Book Tour Day One:

We started The Hummingbird Book Tour with a 5.6 earthquake in San Diego. Now, any earthquake is loads of fun, BUT when you're on the 11th floor of the Hyatt it's even more fun! The bed started bouncing, then the room started bouncing, then the hotel began an elegant swaying motion. It was almost like a Disneyland ride.

Cindy and I made our way to the San Diego Open Air Book Festival in Hillcrest. I wasn't sure what I was gonna find. In fact, I expected about 25 people to show up. The bookstore hosting my reading had ordered 60 copies. I'm happy to report, however, that when the crowd showed up, Cindy quit counting at 300. I couldn't even get to the microphone because 30 people immediately lined up, asking for autographs. I felt bad because I only had an hour and there was a group waiting to go on after me. My signing line was about 200 people long. Needless to say, the host sold all of their books. Warwick's Bookstore brought theirs as backup and sold all of them and all the other bookstores sold all of theirs, too. I honestly couldn't believe it was happening.

There was family there and a lot of my high school pals. But mostly it was people who simply liked the book. That is at once intoxicating and sobering. At one point, a gentleman battling AIDS simply wanted to be embraced. So I did. That will probably be the high point of the tour.

Tonight will be the reading in Del Mar. I plan to surprise the audience with a raffle of Sue Myle's beautiful Teresita ornament. The postcards are turning out to be as popular as I'd hoped they'd be.

Thanks for staying in touch. I'll write more as we go along.

Luis

# posted by Luis @ 11:52 AM