Memphis Vacation: Part 1

Normally, I wouldn't post about a vacation or something else in my personal life because I like to keep a lot of that separate from this blog. But I found the coolest bookstore while shopping with my Grandma in Memphis. It's called the Booksellers of Laurelwood. As far as I could tell, this bookstore is locally owned and not a chain. And they have approximately 250 author signings a year. 250! They had an entire bookshelf (along with a couple other spots) devoted just to signed stock. It was heaven, except for the fact that I already owned most of the books that I would read that were signed. Recent authors that had signed stock in the store included Rachel Hawkins, Meg Cabot, Sophie Littlefield, Heather Brewer (Christen, my girlfriend was so pissed that she missed it! Heather is one of her faves!), and Sarwat Chadda. And these were just the Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Young Adult authors. So I picked up a signed copy of Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda. I forced myself to only get book one, just in case I didn't like it and because I didn't want to splurge too much.

We also got trapped in the only Borders left in Memphis. It's not as bad as it sounds. There was a really bad storm in the area at the time, but it didn't look too bad where we were staying. I had a 50% off coupon and wanted a latte, so we decided to drive to Borders. It looked like we missed the storm completely, but in reality we just beat it there. When we went to pay, we were told we weren't allowed because they wanted everyone in the back of the store and away from the windows (the registers were right next to the door). Everyone was freaking out because the rain was really coming down, and the sky/clouds had turned slightly green. This is often what it looks like when there are tornadoes, and the employees were worried the midwest has had sooo many tornadoes these past couple months (we actually passed an entire neighborhood completely flattened by the tornadoes while driving through Alabama... it was devastating). But I've lived in the Orlando area since I was six, so tornadoes, while scary, are nothing new to me. It only took about ten minutes for the storm to clear enough for us to pay and leave (we got coffee while we were waiting), but it was just weird to be trapped in the bookstore because it was like a dream come true. Lol.

Anyway, there's going to be another vacation post later on in the week, once I upload my zoo pictures because I figure everyone loves pandas! And don't forget to enter my two giveaways! They end on Tuesday and Wednesday (links at the top)!