Taste of Kiwi

We’ve had a busy couple of days with mixed results. The rafting/salmon snorkeling adventure was lots of fun. After a rainy morning the sun came out. The rain chased everyone else away and Mr. Munro and I were the only customers. I didn’t snorkel since I have trouble seeing stuff without my glasses. There were so many salmon it was easy to spot them from above. I sat back and enjoyed going over the baby rapids in the raft. (Levels 1 & 2 for the rafting experts out there)

Here’s a shot of the salmon and one of me enjoying the day.

The bear-watching portion of our trip, that we’d looked forward to for months, was really disappointing. It’s the start of the season and, of course, there are wild animals involved who don’t perform on cue. We both knew this. We saw three grizzly bears grazing on grass at an inlet when we arrived. When we arrived at the viewing area everyone made so much noise the bears moved on. Understandable from the bears’ point of view. Right at the end we saw a bear on the road. Once again the rest of the group pushed and shoved and I ended up with a quick glimpse and no photo. As I said – really disappointing. Maybe another time.

On the plus side the scenery was gorgeous and the sunset spectacular. The rainforest reminds me of our bush at home. Oh, and the sun shone for the entire afternoon and the seas were smooth. It wasn’t all bad. We’re going to put bear-watching back on the bucket list for another day.

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During the last few days we seem to have hit upon themes in Washington. Our first theme was a Bavarian one. Leavenworth is not far from Seattle (a few hours) and is a ski resort during the winter. It’s a very touristy place but still a lot of fun. All the buildings are painted with murals and we drank German-type beer while eating pretzels and bratwurst sausages. Yum! Here’s a photo of me standing at the bar.

And a photo of some of the murals and buildings. Even McDonald’s was in theme.

The next day it was a Western theme when we stayed at Winthrop. The town has wooden boardwalks and cowboy and western-type murals. This was also a fun place to stay.
Here’s a shot of the town.

The following day we drove through the Northern part of the Cascades and we had a tree theme going on. The scenery was really pretty and I kept thinking of Lauren Dane’s werewolves running around. They’re probably not situated in that part of the Cascades, but I imagined them peeking at me as I drove past. Here’s a scenery shot to finish my post.

I’ll be back tomorrow to tell you about our trip down the river/salmon and also our bear watching trip. I’m really looking forward to this trip, and luckily the weather is improving.

Happy Labor weekend to everyone in the US.

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Today my special guests are collaborative writers, Laura Baumbach and Josh Lanyon. They’re are also among my favorite authors, and I asked them to talk about writing partnerships since the idea of working on a joint project fascinates me. Read on to hear about their writing adventures. Their book Mexican Heat is due out in September from MLR Press.
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We;ve spent the last couple of days in Oregon and tonight are just over the border in Walla Walla, Washington. I’m posting a few photos today. The first is of Devil’s Tower, which is in South Dakota. We had our first snake sighting here. It slithered across the path in front of us.

Mr. Munro and I missed checking out the Million Dollar Cowboy bar last time we visited Jackson Hole. This time we made sure we visited. Here’s a photo of me sitting at the bar.

We both really enjoyed our visit to the Oregon Trail Center near Baker City. The displays were excellent and very interesting. Despite the passing of the years it is still possible to see the ruts made by the wagon trains. I don’t envy the people their long trip from Independence, Missouri to Oregon. It wasn’t an easy one.

They also had a man talking about birds of prey while we were there and he had two different owls plus a hawk with him. His talk was fascinating and it was great seeing these birds at close range. Unfortunately we couldn’t take photos. For some reason they had masses of mosquitoes at the Oregon Trail center. They were the size of small birds and very active. I hate mosquitoes! Here’s a photo of one of the wagons in the outside display.

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I’m a member of the RWA Kiss of Death chapter and while I was at conference I attended the AGM. Allison Brennan was the guest speaker and everyone who attended received copies of Allison’s books. I picked up the first one – Speak No Evil and started reading it last night. Allison’s serial killer isn’t a nice person and I worried about nightmares.

I was quite relieved to dream about Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh instead. I have NO idea why I dreamed about them but let’s just say they had a very amusing State visit to Munro House. (Who said dreams need to make sense!)

I had to get up during the night to go to the restrooms and since we stayed in a cabin last night it was a bit of a hike to get to them. It was dark in the restrooms. I turned on the light. Suddenly I thought about Allison’s book. I didn’t think there was anyone in there with me but I checked every cubicle and pulled back shower curtains to make sure before I went about my business.

I finished Speak No Evil today. I love the way Allison made her characters so real and intertwined the suspense plot with the romance. I definitely recommend her books. I’ll be starting See No Evil tonight. Luckily we’re in a lodge and I won’t need to check behind so many doors and curtains should I decide to wander in the middle of the night!

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We had a really early start this morning and were seranaded by wolves. I really wanted to see wolves but hearing them was as close as I came. Mr. Munro wanted to see a bull moose. We were actually disappointed by the number of animals we saw in Yellowstone National Park, although the park is very large and any sensible animal would stay well away from the roads and all tourists. The scenery is beautiful. I really like the mountain meadows with the meandering streams and beautiful wild flowers.

The Grand Tetons are very pretty. Once again, we didn’t see many animals but by this stage it was midday. Here’s a shot of the Grand Tetons.

We were very excited to come across heaps of cars and people since we knew it meant an animal sighting. I thought it would be a bison again. Mr. Munro said he wanted to see a @#%&* moose and we were going to see what they were looking at! Mr. Munro turned out to be right and we were able to get really close to a bull moose. He stood in the middle of a stream grazing, ignoring all the people. And I have to add here that some people really need to act a little more sensibly. These are wild animals. Here’s the photo of the @#%& moose.

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Today’s blog entry comes courtesy of Mr. Munro:

Last night, Tuesday, we went to the rodeo. Great fun. Very professional. It only lasted 2 hours but there was bareback, saddle, bull riding, barrel racing, steer wrestling, roping and there were kids chasing calves that had ribbons on their tails. There were also clowns. The cowboys and girls travel anywhere up to 48 hours to compete at the Cody Nite Rodeo.

We drove into Yellowstone from Cody where we passed a large meadow full of fire trucks, tents, porta loos, and firemen to fight the forest fire on the border of the park. We later found out that they are going to let it burn out naturally, unless it posses a risk to the Park or buildings. It was exactly 20 years ago to the day that a huge forest fire decimated Yellowstone, over one million acres of forest destroyed. The re growth is very slow. Luckily the wind was kind and it hasn’t affected our stay in Yellowstone.

We’ve seen bison, lots of bison [no threat of extinction there] to the extent that they roam across the road holding up traffic. They are not tame, each year a number of stupid tourists get the ultimate close up and are gored in the process. We saw a fox, coyote, badger, bald eagles/osprey, trout, bambies and tourists. We did see a grizzly bear that was sleeping off its meal of bison. That carcass was about 20 metres from the bear which was hidden by long grass. Every now and then it would stick its head up and did get up and wander around for a few seconds before laying down again. There must have been about 40 cars parked along the verge of the road trying to take photos. Waste of time as the bear was more than 100 metres from the road. The Park rangers were trying to keep the traffic moving but sightings are rare so everyone wanted to see. They have their own policing within the National Park service and watch out if you exceed the speed limit. Besides, if you travel too fast you’ll miss the scenery and wildlife.

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My guest today is the wonderful Nina Pierce who writes for Liquid Silver Books. She’s talking about a subject that strikes fear into all our hearts – rejection.

You’ve done it. Finished your first novel and sent it off to the editor or agent of your dreams. And now you wait. Since this one will be such a best seller you don’t want to waste precious time and you get started on your next novel. The words are just flying onto the page when the letter or email arrives. “Sorry, but this isn’t for us …”
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Welcome back to Vampiropolis!

Selena Illyria here. Yup, we’re going back to Vamp City. J. This time I’m telling Lida’s story. Lida, you met in A Fling in Vampiropolis, out now at Changeling Press. I adore her character. It’s always fun going back to Vampiropolis and finding a new aspect of the city to explore. In Discovering Passion we get to visit the Vampiropolis Museum and the Sensual District, also we learn a little bit more about the founding of the city.
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This is Beauty, the mammoth. The mammoth place was fascinating. This particular one is called Beauty because it is almost perfect. There’s a tiny tip missing off one tusk but the skull is otherwise intact with few cracks.

This is a photo of a Bighorn Sheep. We came across three perched on a rock on the side of the road. They were males and argued over the choice bits of tree leaves with loud clashes of horns.

This unknown critter caused great consternation when it tried to stick its head inside the car to investigate me at closer quarters. I moved very quickly to close the window! Hubby couldn’t stop laughing and took this photo.

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