Vacation has its benefits and drawbacks

By Rebecca Petersen | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, July 12, 2008

Returning from vacation. Someone should write a book about how one does this successfully and painlessly. First of all, you never remember what day it is. Your desk is piled with mail and things that all need to be done immediately. Your voice mail is clogged and has to be deleted. You have meetings scheduled on top of each other because you just weren’t thinking before you left that you probably would need some space.

So, you vow that next time you’ll remember to follow the rules of sanity and come home a day early or just clear your schedule and don’t tell anyone you’re back.

But vacations and travel are so important. They give you a chance to see how other people live. You see incredible landscapes and you actually do chill out for awhile and have a little thinking and breathing room.

Our vacation included the North Dakota Badlands, Glacier National Park, The Black Hills and lots of driving and camping between those destinations. Daughter Sarah is working in Glacier National Park. If you’re out that direction stop in and say ‘Hi.’ She’s working at Swift Current in an Italian restaurant and doing lots of hiking on her days off. She took us on two fabulous and gorgeous hikes — one on the trail where she ran into two grizzly bears just the week before.

That’s correct…not one but two juvenile grizzlies who, though juveniles, were at least eight-feet tall when they stood up.

Here’s her e-mail to her parents: “As far as the grizzlies go, I've never been so scared in my life. Hiking alone is a bad idea. I went for my first hike of the season and was coming down from Grinnell Glacier, kicking at a lot of bear scat and thinking, ‘My, what a lot of bear poop!’ I rounded a corner and saw a bear with his back turned to me about 20 feet away and then another stood up behind the first. I was close enough to tell that they were juvenile grizzlies. Hump on the back, pointy ears, and that concave face; they're pretty impressive animals. I had enough time to get out my bear spray and take the safety off, but they were curious about me. My whole body was numb, but I totally kept my cool and just held the bear spray in front of me while I backed up talking to them calmly. They followed me for a bit but then they took off into the woods. I think they preferred munching on berries to munching on me. I'm going on a hike today before I work at four, but I promise I'll bring somebody with me.”

We also saw two grizzly bears on two separate occasions while we were visiting, but they were up high (probably a mile away at least) which was fine with me. In addition we saw two moose, several big horn sheep and a plethora of birds of every shape, color and size.

It’s rugged and beautiful country. You spend a lot of time thinking about what originally brought people like Lewis and Clark to these parts and what adventures they must have encountered.

Speaking of adventures — I plan to spend this weekend in the comfort of Waage Theater on the MSCTC Fergus Falls Community College Campus enjoying “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” Theater is such a wonderful medium. It allows you to enjoy these adventures from the safety of your theater seat.

The play runs this weekend (Saturday at 7:30; Sunday at 1 p.m. and next weekend (Friday through Sunday, all shows at 7:30 p.m.)

So, perhaps the theme of this column is “the art of survival,” — both when you’re in grizzly bear country and when you return from vacation. I know I’ll sleep better this week. I love the fresh air, but I don’t sleep that well in grizzly bear country — but I do sleep well when I’m trying to recover from returning from vacation. I guess there are trade offs.

Rebecca Petersen is the director of A Center for the Arts in Fergus Falls.