Mountains to Sea

After five days in Whistler on a writer’s retreat I came home for a day and now I fly out tonight for Hawaii to join my two Gurney guys there.  I’m really looking forward to getting some sun and swimming in the ocean and just soaking up Hawaii’s beauty.  I need it after the hectic few months where every week had one to three events and lots of writing squeezed around my many commitments.

Our Whistler retreat had its own moments of drama–a BBQ that literally was on fire and required an emergency application of a fire extinguisher, a crazy bout of food poisoning, and then my run with a bear.

I have the bear story on my Facebook page, but for those of you who don’t do Facebook, the story in short…I wanted to get a quick run in before heading to airport, headed out down this little grassy slope, was kind of hopping over the rocks and glanced to my left and saw a black bear.  He wasn’t massive, but he wasn’t a cub and I froze, and tried to remember what Barb and Carla had said about bears.  They are both Canadians and Barb lives in Whitehorse, Yukon and Carla is in Calgary and constantly hiking through Banff, so they have bear expertise.  I thought they said stare bear in eye to show him you’re not afraid, so I did that.  Then I remembered, no, don’t stare bear in eye.  Look big and threatening.  So I lifted up my arms and then felt actually very small.  I’m not even 5’3″ so with arms in air I felt puny.  Dropped arms.  Struggled to remember if running away would make me look like prey, so I kind of took a step back and another and one more and THEN I ran, up hill, staring back over my shoulder the entire time in case Mr. Bear wanted to follow.  Bear did not.  I got into the cabin.  All was good.  Except run was over.  I was done for the day.

But now its off to Hawaii with pale sand, warm water and endless sun.  And to share my Hawaii love with you, I have a special I Heart Hawaii prize for one of you–a signed copy of Flirting with Forty, the Flirting with Forty Lifetime movie on DVD, Kona coffee, macadamia nuts, sarong, and lots more really fun stuff.  Want to win?  Tell me what you plan to do this weekend for Memorial Day weekend and you’re entered!  And if you don’t feel like talking about that, talk books to me.  You know how much I love to read!!  Contest runs through Monday night and I’ll announce the winner Tuesday morning, May 31st.  Mahalo!

 

 

Leave a Comment

Your email is never published or shared.

*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

By posting a comment, you consent to have your personally identifiable information collected and used in accordance with our privacy policy.