Tag Archive | Waco

Koi, They’re Everywhere…They’re Everywhere!

Nov15

On final read through of Alpha Wolf Need Not Apply, but I was on my laptop settled down to do the read, cold, rainy, and I was taking a break and found pictures of koi at the Houston gardens and wanted to share.

koi houston gardens (640x480) (2)

Japanese Gardens, Houston

koi Hawaii (640x480)

Hawaii

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Cameron Park Zoo

And another. Koi in Hawaii (daughter honeymooned there)And at the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco. I love how the bubbles were caught in the picture along with the fall colors and bits of blue sky in the Cameron Park Zoo photo.
And at the Omaha Zoo, just oodles of them. I know, schools, but also oodles.

Koi tons of them Omaha (640x427)

Omaha Zoo

Koi Omaha (640x427)

Flamingo and Koi, Wisconsin

Flamingo and Koi, Wisconsin

Okay, still giving out prizes and back to reading Alpha so I can turn it in! And get back to Viking! 🙂 <3

Alpha Wolf Need Not Apply (487x800)

Have a super Sunday!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.comkoi Hawaii (640x480)

Book Signing at Barnes and Noble, Waco, Texas

May23

book signing, Waco

Lovely time at the book signing, and if you can see in the picture (Debra Jupe’s, author to the far left), I had Kissing the Highlander, Phantom Fae, and Jaguar Pride available to sign. More autographed copies are still on hand at Barnes and Noble, so if you are looking for a great compilation of Highland novels, a fun fae young adult, or a hot and sexy jaguar shifter story, they are there!

I want to thank Lorelei for working so hard to make it a success, along with Ken, who set it up at the store. He was really wonderful and made it super special. Thanks to all our readers who made it to the store. Everyone ended up winning fancy chocolates and one won a Nook, and everyone received free drinks. Truly a wonderful time had by all!

From left to right, Debra Jupe, Linda LaRoque, Lorelei Buckley, Me (note how patriotic I am with my wolf and flags shirt), Nese Lane, and Susan Owens.

Have a super great Saturday. It’s gloomy today, and I love it. The sun will beat down on us soon enough. 🙂

Back to edits! 🙂

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear: Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

Totally Clueless

May18
Sabine Arctic Wolf and Zoerro Gray Timber Wolf

Sabine Arctic Wolf and Zoerro Gray Timber Wolf

I’m working on She-Wolf Leader of the Pack, trying to finish up edits on it, moving some scenes around which means having to change a lot of stuff around those scenes because one change changes a lot, and I was sharing the scenes with one of my beta readers from Minnesota on messages on Facebook to see if it’s working. Then I get another message from a friend, who lives in San Diego, and she warns me to stay clear of Waco, there’s been a whole lot of shooting.

So then I have to stop writing in my little fantasy world where I’m very happy and see what’s going on in the real world.

Of course, you always have lame reports just so someone can say they reported the news right away, ie, there was fighting over a parking space between rival biker gangs that left 9 dead and 18 wounded. There were 3 gangs involved. No, there were 5 gangs involved and it started in a restroom of a Twin Peaks restaurant. My daughter and SIL had informed me it was like a Hooters–scantily dressed women, drinking. We usually don’t have this kind of violence in Waco. Yes, we have crime like everywhere else.

But 150-200 bikers at one club–from different outlaw biker gangs? I was totally clueless.

We actually have a Christian biker group that meets at our library and they’re very nice. So it’s certainly not to say that all biker groups are bad. And apparently, only a very small percentage are, but these are reported to be involved in major drug crime and more.

The Central Texas Market Place is a nice place, and several new stores were just opened around the time I went to New Mexico. I do a lot of my shopping there, so I say again, I was totally clueless that anything like this could happen there.

We live halfway between Dallas and Austin, about an hour and a half, north and south of us, very much the center of Texas. We’re about 3 hours from Houston and 3 hours from San Antonio, so in the middle of all the big cities. Would we have had this deadly shootout if the restaurant hadn’t been there? From what police say, the restaurant management didn’t discourage the gathering of these biker gangs there.

Who knows. We’re so central to everything, maybe they would have just met at another hot spot. Truly, I didn’t know we had any organized crime outlaw biker hot spots to go to. But according to news reports I’ve read, and who knows how accurate they are, this one had been catering to the gangs for quite a while.

In any event, the rest of the Market Place is very family-oriented. It was a real shock to see that this could happen there. My daughter even called me from Houston, warning me they expected more trouble and not to go into Waco, and saying again I should move closer to them. I love my daughter and SIL.

Anyway, I have obedience training tonight for my puppies, and I’m seriously thinking of not going in. And I need to get something from the car dealership where I bought my car, and it’s really close to the Market Place. *sigh*

Maybe I should just stay in my fantasy world. There truly is something to be said about ignorance being bliss.

Do you ever feel clueless about things like this?

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear: Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

The Stagecoach Inn, Salado, Texas

Oct28

A lot of places had stagecoach inns at a time when the mail was delivered via a stagecoach, and it took priority over passengers. Often, their feet would rest on top of the overflow of packages and letters bound for other destinations. Certain seats had the best ride, and others could jar the rider to pieces. Stagecoach robbers were prevalent, and that’s why they had a man riding shotgun atop the wagon. Most times, robbers only wanted the passengers’ valuables, and didn’t want to kill anyone.

One of our friends had an ancestor who had robbed a stagecoach back in the day, and had been caught and hanged, though normally, it wasn’t done. Why the hanging then? One of the passengers had died from a heart attack during the stagecoach robbery. And since the robbers had given him the fatal heart attack, they were tried for murder.

This is actually a covered wagon, with the Stagecoach Inn sign. This hotel was originally called The Shady Villa Inn. Not only did those in the United States travel in covered wagons from the east coast to the west, they did the same in Canada. I was reading about some of my ancestors in Canada traveling from Ontario and further west in covered wagons. I find all of that stuff fascinating!

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This is the covered wagon–playground style. I actually used this in A Ghost of a Chance at Love, the story set in Salado, Texas.  She sees it in the present day Salado, but when she wakes up in the past? It’s gone! Just think of all the things you’d miss in the past???Playground stagecoach at Stagecoach Inn Salado 900 rhapsody

 

And here is a miniature covered wagon in front of the Stagecoach Inn. I love going to Salado. Some places make me feel I’m at home. Others, don’t. But when I go to Salado, I enjoy being there. So I wondered what it would be like to travel back in time, not a planned trip at all. A woman spends overnight at the Stagecoach Inn and finds her world turned upside down–murder, ghostly aberrations, (which several buildings there claim to have), a man in her bed who doesn’t belong, and who claims this is HIS room. All the modern day changes would be undone, and somehow she has to find her way home again. Not just home to Waco, Texas, but to the same time before she traveled to the past.

I write romances, so I can have the action, adventure, paranormal, ghostly stuff, but it’s still got to have romance. Soooo, every woman who ends up back in some distance time-travel past needs a guardian angel, right?

The ghost, and murder, and mysteries continue to haunt her. And there’s only one way to right the wrong. If she doesn’t get herself killed in the process.

stagecoach (800x533)

A Ghost of a Chance at Love

Time Travel Ghostly Romance

The past clashes with the present, and one woman finds herself fighting for her own identity in the past so that she can have a future with the man she loves–but with her ancestor’s hold over her–Lisa Welsh and Jack Stanton only have a ghost of a chance at love. 

Lisa Welsh only wishes to leave a messy divorce behind for a couple of days stay in Salado, Texas, but wakes to nightmares and a cowboy in her bed, and she has no earthly idea how he got there. But the situation gets worse when she wakes in the morning and learns she’s living in 19th Century Salado. Even more worrisome is the tall dark stranger and everyone else in town believes she’s some woman named Josephine Rogers. Only she’s supposed to be dead.

Jack Stanton can’t believe the clerk gave him an occupied room at the Shady Villa Inn, but worse, he was ready to ravage the woman in that bed—until he realized his mistake. Now the woman he thinks is Josephine, claims to be some other woman—and though he could never abide by Josephine’s fickle ways, this Lisa Welsh intrigues him like no other. Still, everybody in town believes her to be Josephine, and he steps in to help her find her way back home.

Murder, mystery, ties to family roots in the past, embezzlement and murder in the present, and a man she can’t get off her mind no matter what century it is, Lisa has no choice. She must solve the mysteries and face the troubles in her world and Jack’s or they will never be free to share the love that binds them across the ages.  

 

Print and Ebook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone ready for a trip back in time?

 

Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”
www.terryspear.com