This week I was traveling for my day job, attending conferences and meetings of such importance, they defy description. During the course of my travels I slept in a bed so big it needed its own zip code, at a spa hotel in Richmond, VA. A very nice pool also featured.

From there we raced across the state to Abingdon for another meeting trying to save the world, and my first stay ever in the famous Martha Washington Inn, home of one ghost, two dining rooms, three spas, and about 400 books in its first-floor library. The library featured hardwood floors, high shelves with sliding ladders, deep wing chairs and complimentary port after 8 pm. I also enjoyed their lovely glassed-in pool with tropical plants (downstairs, not in the library).

It was all so very nice, but dear Lord, thank you for my little bookstore that smells of foster kittens and dusty books and customers wearing too much aftershave to cover the cigarette residue. Thank you for my bed above the shop with the lumpy mattress and the dog who stretches out diagonally across the bottom of it so I have to curl up in fetal position, and the husband who snores loudly by my side, hogging the summer blanket.

Thank you that we got to open our bookstore, that I got to write about it, that it’s still here, and that the people–customers, friends, staff, and casual visitors–are some of the salt of the Earth.

East or west, four poster king-size bed and olympic-sized heated pool notwithstanding, home is best.

Big Stone Gap, je t’aime.