasted one very powerful swear word. Enjoyed that tea half way to St. Louis and in light of all those times I’ve groused and kicked and pitched a fit when my absent-mindedness has produced less hortatorius effects, I resolved to Take Note and thus I share with you this my Tale of Triumph. A friendly group waited in St. Louis. When the last book was signed, the streets were filled with a bashing thunderous rain. Underway by 9:30 p.m., lightning in the rearview as I passed Busch Stadium.  Planned on one more Super 8, but by midnight I had the idea of home in my head and couldn’t shake it and thus this 2,185 tour loop ended in rural Fall Creek at 5:26 a.m., after 527 miles straight. The sun was pinking things up when I walked in the house. The family was asleep but the little fuzzballs above were scratching about in their plastic tub, doing me the favor of confirming that apple tea notwithstanding, we are still in the chicken business.

Stops on the second leg of the tour, thus far:

View Michael Perry’s COOP book tour: Part II in a larger map

For additional details and tracking, see: Sneezingcow.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

Because publishing is a difficult and dangerous business, just prior to the book tour I bought me a pair of big ol’ honkin’ steel-toed logging boots. Made the purchase from Ralph down there at Ralph’s Boot & Shoe. Ralph is not really Ralph, but he won’t object if so hailed. We ordered them in and the first pair arrived a little out of whack (best way I can put it is that the leather was twisted around a tad slaunchwise). Ralph took care of it for me, no problem, which reminded me why I like buying things like boots from businesses like Ralph’s. “Ralph” not only custom fits your boot (rather than just stuff my metatarsals in the nearest size he spent some time with the weird foot-gauger dealie and found a pair that actually matched my flat feet) but he’ll be around later to repair, maintain and generally make whatever little extra I might have invested well worth it over the life of the boot. Naturally I am aware of that a writer wearing steel-toed logging boots is clomping down that thin line between incongruity and Imelda, but I wear them in part to remind myself that while I am clip-clopping around the country nattering about prose, my brother and many like him are using logging boots to actually log. Thus when someone asks me if I’m tired of signing books, I can wiggle my toes beneath the safety caps and unequivocally state, “Nope.” I also wear them because I have always nurtured the theory that at some point the wheels are gonna come off the wagon and at such time a man should be wearing good boots. Even – or especially – if he is in the vicinity of a latte machine, as was the case earlier today. I furthermore admit I just plain like boots (got married in the most recently-retired pair), even to the point of preserving their memory in the service of cross-marketing (click on album cover).

Stops on the second leg of the tour, thus far:

View Michael Perry’s COOP book tour: Part II in a larger map

For additional details and tracking, see: Sneezingcow.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

The business concern pictured above is located directly across the street from my motel.  Compose your own jokes about how the installation crew might dress and act. Just the sight of the sign glowing blue-ly in the muggy dark made me smile. With all good fortune, by the time you read this I will have pointed the diesel southbound toward Wichita. Enroute, I plan to eat some turkey jerky. No special reason, except I like to turn the bag over when I’m far from home and see that it was made in Minong, Wisconsin, site of the hardest hit I ever received in a high school football game. Left defensive end, rolling out to contain the quarterback option when someone popped me in the face so hard I just rolled and rolled. There were hills and valleys on the Minong football field, this added texture to the experience. When I came to rest on my tailbone pad I recall bright lights above and a stinging lump on my lower lip. Hardest hit ever in a game, but not overall. That was during practice. Clay North. Helmet-to-helmet and such a crack that I could feel my sulci part. Now: Where are my car keys?

P.S., today I signed books for two very pleasant residents of Sweden. I showed off by saying “Come Here!” in Swedish.  Learned it from a Swedish policeman summoning a drunk off a train in the middle of the night one summer in 1989. Safe travels, Swedish people! 

P.P.S. I now have it on good authority that Swedish chickens say “Pock! Pock!”  (I may have omitted key umlauts.) 

P.P.P.S. The best umlauts are these.

Stops on the second leg of the tour, thus far:

View Michael Perry’s COOP book tour: Part II in a larger map

For additional details and tracking, see: Sneezingcow.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

Whatever you think of Mike Huckabee, he once stated that if it is handed through a car window, it’s not food. The pile of greasy sacks avalanching the passenger side of my car are shameful and I repeatedly swear on a stack of curly-fry holsters that I shall not sin again, and I don’t, at least not until I’m running late and the grhelin kicks in. Back the cruise down, ease off to the right, and whoops, I’m looking at brake lights and talking to the radio box like some pathetic lab monkey trying to trip the trigger that releases the banana tablet. But today, a culinary tra-la-la! My schedule allowed me to join two dear friends for an actual sit-down dinner before leaving Omaha. We went here. I had two fat slabs of carp, including a side of bones so big you could use them to rat up your hair. Deep-fried, therefore: delicious. The sign above made me lonely for a special little backwater nook on the Chippewa River (within sniffin’ distance of the sewage treatment plant, if you must know) where I have whiled away many a pleasant hour with my pal Mills as we stalked (stood there until some came by) the wily (totally predictable) ictiobus bubalus and sheepshead drum (alternatively and wonderfully known as the “thunder pumper”). In a motel room beside a penitentiary outside Lincoln I pull the curtains and dream of a day not so long from now when I shall return to the Mighty Chip, raise my 30-year-old Browning compound and (aiming low, to allow for refraction) take a shot at landing some smoking materials of my own.

Stops on the second leg of the tour, thus far:

View Michael Perry’s COOP book tour: Part II in a larger map

For additional details and tracking, see: Sneezingcow.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

Continuing to provide you with a gripping inside look at the whirlwind dazzlefest that is the barn boots book tour (not barn boots, actually) (logging boots) (more on the boots in a post for another day), the above photo reminds me to tell you that if yer gonna stay in 30-some motel rooms over 40-some days, you should not only remember to take your key when you leave the premises, you should take the little envelope with the room number on it, or you will be wandering the halls upon your return. Once during book tour in Oxford, Mississippi (I think … call the fact-checkers), and another time on a book tour in a location I can’t recall, I went to the wrong door with my key card and the door opened anyway. In both cases I encountered only someone else’s open suitcase and dirty socks (not the someone elses themselfses), but you will understand now why I always throw the deadbolt and hook the chain, no matter how prime the real estate. The perimeter is thus secured as I type this, having rolled a chunk of I-80 (fuel mileage dropped a click or two as the westward drive is a climb) from Iowa City to Des Moines with a stop along a rare undeveloped interchange to do a phone interview with Wisconsin radio station while sparrows and bob-o-links chirruped and bob-o-linked in the ditch grass outside my open window. It’s a fine green time to be crossing the Heartland.

Stops on the second leg of the tour, thus far:

View Michael Perry’s COOP book tour: Part II in a larger map

For additional details and tracking, see: Sneezingcow.com, Facebook, and Twitter.