I had a good reason for being away from the blog last week: I was in Washington DC, in the Rolling Thunder ride.

Some of you may remember I ride myself, but not for this. No way. I sold my Harley a couple years ago because with writing and my health issues, I just did not have time to ride. My bike was not suitable for long trips anyway. For this, I rode on the back of my husband’s Harley, a super-comfy Ultra Limited touring bike, which is made for long trips.

Yes, we rode all the way from Ohio to DC on his bike, accompanied by a couple of rider friends. We were blessed with good weather the whole way there, and while we were there, and only encountered a bit of rain on the way home.

While there, we did some sightseeing, and I got to spend a night with a couple of my best friends from high school who live in the area. It was great seeing them and their little boy.

The parade, a.k.a. the Run to the Wall (referring to the Vietnam Memorial), was on Sunday. I met back up with my husband and our friends at the Pentagon, then did the ride through the city. Fun, but also really makes you think about the reason we have Memorial Day–to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country.

This was the ninth year my husband has been to Rolling Thunder. He thought attendance was down from past years, but according to the official Facebook page, there were almost a million bikes there. Definitely a worthwhile and fun experience!

This Marine salutes for the entire duration of the parade – about six hours for all the bikes to go past. He never lowers his hand! This year, he had his bride with him.

Riding through downtown DC

What I read this week: I didn’t have time to write while away, but I did get some reading in. This week, I read Love and Oreos, by Elizabeth Bemis. This is a contemporary romance, which is not really my thing unless there’s suspense or a paranormal element. This had neither, but I had to check it out, as Elizabeth was one of my very first critique partners, many years ago when I just started writing. This was a cute, lighthearted story of a plus-size ad agency creative director and her hottie client who owned a fitness center. What was especially well-done about it was the heroine. She’s overweight, loves good food (like chocolate), and hates exercise. Wow, can I relate! But it was also nice to see how she learned to enjoy healthy food and some kinds of activity. What I really liked was that she had lost a little, realistic amount of weight over the course of the book, but wasn’t skinny by its end–and the hero loved her as she was. I had not read this book in any form before, but I will have read the next book in the series, Friendship and Fortune Cookies, as it’s one I critiqued. I’ll be interested to see how much it’s changed since then. If you enjoy contemporary romance, I definitely recommend these!

ROW80 Update: Time’s Dilemma came back from the copy editor right after we returned home on Monday, so I dug into that right away. Completed my edits, and now it’s in the publisher’s hands again, and should be out in ebook form within a week! I’ll post an update here on the blog when it’s out, but if you’re dying of curiosity now, you can check out the book page. For this week, I need to go back over the next book in the series, which is Book Three in the linked novels. It’s about half drafted, and I need to determine what’s there that’s good, and what needs to go.

What about you–did you do anything fun or exciting over the holiday weekend? Or for those not in the US, any weekend recently? Have you read any good books lately? How are you doing on your goals, whether writing-related or otherwise? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.