Return from Vacation Alive - Check!

I am back from a week of paddling in the Canadian wild! Tan, rested, raring to go. We kayaked for five days in 80-degree weather: lounging on white sand beaches, paddling protected aqua waters, drinking red wine from our beachfront campsites while watching the sun go down.

Oh, there was mouse poop and banana slugs and snakes, but compared to last summer's Alaskan grizzlies, they didn't disturb me at all. Starfish and sea lions were our main animal companions on this sun-dazzled journey in the Broken Group Islands off west Vancouver Island.

We did, however, have on exciting wildlife encounter. Here's a snippet from an article I'm writing about it; you'll just have to wait until it gets published to read it all! (And if you haven't ready my article about last year's Alaska paddle, you can download it in PDF format here).

I’d just put down my book and pulled my sleeping bag around me when a loud noise broke the silence of our coastal campsite. Crash! Snort!Indeterminate rustlings!

“What the--?” Dave sat up straight. He peered out into the night through the door of our tent but his headlamp didn’t make a dent in the blackness. My mind groped at possibilities. My heart launched into a rock and roll beat. Deer? Wolf? Escaped prisoner in a murderous rage? Bear?

Now it's back to the grind (granted my "grind" is rather slow these days) but also to the dreaded MOVE. Yes Dave and I are moving back to my condo in Queen Anne for long, boring reasons I shall not go into.

Just pray for us, that's all I can say. Hope that there is not a repeat of our dramatic meltdown of the last year's move, which involved me topless and sobbing in a heat wave throwing bottles of household cleaner at Dave. (Although if there is a repeat this year, we really hope to catch it on video).

xo, Rebecca