Welcome to Tyndale Fiction’s Road Trip Scavenger Hunt! We’re so happy you are here. To participate, collect the key words through all 13 stops in order, so you can enter to win our grand prize giveaway!
Some details:
- The adventure begins on Wednesday, August 1. You’ll have two weeks to make your way through all the stops (giveaways will close on Tuesday, August 14).
- While you do not have to start at Stop #1, keep in mind that the grand prize giveaway phrase will begin with the word you collect at that first stop.
- To complete your submission for the grand prize giveaway, be sure to collect the key word within each author’s blog post, submitting the final, completed phrase in the form hosted on this page.
- Also, be sure to enter the giveaways these authors are hosting on their blogs!
Enjoy the journey—we hope you’ll discover new books along the way as you hear from Tyndale Fiction authors about road trips, the settings of their novels, and more!
Happy road tripping!
-An introduction to Francine Rivers-
I cannot imagine that you need an introduction to Francine Rivers, but it is my pure joy and privilege to do so! Francine and I had the fun of getting acquainted a few years ago when the two of us took our own little road trip to through the heart of Texas while on a book tour. Francine is admired and loved for her fiction that shows the hard truths about life apart from Christ and the promise of grace and love that life holds in relationship with him. Her latest release, The Masterpiece, is an unexpected romance probing the lives of LA artist Roman Velasco and his reluctant assistant, Grace Moore. This novel reminds us what Ephesians 2:10 promises: mercy can shape even the most broken among us into an imperfect yet stunning masterpiece.
Wait, I think I hear the motor running on Francine’s car . . .
-A guest blog post by The Masterpiece author Francine Rivers-
Are We There Yet?
Alas, this is the question my brother and I asked our parents often on family road trips. Probably because my parents had two weeks of vacation each year, and they aimed for as many national parks as possible, some hundreds of miles away. Which meant long hours in the car with the “AC” of windows down and a sack of water hanging on the front grille of the car to keep it from overheating. I dreamed of one day spending my entire summer vacation in one spot, by a beach with crashing waves and tide pools, by a lake with tall trees, or by a bubbling brook. When I grow up, I’m going to drive to one place and stay there for weeks! About this time, my mom would prod me from the front seat and pull me out of my wakeful coma. “Look out the window! You may never see all this again.” Even if we were crossing the vast blinding white plain of the Great Salt Lake, or the long dusty road through the desert of Arizona and New Mexico.
Somewhere along the way, however, I caught the bug that made me feverish to get on the road again.
The longest road trip was with three other women from our church, all strong willed, all wanting to follow the Oregon Trail. We had to drive to Independence, Missouri, to start the trip! Each of us had a role: one historian, one navigator, one encourager, and one driver (me). We set off in early fall because children were back in school and high-season prices down. We stopped at local museums, ate at truck stops, stayed in hotels (our husbands would have driven by). We stopped whenever and wherever we saw something of interest, and in fifty-two hundred miles of country (to Independence and home by way of the Dalles and Willamette Valley), we had plenty of interesting spots to explore. Some were closed for the season, but we always managed to follow a school bus into the site and join the pack for the ranger-led program. Two ladies wore bonnets, which always got conversations going. I have two binders packed with historical information from that trip, some of which I used in writing The Scarlet Thread.
Rick and I have traveled almost every state in the Union. We’ve seen the fall colors in the New England states, the Civil War sites in Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, the Native American lands of Arizona and New Mexico, the big sky of Wyoming and Montana.
A few weeks ago, Rick and I returned from our latest road trip in the southwest. We hoped to revisit Carlsbad Caverns, but the elevator was broken down. The only way into the cavern is to hike the steep winding path. It would be hard walking going down, but far more difficult coming up and out. Too difficult a hike for us old folks. We visited Artesia, New Mexico, a small town with life-size bronze sculptures on main streets: wranglers and cowboys, oil riggers and book readers in front of the state-of-the-art library. Right outside Artesia was a wonderful desert museum with a panoramic view. Along our trip, we had enchiladas in Mesilla, next door to the jail that housed the infamous Billy the Kid. We drove in and around the White Sands National Park and stopped at the gift shop long enough for me to get a stamp in my national parks passport.
Because I love road trips, Roman and Grace (characters in The Masterpiece) had to go on one. I loved researching and planning that trip. They saw places I’ve been and a few I haven’t. I’ve yet to see the wildflowers blooming in Carrizo Plain or Antelope Valley, for that matter. But they’re on my bucket list.
Road trips are a blast and you don’t have to travel far. Wherever you are, there are places to explore nearby. We’re within half an hour of the Pacific Coast. An hour north is Ridgewood Ranch, home of Seabiscuit. There are giant redwoods in Armstrong Woods. If you like history, you’ll find fun spots. We’ve eaten at the Washoe House (an old stagecoach station now a restaurant), walked through the Mariano Vallejo Petaluma Adobe (early founder of California), wandered Bodega and Bodega Bay (sites seen in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds).
Wherever you are, there’s something to see and enjoy. All you need is a sense of adventure and willingness to “hit the trail.”
Summer is coming! Have fun!
Here’s the Stop #13 Important Information:
- You can purchase Francine’s bestselling novel, The Masterpiece, here, or preorder her upcoming, Lineage of Grace Special Edition, here.
- Clue to write down: fiction
- Enter the Scavenger Hunt Grand Prize Giveaway here!
Read Beth Moore’s post (stop #12) here.
Enter the giveaway below for a chance to win a $25 gift card and a hardcover copy of Beth Moore’s novel The Undoing of Saint Silvanus. And then don’t forgot to go here to enter for a chance to win the exciting grand prize giveaway!
