Random Connect Points:
Reba's Stories

I’ve long been a collector of travel guides. There’s a stack on my bookshelf of books about Spain, Mexico, Italy, Thailand, France, England, Scotland, Israel and Egypt among others. Then I stopped buying travel guides somewhere in the mid-2010s when the internet put travel planning at my fingertips in real time. In today’s digital world, old fashioned travel books may seem to be obsolete. Who wants to travel with a 300-page book when the same info is available right on your phone? Not to mention, so much of the info in a hard-copy travel guide is outdated the day it’s published. For recent post-covid travel, however, I’ve become a fan of travel guides again. I enjoy going to the library and checking out a stack of books about my travel destination. I vicariously pre-travel to my destination running fingers over the colorful maps, pondering the adventures to be had in various parts of a new city. Then I pick my favorite book of the bunch and buy a copy at the local bookstore (my lat

"Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine" by Scottish writer Gail Honeyman caught my eye at the library on a book display for Mental Health Awareness Month. The cover and the title drew me in (although I ended up “reading” as an audiobook on a driving trip – the accent of the Scottish main character is spot-on). At the beginning of the book, Eleanor appears to be an eccentric young woman with a one-dimensional, rigid, and highly judgmental world view. She seems to take every experience and interaction so literally that she can’t fathom why a barista would need to know her name when ordering coffee. She's baffled at why anyone would have reason to eat in a restaurant where food is more expensive and more likely to have been touched by unclean hands. I felt the book started slow, but, as it progressed, I realized the tempo was probably part of the author’s scene-setting to lay out Eleanor’s narrow world perspective. Bit by bit, Honeyman brings the reader into the story of

When I made an impulse purchase of a shiny yellow bike eight years ago, I had no idea how much I'd learn from those 30 pounds of metal over the years. Just to be clear, this isn’t some fancy multi-speed bike that requires special shoes, flashing LED lights and an expensive water bottle. Think Pee Wee Herman on his cruiser not Lance Armstrong speeding through France. Bikes were a rite of passage when I was growing up. I treasure the photo of me and my grandfather as I sat on my first tricycle. As a tween, I loved my pink bike with the banana seat and sissy bar. The last bike I had owned as an adult was stolen from my backyard in Washington more than 25 years before. After that, it wasn’t I disliked biking … it just never came up as a mode or transportation or form of exercise. I impulsively bought the yellow bike eight years ago after spending two afternoons in Greenville riding the Swamp Rabbit Trail on a rented bike that was a perfect fit for my small frame. This one stood out pro