C'etait Bien Votre . . . Trip?

We're back a day earlier than we'd planned from our Fourth of July vacation, and I'm fine with that. These kinds of trips exhaust me, especially when they include sleeping in a tiny tube tent during a thunderstorm and listening to my youngest kid and his four-year-old cousin get up at the crack of dawn and begin carousing around, as well as a four-year-old and a six-year-old can carouse.

One certainly odd memento from the trip: A copy of "Pat Nixon: The Untold Story," autographed by the author, Julie Nixon Eisenhower. I wonder how it ended up at the used book sale at the Victor, Idaho, Fourth of July fair. Prob ably donated by someone who got the book, had it autographed, then put it on the shelf, never to be read. Well, I'll read it. I have an odd fixation on the Nixon/Watergate years, so this'll be an interesting addition to the library. Michelle, of course, rolled her eyes at my find (though she was kind enough to find another Nixon-themed book for me as well, "The Whole Truth: The Watergate Conspiracy," by Sam J. Ervin, Jr. Pound for pound, it's pretty hard to beat a Nixon book with a colon in the title. I'll bet back in the day everyone who was anyone was writing a Nixon tell-all and the presses were running deep into the night.

So here's the report on the rest of the books (interesting and even boring inscriptions, bookmarks, etc.):

• A 3x5 card with the numbers "124103799" and "3521001887" written on them, inside a copy of "The Prince and Other Writings," by Niccolo Machiavelli.
• "To William, xo xo, Mom and Dad, Christmas 1995" inside a copy of "City of Light, City of Dark," by Avi and Brian Floca.
• An inscription: "Phil -- Same to you! Love, Jim," and an address stamp: J.L. Stirling, MD, RR #9, PO Box 336, Columbus, IN 47201, inside a copy of Richard Bach's "Illusions."

I used to be really, really into Richard Bach. Johnathan Livingston Seagull, of course, was the reason why, but I eventually found all of his books and read them all. Found an author who pretty much figured out he was God and that was it and that was all, so I chucked all of his books (except for the aforementioned JLS) as a reminder of what you don't want to become as an author: Insufferably smug and self-assured. So I don't know why I picked up this book. Oh well.

Other stuff:

We watched the Fourth of July fireworks (on July 2nd) at Huntsman Springs, where John Huntsman, Jr., former Utah governor and presidential candidate, spoke. Can't say he really said anything that stuck in my mind -- just lots of typical politic flopdoodle about the Constitution and this and that and the other thing. He was followed by Glenn Beck, who repeated himself a lot and seems to think we're choosing now between freedom or slavery, because he said that over and over and over again. Good thing the fireworks were worth the wait. (He mentioned when he spoke at the fireworks last year that there had been one protestor. Well, I just about stood up and shouted "Get the hook!" with a Dutch accent, but we were waaaaay to far back into the crowd to be heard. Again, oh well.