I’ve called Arizona home since 2005. My husband Konrad and I took to the road in our 34-foot motorhome with the dream of work-camping across America. I believe we led the exodus from California way back then, and we never looked back.
After a dreadful stint at a major RV Park that will go unnamed, where they worked hubby night and day, and during which our little dog Sparky was attacked by a bigger dog, we were laying low at another park in Williams Arizona. As we waited out the remainder of the long hot summer, carefully nursing Sparky back to health and checking the web for jobs daily, we almost accepted jobs at an amusement park in Georgia – until Konrad found out he would have to shave his beard.
Then one morning a listing came up for seasonal positions at Grand Canyon. The retail manager stopped by our rig to interview us on her way home to Flagstaff, which we thought was amazing. She asked us if we would commit to finishing out the fall season – a mere six weeks. We said we would.
We had visited the Grand Canyon before, but the opportunity to actually live in the park was difficult to take in. We were soon part of a close knit community, became avid hikers and lovers of the grandest place on the planet. We worked in park stores, which carry many books on the people and places of the canyon, the Colorado River, Arizona, and the Southwest – so we learned a lot about the pioneers who settled and made lives for themselves in relative harmony with the land and the native peoples.
Almost five years later, we needed to leave the park and take root somewhere else. That somewhere is Camp Verde, Arizona – the geographic center of the state. It’s uphill to anywhere from Camp Verde, in more ways than one. But coming home, getting sight of Verde Valley from above, we sigh every time and say “That’s our valley!”
You may be wondering “who is this woman and why the long story?” Patience, dear reader.
When we moved to town, there was a bookstore where Udderly Divine is now. Remember? The health food store was in the same building. The bookstore had recently changed hands, and the new owner needed someone to run the store, so I was hired to see if it was going to fly or not. Well, it didn’t, so my sad task was to donate all the books and fixtures. That was 2010.
Fast forward to September 1, 2023… TA DA! Camp Verde finally has a bookstore again – Hole in the Wall Books. For those of you (you know who you are) who are thinking “big deal, I have a Kindle. Why should I care?”
Here’s why:
There are vast numbers of books, important books, that will never be digitized.
Authors put heart and soul into those pages. To me that is lost in a digital book.
There’s nothing like the smell of ink on paper, or the satisfaction of reading the last paragraph and closing the book.
If you’re still not convinced, stop in sometime and I’ll show you some treasures you’ll never read online.
With fond regards,
Lynn