Author: Thomas Gondolfi

8/7/24-8/9/24 Visiting with friends My friends in Spearfish are long time friends.  Heck, he taught me to play D&D some 45 years ago or so. We’ve been gaming and sharing. Nice stop before I get back home to something resembling normalcy. 8/10/24-8/12/24 The sprint home: 1233 miles To my great surprise, the trip home didn’t…

They say that Fate is a cruel taskmistress. I believe it to be so. As if this trip already hadn’t had enough surprises, the road home gave me one more twist. I drive an eco diesel pickup—the Maroon Marauder (as I call her). The newer diesels have an ingenious method for reducing emissions. They spray…

Ok, I’m heading the farthest east I’ve traveled with TANSTAAFL Press. But, along the way, I’m stopping at Bruce Graw’s house for a visit and to pick up some things I had shipped there (I was short of some books and business cards). I did dinner with his sister, we went and saw a couple…

While not exactly planned, I had a full week plus to kill before GenCon and it was only about 6 hours away. So, with the heat of the summer and the issues between my generator and AC, I decided to find a state park to camp in. I found one about 90 minutes east of…

**I’**ve got lots of time to make it to KC. It’s only about an 8-hour drive and I have 4 days to make it. So, I’m taking time to smell the roses. Well, ok, laundry and dishes and cleaning the trailer. It was well over 90 degrees and my aircon/generator combination wasn’t keeping it cool…

Well, I stopped along the way to visit with some relatives… ex relatives? My niece and sister-in-law from when I was married to my first wife. I’m still on good terms with them and dropped by for a nice lunch. Very friendly and we had fun catching up. Afterward, Google Maps has taken me off…

Vacation time – Black Hills, SD I’ve lived for 12 years in SD. Got my degree here and much of my formative years. So the city is familiar, as anything can be 35 years later. One of my favorite childhood memories is going fishing up in the Black Hills. BTW… If you have never been…

Castle Rock, WA to Rapid City, SD Three days of driving. If you’ve ever taking a long road trip there wasn’t anything you haven’t seen. Uneventful. The only unusual thing is that I prepared for hot summer weather and it rarely broached 70 degrees F. Mostly it stayed in the 50s and overcast. Occasionally, I…

Oh, few but dedicated readers, you may have noticed a couple of changes we’ve made in our website. We will explain! We no longer sell books from this website! In short, it was too costly (time and money) for a number of reasons to continue. And based on sales, most of you preferred to purchase…

Goodness but we’ve been remiss in updating when and where we will be showing up. I have published what we have. I’ve only listed the shows we will likely be in. There will be others, but I don’t confirmation on some of the more unusual ones. I’m sad to say that one of our staple conventions,…