Beachin' in Florida - Where are you, Travis McGee?

Coffee and John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee Novels.

Years before moving to Florida I read every one of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee Novels, twenty-one of them in all. I fell in love with Florida, sight-unseen, and knew that I had to live there. A couple years later I stepped off a plane in Daytona Beach, Florida and instantly knew I'd found my tropical paradise.

Now here I am, thirty-one years later, and still in love with Florida. Only now I live on the Florida Panhandle on the beautiful Gulf Coast. It's one of those mornings where I'm remembering the Florida from all those years ago compared to the Florida I see today.

There are definitely lots of changes. The cities and towns have all expanded until they run into each other. So much of the Florida I remember from years past is now paved over.  Millions more people have taken up residence here. Tourists flock here from around the country and around the world. Florida is still beautiful, but gone are the sleepy, slower-paced, sultry days of yore.

I'm sitting on my trellis-covered patio sipping coffee from a Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay, Florida coffee mug and reading John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee Novel, A Deadly Shade of Gold. Now I ask, where are you, Travis McGee?

In the 1960s fictional Travis McGee lived on his houseboat, the Busted Flush, docked at slip F-18 at Bahia Mar in Fort Lauderdale. Travis McGee was a one-man, super-hero, crime-fighter, living a laid back life in paradise. He took down drug runners, thieves and thugs. On top of that, he was an environmentalist fighting to save the Everglades, the Keys and the rest of south Florida from corrupt developers.

After John D. MacDonald passed away, Travis McGee slowly disappeared. These days it's difficult to find anyone who has even heard of John D. MacDonald or Travis McGee, let alone read the books. How can that be? My local library doesn't have a single one of the books. They're difficult to find in a bookstore and only now and then does one appear in a used bookstore or garage sale.

I used to own all the Travis McGee Novels, but when I moved from southern California to Florida, those books mistakenly got left behind. Not too long ago I was able to buy three of the books at a used book sale at my local library. Someone donated a few of the novels to the library. I bought three and another lady bought three. I scanned every single book at the sale and couldn't find any others.

So I'm now the proud owner of A Deadly Shade of Gold, Pale Gray for Guilt and The Empty Copper Sea. I'll keep looking at used book sales and will eventually collect all the books once again. This morning I started rereading A Deadly Shade of Gold. Ahh, Travis McGee, I've missed you so.

The world was a simpler place back in Travis McGee's time. Maybe the bad guys were easier to spot? And maybe one guy could make a difference? But then Travis McGee was just a fictional character and the real world was more complicated than that.

Well, I've missed Travis McGee and now I've found him again. I intend to savor every minute as I reread these books. Travis McGee does exist in my mind. He's still sitting on the Busted Flush sipping a cold one and enjoying another spectacular Florida sunset. I'm sitting there with Travis McGee and we're talking about going fishing tomorrow. Or maybe we'll be fighting some bad guys? You just never know.

For those interested in reading the Travis McGee Novels, they can be ordered online from your favorite online bookstore and are also now available as eBooks. Here's the series, in order, but don't hesitate to pick up any of the books and read them in or out of order. I guarantee you too will fall in love with Florida and Travis McGee.

The Travis McGee Novels by John D. MacDonald:

The Deep Blue Good-by
Nightmare in Pink
A Purple Place for Dying
The Quick Red Fox
A Deadly Shade of Gold
Bright Orange for the Shroud
Darker than Amber
One Fearful Yellow Eye
Pale Gray for Guilt
The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper
Dress Her in Indigo
The Long Lavender Look
A Tan and Sandy Silence
The Scarlet Ruse
The Turquoise Lament
The Dreadful Lemon Sky
The Empty Copper Sea
The Green Ripper
Free Fall in Crimson
Cinnamon Skin
The Lonely Silver Rain

Think Pink

A neighbor's Pink Camellias.

Now I've never been all that crazy about the color pink until I had identical twin granddaughters who happen to love the color pink. After buying bunches of pink baby clothes, toddler clothes, little girl clothes, well, I've developed a kind of fondness for the color in all its varying hues.

I'm a redhead (now faded and almost blond???), so through the years I rarely wore pink anything. But these days I have pink t-shirts, sweatshirts, socks, undies (Oh,my!), alarm clock (a pink Hello Kitty alarm clock, a Christmas present from my granddaughters), silverware and even a set of pink cut-glass glassware.

In fact, as I write this post I'm sipping on a pink wine cooler (chardonnay and cranberry juice) in one of my pink glasses. So I've definitely started to "Think Pink."

I've always loved Pink Flamingos and even have a beach cover-up adorned with pink flamingos in sunglasses. Hey, I live in Florida and we love pink flamingos here. In fact, I've threatened more than once to decorate my front yard with plastic pink flamingos, but my BFF, Regina, says she'll stop being my BFF if I do that. On the other hand, my Dear Hubby, just shrugs and says to buy the pink flamingos if I really want them. So far, I'm just thinking about it.

I happen to love flowers and think that pink ones are absolutely gorgeous. So come spring I'll have an assortment of pink flowers in my yard and in flowerpots. At the moment, the azaleas in my yard are more red or fuchsia color rather than pink. But the pink ones should be blooming before too long. A neighbor around the corner has beautiful pink camellias (see photo above). Now I'm wanting to plant some pink camellia bushes in my yard too.

When I decided to write this post I put together a list of pink books. That's a list of fiction and non-fiction with pink in the title. Yes, I love to put together lists of books. Why? Because I happen to love books in every shape and color and in just about every genre.

My granddaughters, just turned four, highly recommend Victoria Kann's Pinkalicious Books. So if you're looking for some fun storybooks for little girls, then you might want to get these. I've enjoyed reading the books to my granddaughters, so I can recommend them too.

I started reading romance novels way-back-when on the day I discovered some of Barbara Cartland's charming romances in a used books store. I've loved her books ever since and read them from time to time. So I was totally delighted when Barbara Cartland's The Pink Collection was released. These are books that were previously unpublished. For fans of Barbara Cartland, this is a treasure trove of sweet romances. I read the first few published and absolutely loved them and definitely look forward to reading more.

One of my favorite "pink" reads is John D. MacDonald's Nightmare in Pink. This is the second book in the Travis McGee series. I love every one of the books in this series set in south Florida. These are definite keepers. Read just one and I know you'll be hooked. Check out my 11/1/12 blog post, "Florida is a State of Mind," for a list of the series in the order of publication. You may be able to find these books in your local library or in used book stores. Otherwise, these books are still in print and are also available as eBooks.

Now for my "pink" book lists. This first list is Young Adult Fiction (in no particular order):

My Life in Pink & Green by Lisa Greenwald
Only Girls Allowed (Pink Locker Society Novels, #1) by Debra Moffitt
Harsh Pink (Teen Series) by Melody Carlson

Pink Fiction (that's fiction with pink in the title and in no particular order):

The Pink Rose: Secrets, Love and Betrayal by Alicia Roberts
Pink Slips and Glass Slippers by J. P. Hansen
The Pink Lady (A Victorian House in Cape Cod) by Elaine Joyce
Pink Slippers (A Fun, Flirty Novel) by Gina Robinson
One Pink Line by Dina Silver
Pink Jinx (Jinx Series) by Sandra Hill
Shocking Pink by Erica Spindler
Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink by Stephanie Kate Strohm
Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit (A Midnight Louie Mystery) by Carole Nelson Douglas
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (Pink Carnation Series, #1) by Lauren Willig
Pink Balloons and Other Deadly Things (Mystery Series, #1) by Nancy Tesler
Death, Taxes and Hot Pink Leg Warmers by Diane Kelly
Pink (Shades of Style, #1) by Marilyn Griffith
Tickled Pink by Christina Jones
Pink Sky & Mourning (Ruth Chernock Series) by Kim Scott
The Pink Flamingo Murders (A Francesca Vierling Mystery) by Elaine Viets
Lawyer Geisha Pink (Rattlesnake Lawyer Series, #6) by Jonathan Miller
The Hot Pink Farmhouse (A Berger & Mitry Mystery, #2) by David Handler
Tickled Pink by Rita Rudner
Pink Freud by Patricia Barrett
The Cop with the Pink Pistol by Gray Basnight
The Pink Tricycle by Alan J. Oliver
Pink Satin by Jennifer Greene
The Pink Panther by Max Allan Collins

Pink Non-Fiction (books that looked interesting, in no particular order):

Pink Boots and a Machete: My Journey from NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer by Mireya Mayor
In the Pink: How I Met the Perfect (Younger) Man, Survived Breast Cancer, and Found True Happiness After 40 by Susan McBride
Running Pink: Deborah De Williams' Inspiring Story by Megan Norris
When Life Hands You Pink Lemons by Nicole Briamonte-Malato

I have to say that the pink non-fiction books listed above all sound quite inspiring.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog. I hope you enjoyed this "Pink" post. If so, you might want to check out a couple of my previous posts: "Passionate About Purple" (posted 2/16/13) and "Seeing Red" (posted 1/24/13). I'm an artist, in addition to being a writer, so I'm in love with color. So please check back from time to time as I write posts of every color in the rainbow and then some. In the meantime, don't forget to "Think Pink."

Passionate About Purple

Purple Pansies in my flowerpots.

  

Purple happens to be one of my all-time favorite colors. Why? I haven't a clue, except that the color seems to call to me. So you see, I'm passionate about purple.

As an artist, which is something I do when I'm not writing, I love to paint, which means I love colors. So I love using purple in all its many shades in my landscapes, seascapes and florals.

One of my favorite childhood books is Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O'Neill. It's a book of poems about colors. I still have the book my mother gave me all those many years ago. It was a favorite which I shared with my daughter when she was young and which I now share with my grandkids.

Another kid's book that I've always loved is Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson.

One of my very favorite books is Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage. Lassiter is a to-die-for-hero. And I swear I can smell the purple sage. I've read this book more times than I can count. It's simply awesome! Amazon offers a free Kindle version of Riders of the Purple Sage, but some of the original story was edited out when it was first published back in 1912. The Leisure Books Edition, if you can find a copy, is the restored version before those edits. I've read both. The Rainbow Trail  is the sequel, published in 1915. The Desert Crucible  is the Leisure Books Edition, also hard to find, which is the restored version.

If you want to know more check out:  Zane Grey and Riders of the Purple Sage (on Wikipedia)

Another one of my all-time favorite "purple books" is John D. MacDonald's A Purple Place for Dying. This is the third novel in the Travis McGee series. This is an awesome series of books, definite keepers. Unfortunately, the series is quite pricey in eBook or paperback editions, so you might want to check your library or used book stores first. In a previous post I listed all the Travis McGee novels in order (see post dated 11/1/12, "Florida is a State of Mind").

If you want to know more about this great series check out: Travis McGee (on Wikipedia)


Tiny purple and orange Violas in my flowerpots.

Now back to my passion about purple. I happen to love the color in all its varying shades. I particularly love purple flowers, so I currently have purple Pansies and purple and orange Violas in my flowerpots (see flower pics in this post).

I have a neighbor with a purple Dodge Charger, so obviously I'm not the only one who is passionate about purple. I haven't gone to that extreme with the color purple, but I do have a purple cover on my Kindle Fire and I have purple t-shirts, socks and even purple undies (Oh, my!). I'm also a big-time NFL football fan and have two favorite "purple teams": the Minnesota Vikings and the Baltimore Ravens. Hey, what can I say? I love the color purple.

Now for those who regularly read my blog posts, I usually add a list of books. This time it's a list of fiction that has purple in the title. Some of the books are well known and others not so well known. Although I haven't yet read any of the books listed below, they all sound like great reads. All of them are available as eBooks.

Purple Fiction (in no particular order):

The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Purple Roads by Fleur McDonald
The Purple Cloud (Classic) by M. P. Shiel
Purple by Graham J. Sharpe
Night of the Purple Moon (The Toucan Trilogy) by Scott Cramer
The Purple Shroud (A Novel of Empress Theodora) by Stella Duffy
Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick
Knight of the Purple Ribbon by Jennifer Wells
Purple Moon (Shadow Guardian Trilogy) by Judith P. Vaughan
Kiki Loweinstein and the Purple Passion (Short Story) by Joanna Campbell Slan
Talking Dogs, Aliens and Purple People Eaters (Ellora's Cave) by Shelley Munro
Purple Shroud (A Yorkshire Dales Mystery) by Susan Parry
The Meaning of Purple Tulips by Blaithin O'Reilly Murphy

Purple Non-Fiction (in no particular order):

I Shall Wear Purple by Linda Mather
If It's Purple, Someones Gonna Die: The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling by Patti Bellantoni

If you've enjoyed my "Passionate About Purple" post, you might want to check out my "Seeing Red" post (posted 1/24/13).

Once again, thanks so much for stopping by. Since I love colors, I'll be doing other color posts from time to time. A special passionate shout-out for the color purple. GO PURPLE!

Florida is a State of Mind

A typical Florida day at Navarre Beach.

I fell in love with Florida years before I moved here. A childhood friend of mine had vacationed in Miami and came home with stories about the beautiful beaches, palm trees, a rainbow of flowers, bright blue skies, huge white marshmallow clouds and water that went on forever.

To a Southern California beach kid, I think I was seven at the time, Florida sounded like paradise. I vowed then and there that someday I'd go to that exotic land.

Through my school age years I read what books I could find at the library and learned about crocodiles, sea turtles, dolphins, manatees and colorful fish. I was hooked. I was also surprised that the state didn't have any mountains. How could that be?

The west side of Navarre Beach.

I've always been in love with the beach, so heading to Florida, a state surrounded by beaches, was just a dream away. I could envision swimming in those turquoise waters and building sandcastles in that sugar-white sand.

As years passed I met more and more people who had either vacationed in Florida, lived there or intended to travel or move there. I kept that goal in mind as I went through college and started a family. Florida was out there, on the other side of the world it seemed, just waiting for me.

Sometime in my mid-twenties I was introduced to the wonderful Travis McGee books by John D. MacDonald. I raced through that series and knew that Florida was where I belonged.

Eventually, my husband, Ben, and I moved to Florida. By that time, his parents had retired to the Florida Panhandle and mine were working on the east coast, in Daytona Beach. So we also had the excuse of moving closer to family. It was also a great place to raise our daughter.

We started out in Pensacola, on the Florida Panhandle, just minutes away from the Gulf of Mexico and those beautiful beaches I'd been dreaming about all those many years. After a year we moved to Ormond Beach, which is a bedroom community right next to Daytona Beach. A couple years later we were back on the Panhandle, in Fort Walton Beach. The next year we were living on a bayou off Escambia Bay.

The east side of Navarre Beach.

Florida is a state of mind, one of exotic sights and sounds and smells. In the years we've lived here, my husband and I have traveled from one end of the state to the other.

The Keys and Key West are favorites, so is Sanibel Island. Orlando is exciting with Disney World, Epcot, MGM Grand and Universal Studios. The Everglades is filled with those alligators I'd read about as a child and every kind of bird you could imagine, my favorites being Great Blue Herons, Egrets and Osprey.

The best part of Florida is the beaches, every kind of beach you can imagine. The beaches of Miami and Fort Lauderdale are trendy. Sanibel beaches are wall to wall seashells. In Daytona Beach you can drive along the sand. In the Keys, the beaches are thin strips of sand with turquoise waters in every direction. The Panhandle beaches are sugar-white sands, sand dunes covered graced with gently waving sea-oats and the most beautiful turquoise and emerald waters you've ever seen.

A view of Navarre Beach from the pier.

I fell in love with Navarre Beach from the very first moment. Back then, thirty years ago, only a few cottages and motels were built along the beach. You could walk at water's edge for miles if you wanted and only see a handful of people.

Now there are high-rises built along the west side of the Navarre Beach Pier and untold numbers of huge beach houses. The west side of the pier has been left in its natural state with the exception of a scattering of picket fencing designed to protect the sand dunes.

My husband and I have lived in Florida off and on over the last thirty years. We moved away to Las Vegas for eleven years, but frequently vacationed back here and checked on our bayou house that was rented out to a succession of renters.

When my husband retired we moved back to our bayou house, which had to be renovated after renters tore up the house and hurricanes took out dozens of trees. Living on the bayou was never the same after Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and Hurricane Dennis in 2005.

Our house was built on tall pilings, so it didn't flood. But most of the other houses around the bayou flooded out and many were never rebuilt. After a couple years we sold our house and moved away to the Texas Hill County. But like I said, Florida is a state of mind, and it didn't take us long to move right back. Plus, our daughter and grandkids are here, so we're back in Florida to while away the days.

The Pier Bar at Navarre Beach.

We now live only a couple miles from Pensacola Beach. If we had the energy, we could walk or ride our bikes over the bridge, but we don't have that kind of energy these days.

Our beach days are only now and then, for leisurely strolls along the beach or sitting under beach umbrellas and gazing out at that turquoise water. Florida is a place to dream about warm sun, tropical breezes and paradise.

I'll be doing a lot of Florida posts this month, so please check back for more photos of other Florida beaches, the Everglades, the Keys, Sanibel Island and even Orlando. This is a beautiful, exotic state and I hope to share it with you all.

For those who know I love to add lists of books to my blog posts, here's one I'm sure you'll enjoy. As I already mentioned, I fell deeper in love with Florida while reading John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series. So here is a list of those wonderful books in order. All the series is now available in eBook format for those, like me, who love to read their books on a Kindle, Nook, iPad or other eReader.



Floridians fishing on the Navarre Beach pier.

The Travis McGee Series by John D. MacDonald:

The Deep Blue Good-By
Nightmare in Pink
A Purple Place for Dying
The Quick Red Fox
A Deadly Shade of Gold
Bright Orange for the Shroud
Darker than Amber
One Fearful Yellow Eye
Pale Gray for Guilt
The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper
Dress Her in Indigo
The Long Lavender Look
A Tan and Sandy Silence
The Scarlet Ruse
The Turquoise Lament
The Dreadful Lemon Sky
The Empty Copper Sea
The Green Ripper
Free Fall in Crimson
Cinnamon Skin
The Lonely Silver Rain

Me on the pier with the beach high-rises in the background.

I've read every single one of the Travis McGee books and highly recommend them all. I guarantee that you'll soon fall in love with Florida too.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my book, Bayou Blues and Other Sorrows, which is a collection of eight short stories and eight poems, many of which originated from the years when we lived on a Florida bayou.

The cover on Bayou Blues and Other Sorrows is from a photo I took of a sunset on our bayou. Yes, Florida is a state of mind.

BAYOU BLUES - Amazon/Kindle/US

BAYOU BLUES - Amazon/Kindle/UK

BAYOU BLUES - Barnes&Noble/Nook

BAYOU BLUES - Apple/iBookStore/itunes

Bayou Blues and Other Sorrows is also available at Sony, Kobo, Diesel and Smashwords.

Bayou Blues and Other Sorrows is a collection of short stories and poems touching on issues that all may face at one time or another, from lost love to life changing crossroads to moments of pure happiness. These are heartwarming stories you won't want to miss.

The short stories are:

"A Kiss is Just a Kiss" – People are not always who and what they appear to be. A kiss is not always just a kiss, it may have consequences.

"I Love You, Joe Montana" – This is a story about love renewed.

"Checking Out" – There are many crossroads in life. Check out? Or is life too beautiful to leave behind?

"The Night of the UFO" – Pure happiness can come at the oddest of moments. So how many Whiskey Sours do you need to see a UFO?

"Earthquakes" – Some people enter the world with a bang.

"Faded Love" – Faded love is better than no love at all.

"Harry's Garden" – How far will a scorned woman go to get even with her cheating husband?

"Old Dogs Need Love Too" – A story about love lost and love found.

The poems are: "Bayou Blues," "Cartwheels," "In a Café," "Sweet Lips of Time," "Barefoot," "Sunshine and Promises," "The Turtle," and "Tumbleweeds."

I hope you'll give Bayou Blues and Other Sorrows a try. These are heartfelt stories and poems which I believe you'll savor and enjoy.

As always, please feel free to add comments below. I love hearing from my readers. Also, feel free to add Florida books that you have written or your favorites from other authors. Be sure to check back from time to time for more Florida posts.