Chromatic Podfic Challenge

Just got back from a four-day mid-week trip. We drove into the Mojave desert to the place where dad spent the majority of his youth (2nd grade to 11th grade). At the time it was a dude ranch where my grandfather owned the dairy cattle, while a wealthy LA lawyer owned the land. Thus the cattle provided a backdrop for visiting folk to ride past when visiting the property.

The ranch is one of the few places where the Mojave river comes up from underground and flows through a narrows to create a fairly lush grassland in the midst of desert. When I was a child my father would take me on camping trips along dry riverbeds, and into the surrounding mountains of the Mojave basin. I know we visited Victorville a few times as a child, but I think any memories I have of the place merge with some of the other family trips. So it was good to revisit.

From there, we went to Sequoia national park for some big tree hiking.

So, retirement has meant mid-week trips. It's also meant I finally feel like I can carve out time for more reading. I'd been meaning to read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" for a long time, which is an examination for why some areas may have developed technologically a certain way and others did not. It's not a new book, so a lot of the ideas have well permeated society. e.g., in Eurasia and Africa, people have domesticated large animals, and farming, which results in diseases passing from animals to people through dense populations. The germs part of the title.

But all the driving did result in my writing a short story when I got home. It's sort of about the book, but also about time travel. Mainly a result of a lot time to think while driving across some occasionally boring landscapes.

How the T****cs Came to Conquer S***n Somewhen (1784 words) by fresne
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Original Characters - Relationship
Additional Tags: Time Travel, Mild Language, Guns Germs and Steel the Fates of Human Societies (a book)
Summary:

Arguably, the most significant moment in history was when Charles Peters read “Guns, Germs, and Steel”. Unfortunately, he was the result of a go fast and break things society with and a certain amount of self-entitled d**kery. Aka the possible story of how time travel had absolutely intended consquences for somewhen.


I also did some work sketching out a story I've been thinking about writing for several years, a retelling of the Lais of Bisclavret, but a werewolf in 1900s ish California. In part because I've already written a retelling Le Fresne in 1900s ish California, and I would like to retell if not all the lais, at least some of them. I'm in the process of editing the audio version of the fresne novel right now, and since I am tying the stories together (there are twins who blink and you miss them in Le Fresne that I'm putting into the werewolf story), it's good to sketch out one to make sure they don't contradict / mesh.

Mind you, it'll be notes for awhile, because see also finishing current project + travel + political action + other stuff.