As you can imagine (or maybe you can't), vacationing with three little ones isn't the most relaxing activity and "let's go for a run" isn't the easiest thing to do. My original schedule had me running on Friday night and then I was going to fit in a run Sunday morning before we left. I was going to take Monday and Tuesday off and then run when we returned home on Wednesday. I would still be meeting my goal of running three times a week. Well, I ended up working that Friday and Rich had somewhere to be Friday night. Me home alone with three kids sleeping equates to no run. I ran on Saturday instead.
When Rich asked if I was going to bring my running gear to NH, I thought why not? With the girls older and Grammy there to assist, I may be able to fit in a run. If not, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
And then we saw this sign on the side of the road shortly before the turn for our hotel.
So I know that we're in the mountains and I know bears are around and I know that they normally don't attack people but unfortunately, a few weeks earlier I had stumbled onto some images on the internet that I'd rather forget. Let's just say that it's related to bears and what they can do to people.
Here's the road leading into our hotel.
Looks perfect for bears.
I told Rich that I wasn't too keen on running in that area and it seemed to not really matter because there were no opportunities to run on either Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday morning, Rich was up before the girls and woke me up asking if I was planning to run.
"When we get home," I responded in a loud whisper.
I'm not a fan of rolling out of bed and running. It takes a long time for my body to wake up and I need some cherry diet Pepsi in my system for that to happen. So off Rich went solo and guess what? That's right. He saw a bear! It came out of the woods onto the road in front of him. They both stopped and looked at each other. The bear crossed the road and went back into the woods.
I would have had a heart attack.
We ate a quick breakfast at the hotel and then headed off to the pool so that the girls could swim before we had to check out.
Good-bye, New Hampshire. Good-bye, mountains.
6 comments:
I live in Alaska, so I know all about the bears. When I first moved here I would run on this one trail all the time by myself with my dog. Then one day about a year or two later someone tells me about how many people have been attacked and/or eaten on that trail by bears. I haven't been back. I know there are bears all over. I even saw one walking down the road in my neighborhood a few weeks ago. I almost always carry bear spray on me now when I go hiking or trail running now for that reason, and rarely will ever go alone anymore. I know its rare to actually get attacked by a bear, but I'm scared. I even had a bad encounter with a moose a few weeks ago and now I am kind of afraid of them.
Adorable pictures! Em jumping in the pool is so sweet. :)
With the headbands Grammy makes, do you know where she gets the base headbands? I want to make some headbands myself but don't know where to purchase the base headbands.
Becky - the bears here usually don't attack (small brown/black bears) but to me, a bear is a bear. Eeeek - I've never heard of bear spray.
Kathleen - She's purchased a bunch of them at the Dollar Store!
omg, I would have been terrified! And the answer is no...I wouldn't run with bears around. I can't run fast enough if I saw one! ~Jenn
www.twobytwomom.com
I'm from Lake Tahoe and we have bears all over the place...they even come in houses looking for food. It's a big problem, but you learn to live with nature. Also, in one of your landscape pictures, the mountain tops look like a huge dragon/flying creature among the clouds - it looks cool if you can see it!
hi sarah,
I just wanted to tell you how much i appreciate your detailed posts on your trips. we live in mass too and are planning a story land/santa's village trip (we'll be going this sunday) and your posts have helped me prepare so much. we picked the white mountain hotel based off of your review as well. so thank you for taking the time to do them, i'm sure they're pretty time consuming but so helpful for us readers.
Perri
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