Updating Travel Books aka We need post Covid Disney

 

3-1-2024

Don’t hate me, but if you’re reading this the weekend the newspaper comes out, I’m lounging in Florida. This is probably my last vacation with my daughter and just like the last two, it’s really about her dance team. The biggest difference is that this is a school team, which means her coach is responsible for her. I will see very little of her. Instead, I’ll be hanging out with other senior moms who didn’t want to miss their daughters’ last dance performances any more than I did.

The competition is held at Disney World. Emma performed there with her dance studio in 2018, we took her there on a family vacation in 2015, and we took her older sisters there on a family vacation in 2005. Needless to say, I feel very comfortable about my Disney know-how. Except, Covid. I haven’t been there since and the families are receiving conflicting messages about the continuation of changes such as park reservations. Plus, parks make changes from time to time as well. For my fifth trip as an adult and my first not at the mercy of a child, perhaps I should educate myself before we leave.

To that end, I took a look at our Disney World guidebooks all of which were published pre-2020. Updated ones were promptly ordered and skimmed by me before being added to the To Be Processed shelf. I have reservations for Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant time to eat at Les Halles Boulangerie Patisserie at Epcot. I have my priorities.

Upon my return, we will be holding interviews for the children’s librarian. Questions are ready to go and we have four candidates scheduled. After interviews is the background check and offer. Fingers crossed I’ll be introducing someone new by mid-March.

Only after that will I allow myself to dive into the new books I am itching to read. If you a mystery reading, I may have gushed over the Jackman & Evans series by Joy Ellis I binged this summer. She is an English author without an American publisher so few know her name. I took a chance and purchased the first three books in the series. Now we have all ten and at least ten patrons reading them. I few weeks ago I took another chance on the first three books of her original series with DI Nikki Galena as the main investigator. They went over well, so rather than ask Dodgeville to be the only library in Wisconsin with that series, we now own them all as well.

Reading Now: A Killer in the Family by Gytha Lodge, 1984 by George Orwell, Old Filth by Jane Gardman

Listening to Now: Hexed by Kevin Hearne (Second book in Iron Druid Chronicles)

PS - I'm back so there is no longer a need for jealousy. I finished several books including the title by Gytha Lodge. It turned out to be the sixth book in a series I will be recommending to my Joy Ellis friends. I found the first book in Libby and read half of it while traveling yesterday between the airport, plane and broken down bus.