<p><strong>Most useful thing I took with me on this tour</strong></p>
<p>My MacBook Air. I wondered whether the screen was big enough, and the machine fast enough to cope with everything I threw at it over two weeks. Wonder no more. Yes it&#039;s a bit sluggish at times. But its combination of compact size with a decent keyboard and screen means I pull it out and work at odd moments when I&#039;d never bother with a bigger machine. I&#039;ve edited, emailed and jotted down notes in crowded coach seats, on trains, in airports. I never found the screen or the keyboard too small. This is my road machine from now on.</p>
<p><strong>Strangest question of the tour</strong></p>
<p>&#039;Wouldn&#039;t your books be easier to read if the characters didn&#039;t have Italian names?&#039;</p>
<p><strong>Best new toy</strong></p>
<p>My new iPod Touch. Coupled with Boingo&#039;s £3.95 a month wifi coverage worlwide and Skype this gave me email and phone calls all over the place. If I had a UK phone or iPhone the data charges would have been horrendous. Definitely a discovery. It can flick to new slides in presentations too.</p>

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<p><strong>Best hotel of the trip</strong></p>
<p>The Arctic Club Seattle. Lovely place, helpful staff and they had the room ready at 10.30 am as promised which helped enormously with the video interview was planned. Definitely the place I will use when next in Seattle.</p>
<p><strong>Worst hotel of the trip</strong></p>
<p>The Hotel Zaza, Houston. Gloomy, unfriendly, overpriced, and a tiny room to boot. And nowhere near anywhere else to eat, on foot anyway. Not good.</p>
<p><strong>Nicest airport</strong></p>
<p>Bob Hope, Burbank. Small, easy to navigate and with a very friendly security chap who actually smiled and at me with genuine warmth and said &#039;Good morning&#039; as if he&#039;d meant it.</p>
<p><strong>Nicest airline</strong></p>
<p>Horizon. Friendly staff and small planes. Things that come in small packages - planes, airports, book stores - always seem much better somehow.</p>
<p><strong>Nagging must do that won&#039;t go away</strong></p>
<p>Going back to Seattle means I&#039;m determined to get <a href="http://davidhewson.typepad.com/standalones/epiphany.html" target="_blank">Epiphany</a> revised and in print in the US finally.</p><p><span style="font-weight:bold;">Strangest thing...</span></p><p>The fact that three of the people who came in to Seattle Mystery to have their books signed were also called Hewson. Don&#039;t meet many of them normally.</p>