1. On long road trips when having to drive only 55 miles an hour because we are towing a trailer, those people passing by going 90 miles per hour seem to be going a million miles per hour in comparison to us.

Don't forget that your main character in that super fast car isn't the only person experiencing what is going on in the book. There are so many others also experiencing it. How does that old man feel when the super fast car drives by and splashes him with muddy water? How does the little girl in the ice cream shop react to the speeding car zooming noisily by outside on the street. How do the people in the slower cars react when the fast car rushes by so fast that it rocks their own vehicle on its wheels?

2. I live in small-town Texas, so there are often rifles on racks in the trucks that park in the parking lots.

Sometimes I wonder what they do with those rifles. Oh sure, I know they are used for deer hunting and shooting coyotes (yes, we still have those), and sometimes target practicing with beer cans, but it's more fun to imagine what they could be up to. Maybe they are the good guys, sneaking around in their cowboy boots and just hoping to find a real old west outlaw behind a large bale of hay. Maybe they are the bad guys, putting on their black cowboy hats and pulling their bandanas up over their nose to go in and rob the... feed store? Well, who knows, but my imagination can run wild. Especially when the men who climb out of the trucks are in shorts and cowboy boots.

3. We drove by one of those large, holey, silver cattle haulers on the highway. Man, we must have great timing, because right as we come up to the back of it, a cow poos, and we end up with a nice big spot of poo slapping our windshield. Ew.

Very, very ew. And so, I, of course, turn my thoughts to action and adventure.

Maybe, just maybe, that cow is trying to send us a signal that it is in danger. Maybe it is even a rare talking cow secret agent, and she... well. I guess I am stretching it a bit there. How about this one.

Imagine riding the range back in the old west. Or even in the new west - cows are cows, not much has changed about them in the past several hundred years. I'm new out there, or maybe I am even city-folk of the investigator kind. Preparing for the range, I bought myself some brand new duds, including some fashionable cowboy boots with a light brown bottom, and pink up the sides. I swing my new boots out of the car in preparation to walk up to the door of the man I need to interview, and they plop right into... that's right. Cow poo. A big load of cow poo. The fancy boots I bought myself in preparation, well, they just don't cut it.

4. I am rather clumsy, especially when it comes to ice. I have found myself in all sorts of embarrassing positions on the ground after slipping, sliding, and waving my arms trying to keep my balance.

Now, imagine a chase... on ice! Both the chaser and the chasee are slipping and sliding all over the place, trying to keep their balance up and their bodies propelling forward - one to get away, and the other to catch up. Antics can even get rather hilarious, especially if one of them falls and starts scooting along on their bottom, or finds another way to move.