Bears and Chairs

Stan Here:

Sitting here and reflecting a little on the vacations we have had over the years and so far this one is working out good.  I might recall what I thought was one of our finer vacations. About 4 years ago Deb and I visited Alaska. We rented a car in Anchorage and toured many parts of that State.  When you go on vacation with Deb you live somewhat on the adventure side of things.  You stay in small out of the way cabins, you eat in small out of the way restaurants with checked table clothes. And you do about everything that can be seen and done with the time that you have.  We were there on June 21-28 and I recall it never gets dark. Plus for me the scenery was a little over the top.  I was planning on some mountains but this place somehow redefines what a mountains looks like, how streams flow, what is the meaning of BIG and perhaps what it means for people to march to a different drummer. Somehow the people that choose to live there have a sort of frontier mentality.  The guy who's Bed and Breakfast we stayed at a few nights offered to take us up in one of his small planes. Whenever he would see a moose he would dive down on it to show us.  I finally asked him when he got his license.  Somehow the answer indicated  he had never bothered to get one because he had been flying all of his life. I was not sure if this made me feel good or bad but it is true that many of the people there have some sort of plane and many of them use them to get around that state.  He even had one with tundra tires for landings on all sorts of terrain.  For me I was plenty glad to use the one with floats and have him land us on a few small lakes in the wilderness.  He would check out a hunting cabin and then off we would go again.  I do say to people to try and not let their life get away without seeing this place and I still stand on that.

It was also quite striking that just about everywhere you see signs on what to do if you encounter bears. For black ones you stand and make some noise and hit them with whatever you have and for Grizzlies you do run but you play dead.  We did see a few of these things and I think playing dead would not be a problem when a heart attack would have already have taken place if I had a close encounter with one of these things.  At one point we saw a sign  by the side of the road.  I do not think it was one of these state signs but maybe a private sign at one of the places we stayed.

 It said something like this:
 It is important for tourist to know the danger of encountering bears. 
Always carry pepper spray and try to wear bracelets that you can buy locally that have small bells that will tell of your presence so that you do not surprise a bear. Black bears will generally avoid human contact.
It is also important to know the signs of bear and one way you can do this is to recognize the different types of manure they produce. Black Bear Manure is dark in color and is seen in small piles. Grizzly Bear manure smells like pepper and has small bells in it.

I think  this sign was meant more as a joke but at least it did make a point.  Well enough about bears.

This vacation seems to be more about chairs.  At least we are here at Hilton Head. The sun has been shining. Some golf is being played. (not yet by Deb) Some nice restaurants are being visited. On a one to ten scale the pain that Deb faces resides someplace at around the 4 level and all in all we are having a nice time.  Like I said once before you can feel bad at home or you can feel a little better when you have your family around and are at a nice place.  We had a good trip down here. Stayed in Knoxville and drove the rest of the way the following day. Instead of being all that active Deb is more often found using some of the nice chairs in this place and right now we are watching a pretty good movie about some guy that some how gets stuck on the ocean with a tiger in his lifeboat.  It is called "Life of Pi". Not sure it is all that real of a story but it is interesting. As the story goes though it looks like both the boy and the tiger are going to survive. Thats what we are doing.  I am starting to think that if Deb has been able to survive this so far she will somehow find a day that many of the issues she has endured will somehow reach a conclusion.  In the meantime we will avoid the bears and tigers and enjoy the chairs and the comfort of this time with her family.

And that is the real story for now.

Stan
P.S. I have not done anything on my blog for a long  but I did write something the other day again. I does have a decent joke which seems like it fits with world events right now.