As some of you already know, I seemed to have developed an obsession…no… fascination…umm…let’s say a fondness for Charles Dickens. It started with an idea about a Christmas story and ended up with months of research. Although my Christmas story is finished and published, the man just won’t leave me alone. There may even be a full-length novel in the future, because Mr. Dickens doesn’t seem content with just a novella.
In the process of all this research, I started a Facebook page called “The Charles Dickens Project.” http://www.facebook.com/TheCharlesDickensProject
Every week I post summaries on the Dickens book I’m currently reading (I’ve decided to read all of his books, in order), biographical facts, Dickensian term definitions, quotes, and other fun facts about the author. I also share links with other pages dedicated to Dickens including the Charles Dickens Museum in London.
Totally unrelated to this, my daughter, Emily moved to California. Well she flew to California to stay, the moving she left with us. So on Thursday morning, at 
o-dark-hundred, as we like to call the wee hours of the morning. my husband, another couple and I are embarking on a road trip from Wisconsin to California in van filled with my all my daughters possessions. We decided that if we have to drive, we might as well make the best of it, so our plans include stopping to see as many sites as we can in two weeks.
A couple of days ago, the Charles Dickens Museum posted a link on Facebook about a fun event they were hosting. It’s called Dickens On Tour, and it’s similar to Flat Stanley. They posted a picture of Charles Dickens and asked followers to print it. The idea is to take Charles Dickens with you to interesting places and snap a picture to post online. Could this be more perfect?
So now we have an additional passenger with us for our trip across America! I will post pictures along the way of Mr. Dickens enjoying the sights. To kick off this adventure, I took Mr. Dickens to work with me on my last day before we start our vacation. It is well known that Mr. Dickens loves animals. He had many pets over the years including several dogs, cats, two ravens (including the raven that inspired Barnaby Rudge as well as Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Raven’), a canary, and a pony. Lucky for him, my day job is in a veterinary clinic. As you can see, he looked happy to be there with me, and was thrilled to meet Gibson, the dog of one of our doctors.
If you’d like to follow us on our cross country adventure, you can find us on Facebook or keep checking here! I will keep you up to date on the things we see and the places we visit.
A Play on Words 