Repost from 6/15/12. How appropriate as I’m currently recovering from early summer travels and jet lag :-).

It was hard, but we found her! She and her shiftless gang of vacationers were spotted crossing the California border, stopping first in her hometown of Sacramento then heading north up to the great city of San Francisco. When we were close on her heels (we had leads that she ate at her favorite Vietnamese restaurant Thanh Long then boarded a charter to Alcatraz) she eluded us by fleeing to the small town of Lakeport and hiding on the Pomo Indian Reservation with her husband’s extended family. As the chase heated up we followed her up I-10 North to I-40 East. We could never quite catch up as she sped past the New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma borders (apparently the “don’t mess with Texas” signs didn’t scare her one bit). We tried to head her off at a family reunion, but by then she had already ducked out with a larger group to visit the 200 acre farm that’s been in her family since Indian Territory days. We tracked her back to Oklahoma City, keeping our distance while she tried her hand at the shooting range. We were sure we’d nab her after a stint on stage with a live band during an open mic session, but because the place was occupied by mostly family members, her clan made it possible for her to slip away yet again. We were just about ready to give up, especially when we lost sight of her on a middle-of-the-night road trip heading back down I-40 West. We decided to stop by her house in Arizona to regroup and come up with a new strategy of pursuit. As luck would have it that’s where we found her. She was fishing scorpions out of the pool so she and her band of summer lovers could take a dip. We hid behind the potted herbs (long dead after several weeks of neglect in the merciless desert heat), and nabbed her as soon as she popped out of the water. Sorry it took so long folks. She gave us a run for our money, but we’ve managed to capture your missing writer and put her seat back in its seat.