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Archway Publishing - Brenda Prater Sellers

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195 pages

English

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This memoir shares how a clumsy businesswoman purses a childhood dream of being published in National Geographic and experiences mishaps at the world’s most bizarre places.
As a little girl, author Brenda Prater Sellers traipsed around Prater Flats in Louisville, Tennessee, thinking she was Ansel Adams with her first, clunky, black-and-white Polaroid that didn’t work half the time. The love of that camera and the unknown turned her into not only an overzealous wannabe photographer but into a Southern, Mountain Dew-driven, M&M eating, adrenaline-seeking adventurer, skydiver, and climber of Mount Everest.
In You Slept Where? she shares her story about a businesswoman who is also a wife, mother, and a farmer’s daughter pursuing a childhood dream of being published in National Geographic, while coping with life’s struggles of her parents’ eldercare. Sellers also tells about her experiences and mishaps in bizarre locations and staying at the world’s most unique places: an underwater hotel, an ice hotel, sleeping with polar bears, or sleeping in wigwams along Route 66. Imagine the movies Miss Congeniality meets National Lampoon’s Vacation in her version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
With cost-saving travel tips and other advice included, You Slept Where? provides insight into one woman’s crazy adventures while encouraging others to create their own bucket list.

Sujets

Personal Memoirs

Biography

Autobiography

Informations

Publié par	Archway Publishing
Date de parution	12 septembre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781665722780
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

You Slept Where?

CALAMITIES OF A CLUMSY BUSINESSWOMAN

BRENDA PRATER SELLERS

Copyright © 2022 Brenda Prater Sellers.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book. The names of some but not all characters have been changed to keep them from being embarrassed. Or maybe I forgot their names. The only time individuals are modified into composites, is when combining personalities in a scene makes more sense to preserve anonymity. This also explains why over the thirtysomething year period of this book some timelines are to the best of my recollection but may have been switched for clarity and a better flow of the story.

Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-2279-7 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2277-3 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2278-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022907890

Archway Publishing rev. date: 9/7/2022
CONTENTS
Introduction and Dedication
1: Under the Water
2: With Polar Bears
3: In a Silo
4: In the Belly of a Dog
5: At the Bottom of the Grand Canyon
6: In an Ice Hotel
7: At the Airport
8: In a Red 1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille
9: In the Land of Chocolate
10: At the University of Tennessee Medical Center
11: Wigwams along Route 66
12: In Lighthouses
13: In a Shack
14: In a Death Room
15: At Momma’s House, the Praterosa
16: In a Cave
17: Over the Water
18: Anywhere and Everywhere
Epilogue
APPENDIX A: Meeting the National Geographic Photographer
APPENDIX B: How to Save Travel Pennies and Road Warrior Lessons
APPENDIX C Where Have You Slept?
Acknowledgments

Praise for
You Slept Where?

“Sellers’ memoir is clever, touching, funny, and a pure delight!” - Homer Hickam, author, Rocket Boys and Carrying Albert Home

“A witty, unique, touching, and inspiring story that will keep you entertained while vicariously visiting the most bizarre places.” - Carol Sommerville

“This is a heartwarming account of coping with parents. A bumbling female company president will surprise you and keep you laughing while trying to check off her ever growing “To Do” list of the most unusual places in the world.” – Carolyn Forster

“A humorous modern-day Erma Bombeck visits some unbelievable places to stay in order to achieve a prize-winning photo.” – Angela Massey
INTRODUCTION AND DEDICATION
“Write what you know,” instructed my writing coach at our first session of “How to Start Writing Your Book Today .” It was ten years ago when I enthusiastically wrote on a piece of paper my book idea: “I slept in a big potato.”
Sherri, the puzzled instructor, looked at me like I needed counseling.
“Well, I’m known for staying at bizarre places, so I’m going to write about my childhood dream of getting an award-winning photograph published in National Geographic,” I explained. “It’ll be a story about my calamities while trying to obtain ‘the shot’ at some of the most unusual places in the world while juggling life. The kookier places I checked off my “To Do” list, the more peculiar places I discovered,” I said, laughing.
Sherri went into journalist mode with rapid-fire questions: “What? When? Where? Why National Geographic ?”
I replied, “Because of that magazine, as a little girl, I traipsed around Prater Flats in Louisville, Tennessee, thinking I was Ansel Adams with my first clunky black-and-white Polaroid that didn’t work half the time. My love of the camera and the unknown turned me into not only an overzealous wannabe photographer but into a Southern, Mountain Dew–driven, M&M eating, adrenaline-seeking adventurer, skydiver, and climber of Mount Everest (although I didn’t do so well) on a lifetime tangent.”
“What’s your motivation?” Sherri asked.
I paused to reflect. “Well, all girls have dreams, even gearheads like me. I grew up as a tomboy on a farm, the middle child between two brothers, to become a businesswoman in corporate America. I was a farmer’s daughter, a wife, and a mother, but my childhood competitiveness took me from a receptionist to president of Chroma Graphics, also known as CHROMA—a global manufacturing company and a leader in licensed graphic accessories in the automotive-aftermarket industry—while multitasking in other businesses along the way.”
“What do you want readers to gain?”
“As a businesswoman, I turned into a detailed list maker with an over-the-top “To Do” list that grew faster than Daddy’s soybeans. In the end, I hope to inspire readers to make their own lists and experience places they never knew existed.” I added, “With all the traveling I did for business, I want to include an appendix with tips and lessons learned, including cost-saving ideas.”
“Who would be your characters?” Sherri continued.
“Well, we have one son, Dustin, but we also helped raise fifteen other ‘kids’ whom we call our own, but that’s another story,” I began. “The foil of this story is Big Ed, the husband, but like Ernest T. Bass in Mayberry, Big Ed appears only occasionally in the chapters at some of these weird places. He’s an army military intelligence veteran and undercover investigator. I never knew what he did exactly, nor did I ask. He had no idea how my wacky escapades on my “To Do” list would change our lives forever.”
Sherri stared and I continued.
“Oh, and there’s Bertha, another main character and lifelong travel companion. She’s not alive, although I do talk to her. She’s my suit bag.”
Sherri raised one eyebrow but didn’t inquire further. “Writing a book will be one of the most overwhelming projects you’ll attempt,” she warned, “but remember, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Start writing today .” Then she closed our session, asking, “Who is going to buy your book?”
“All the folks who want to live adventures from the couch and need a good laugh. But I dunno.” I thought more. “I bet my momma will buy a copy. She loves to read. I caught the photography bug from her. She had a Ciro camera. So I’ve dedicated this book to both my parents, Harold and Katherine Prater, since it also includes some of their stories and resilient journeys.”
Ten years, thirteen writing seminars, six consultants, more writing coaches, and reading other authors’ work to learn later, I launched a website to show readers chapter-by-chapter photos of these odd places. Big Ed’s and my photo scrapbooks fill two rooms with close to a thousand albums. We have a pending application with Guinness World Records for “the most albums/scrapbooks in a single household.” (If you have more photo albums, we need to talk.)
My quest for “the shot” has taken me to sixty-nine countries and earned me a two-million-miler status on Delta Airlines alone, all while living life, but mostly laughing.
Thank you for allowing me to share my stories. I’m humbled, honored, and usually hungry.

Visit the website www.brendapratersellers to see chapter-by-chapter photos:

CHAPTER ONE
Under the Water
JULES’S UNDERSEA LODGE— KEY LARGO, FLORIDA
N aked and shivering, I quickly wrapped a towel around myself.
Moments before, as small fish darted in the green water of the lagoon, I had struggled out of my fluorescent-pink scuba wetsuit and peeled off my tight two-piece bathing suit underneath.
We were thirty feet underwater at Jules’s Undersea Lodge in a crypt-like vault, only fifty by seventy-five feet. A large grayish blob loomed in the porthole.
“Big Ed, there’s something out there!” I exclaimed.
The blob slowly edged closer.
It looked vaguely like a manatee. I grabbed my camera and waited eagerly for the manatee, or whatever it was, to come closer.
This is it. With joy in my heart, I thought, This’ll be the photograph I’ve waited for my whole life: my National Geographic -worthy shot. Having a passion for manatees and envisioning a close-up encounter with the teddy bears of the sea, I clutched the towel tighter with one arm as I tried to focus through the glare of the porthole.
In my daydreams, the photo I was about to take would appear on newsstands everywhere. Even busy passersby would stop and stare at my image of the manatee’s sweet egg-shaped face, cute little wrinkles, bushy whiskers, and sad cow eyes. People would pause, smile, and say “Aw.”
But my magazine cover-page fantasy burst like a cartoon bubble when the manatee image became two nonmanatee shapes looming closer.
We were supposed to be alone . What, or who, was approaching ?
“Big Ed, get up. Get up.” My husband was stretched on the couch in his sweatpants, not happy about the underwater pilgrimage in the first place. He moaned, mumbl