I have returned from the wilds of northern Michigan! It was a great trip, and the fact that my email took at least five minutes to load made it a little easier to concentrate on revising Band Geeked Out (a draft of which I sent it yesterday! Huzzah!).
Things that didn’t make it easier to concentrate on revising included playing Apples to Apples with my extended family, eating pesto, kayaking, singing folk songs, walking out to the lighthouse and…hmm…there was something else. Oh, that’s right -
BEING TERRORIZED BY A BEAR!
Hard to tell from this picture, but the bear was, like, two seconds from eating our faces off.
Well, technically the bear was not much bigger than a large dog. And it was in the water, scared out of its mind. And we were in a sizable boat 15 feet away. But that still counts as being terrorized, right? RIGHT? (The bear was okay, by the way…it swam across the channel and jumped right out of the water and ran into the woods.)
Other than that, though, it was a relaxing vacation. I’m glad to be back to my precious internet and the Olympics and some downtime to read a few books off the top of my reading pile. And, of course, there are always new books to write…
I made it through the cave! The whole experience was weird and challenging and I’d recommend it to anyone who thinks that being surrounded by millions of pounds of rock sounds kind of fun. And if you think caving sounds horrible and maybe the worst idea ever because you don’t like confined spaces, two of the people in my group claimed that they were claustrophobic at the beginning, and then said they totally got over it by the end. Yay for overcoming fear!
Cave Opening: Just as creepy as it appears.
I’ve never really had issues with being claustrophobic, but I did manage to have one small-ish personal crisis as I was going through a spot called “the keyhole”. The opening was about as big as an average-sized computer monitor and, you know, not exactly designed for a human body to fit through comfortably. I got stuck and panicked for a minute, considered bursting into tears and demanding that someone come get me (how? With dynamite of course!), but then managed to talk myself through and squeeze out. The below picture was taken moments after I realized I probably wouldn’t be stuck down in the cave forever:
I was somewhat relieved. Also, extremely dirty.
The only other really hard part was fighting off the 60-pound mutant albino cave bat that attacked our group as we were leaving and…oh, wait. That was just a story idea. Whew.
Tonight I’m going caving (like, legally…with a local outdoors group. I’m not sneaking in anywhere and getting lost, Tom Sawyer-style, though that would be all sorts of awesome. For, um, a little while at least).
While I am excited about this trip, it could potentially lead to a few different things:
A) One or several claustrophobic mini-panic attacks and a sudden desire for a pet canary,
B) The discovery of a fantastic new life-long hobby or at least a cool, adventurous evening that doesn’t involve staring down a computer,
C) Me getting very muddy and sore and possibly covered in bat droppings,
D) The formulation of an epic new story idea involving hidden treasure, skeletons, falling stalactites, and miniature cave-dwelling Cloverfield monsters, or,
E) All of the above (likely).
I’ll try and take pictures…don’t worry. Well, maybe worry about me in a cave, but don’t worry about the chance I won’t take pictures. If I get a good one, I’ll post it later this week!
