Clover Autrey

Flying in Arizona.

Okay, maybe not flying flying, but as close as you can get besides free-falling from an airplane.
My big sis Bekie has been skydiving for 30 plus years and as been on all sorts of teams and traveled the world to join in skydiving competitions. That's her below, the farthest to the right.

She's so in to skydiving that she moved to Arizona to be near the biggest hub of skydiving (since AZ has the best year round weather for it). She works as a pediatric nurse in Phoenix where she owns a condo, and then she bought a house 5 minutes from the airport in Eloy.

I've visited her before and did the wind tunnel about two years ago. Let's just say I was not that coordinated and the instructor didn't dare let go of me cuz...well, hello Plexiglas wall.

I thought it would be something the boys would really enjoy for a mini affordable vacation, plus get to spend time with my sister, so off we drove to Eloy in the hottest time of the year for Arizona. Yeah, the time most residents are scrambling to leave on take a milder vacation someplace else. 111 degrees outside? I defy you. Okay, maybe not. It was hot. Not gonna lie.

But timing, ya know. June was the only time all our schedules converged to give us time off.

And the guys loved LOVED the wind tunnel.

The boys were naturals at it.

Even I was pretty good the second time around. I could stabilize myself this time and not wing off out of control so that's something.

And even Bekie took the opportunity to learn new tricks since she's not that great at flying on her back. This is her working on that skill below. 52 and looks great.

That's me above. I'm holding my own position without anyone holding me in place. I impressed myself.

Kyle above, twisting and turning as though he's been doing it for years. Show off. And Tate's below looking like he's about to sprout wings.

Anyway, if you're out in Arizona between Tucson and Phoenix stop in at the wind tunnel at SkyVentureArizona They were great.

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PIMA AIR & SPACE MUSEUM

While visiting my sister in Tucson, we just had to go to the PIMA Air and Space Museum since all my guys are "plane guys".

Note to travelers: Don't hit Arizona in July. It's hot, really really hot. Even though the museum yard boasts more than 250 aircraft, we pretty much stayed around the ones in the 3 huge hangars where the fans were blowing. What? I'm not an idiot. Go ahead and walk around the acreage beneath the blazing Arizona sun in 110 degrees. I'll wait for you right here in the air conditioning.

It was fun to watch the way everyone wanted to take on the museum. Bekie and Pat strolled along with the guided tour, listening to the old aviator's every word.

Pat in his Happy Place

Kyle & Sam

Bekie

Tate and the Wright Flyer

The guide was too slow for the boys, so Kyle and Sam wandered around, climbing into the planes they could and pushing buttons, and then running ahead to the other hangers. Bekie seemed a little disappointed that the boys didn't want to listen slowly to the guides, until my guys pointed out to her some of the aircraft by name and capabilities. She just got a big dose of how this younger generation soaks up info they're interested in within nanoseconds like little computers, before zipping on to the next thing.

Tate wandered around the planes by himself, giving me the look as I lagged behind, trying to sneak his picture. Mr. Grumpy Poser was not tolerant so most my shots are of his back side or blurred as he caught me and streaked away. Rotten child. His focus was less on the planes and more on the technology.

During the first hanger tour, the boys and I were hungry and bored, waiting on the "tourists and the guide" so we schlepped into the little cafe and ordered fries. Whoa, they had good fries. We went through 3 of the 4 boxes before Pat and Bekie were finished with their tour.

F 100 or maybe F150

Then we went into the WWII Hangers. Now, these I really enjoyed, mainly because I'd just written a story centered around WWII and am planning on extending that into a series, so I took a lot of pictures. This seems as good as place to store them for research so bear with me for a second as I go photo crazy:

Fieseler Aerial Camera

Hawker Hurricane. Look at at all the Swastikas along the edge.

Summer Navy Flight Suit in Guam

P51 Mustang WWII

Tate looking through the scope to drop a bomb

Bomber Escort

WWII ammo

Bomber Bay doors

DC 3 (I think)

Mounted WWII machine gun

WWII Bomber side view

Crew used to crawl through this tube to get one from end of the bomber to the other.

WWII Mess Kit

Nazi Paraphernalia

Flight Jacket WWII

Undercarriage

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Release Day Highland Moon Sifter

Bekah McRafferty has one goal. Travel back in time and kill the Moon Sifter Shaw Limont so that billions of the human race can survive.

Yep, that was the plan until she actually meets the Highlander. He’s not exactly the evil guy history made him out to be. Creator of monsters that nearly ate mankind to extinction? Well, maybe. Maybe not.

But now that she’s jumped into the 13^th Century with the future of humanity depending on her to kill the guy she’s rapidly falling for, and with monsters on her tail, trying to stop her, what’s an assassin to do?

Highland Moon Sifter brings to a conclusion the 4-part series featuring the sibling guardians within the Highland Sorcery novels, featuring Toren, Edeen, Col, and Shaw Limont.

nook
kindle
All Other Devices

Coming in Paperback soon

I'm really excited for the brothers and sister to finally get back together after completing their own journeys and each finding their own perfect matches.

But of course I can't leave it there. This world is too much fun to play in. so even though this story arc has come to a conclusion, new journeys with new characters will begin. I also loved the dragons from The Vampire and the Highland Empath so I'm setting out to write another spin-off series featuring Highland Dragons. So much fun, can't wait to dip my pen into their misadventures.

Anyhoo, thanks for sticking through this first Highland journey with me and hope to see y'all on the next one.

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Making of Highland Moon Sifter Cover

This one took a lot of tweaking. I started out with this stock photo from Dreamstime. Well, minus the modesty slash. I saw it months and months ago while I was looking for another cover and just fell in love with this model's hair and facial expression. I bought it right then. In fact, this is the only cover model that I've ever written a character to match. Usually I just see the characters in my mind, but Bekah I wrote seeing this picture. This is her. That's a first for me.

However, even though Bekah is naked quite a bit throughout the book since time traveling doesn't allow anything material, like clothes or weapons, to go through, half-nekked people on covers gives a different impression for what's inside the book. I don't want to be misleading, so the search for a cover up ensued. That was really hard to find something that fit the way her body is twisted kind of sideways.
Finally I settled on this poncho. And it kind of fit on her. It was fun getting her arm in front of it.

I also had to get rid of the hot red jalapeno key chain she was holding since, like I said, nothing material can travel through time rifts, including red key chains. That would have come in useful in the 13th Century though now that I think about it. Too bad.

Okay so next came the background. This brown one is kind of bleh, plus as this is the last book of the series and the characters are back in 13th Century Scotland where the first book began, I wanted to have the same purplish cloudy look to it that Highland Sorcerer has. Then I thought it'd be cool to throw in the moon since Shaw gets his magical power from moonlight.