Recently, Clive Cussler celebrated his 85th
birthday in Scottsdale, Arizona. I was honored to have received an invitation,
along with his other co-writers. I met
his two daughters and one granddaughter. (Clive enjoys telling tales of his
children, and so it was fun hearing stories from them.)
The weather was hot!
Having just returned home from Europe (researching some of the places
that Clive and I picked out for our next book together), and enjoying lovely
weather (rainy, but oh-so-cool!), I experienced a bit of shock coming home to
upper 90s and triple digits in New York, Arizona and Central California. (We’re
looking at a straight week of triple digits here in California… sigh.)
For those of you who know Clive and his stories, they
usually contain some wonderful cars from his collection. And so when I arrived
in Scottsdale at the fabulous Marcellino Ristorante, I was happy to find one of
Clive’s cars parked out front. (I believe this is his 1931 Ford Model A. Those of you more knowledgeable on cars will
no doubt correct me if I’m wrong! But since he had a birthday cake fashioned
from the above mentioned car model, I’m hoping my powers of deduction are
correct.)
And for those of you who know me, you might be surprised
that I actually wore a dress. Yikes! Don’t forget your sunglasses. Can’t tell
you the last time my legs saw the sun!
