BEARS!!!

On my long run yesterday I ran into a (black) bear family! A mama and some cubs and I think another bigger adult looking bear. One of the cubs was blonde! My picture isn't very good since I had already begun backing away but you can sort of see the blonde cub - click on the picture to enbiggen it. That was exciting. And my first bear sighting since moving to Montana. Although mama bear started slowly walking towards me, I was able to get out of sight and then sprint down the hill I was on. They didn't follow me and all ended well, other than the fact my planned route had to be changed dramatically, thus resulting in a relatively boring 30 miler.

I had planned to run to Eric and Krista's lake house at Rogers Lake, and I still could have made it, but the mileage was going to be on the long side. Instead, Ted and I met at the Cottage in Kila and he drove me to Rogers Lake. We had a nice evening and burned a cake. It seemed like the thing to do with the rest of the ginormous Costco chocolate cake that we'd pigged out on.

Finally, I wanted to post a picture of the nice present Chris' kids gave me when I left Sacramento after Diablo. Chris' daughter is a duct tape artist and I'm thinking I ought to give it a try myself :-)

The best gift ever. I mean, bright green duct tape. Who knew you could buy so many colors of duct tape! I will treasure it.