Thanks to all of you on Facebook who expressed concerns for my well-being after my post about the Jack London Inn. We’re in Zion National Park now. All is well. We escaped the scary, creepy hotel early not much worse for wear, thankfully. But before we left, I called down to the front desk to see if we could get a coffee pot in our room and was told that they were all in use. Maybe when someone checked out I could have one, the clerk told me.

“Let’s get out of here!” I said to Bill. “I have a mind to see if I can get Kayak to take this place off their website.”

“Shhh,” he said. “Don’t say that so loudly. Keep your voice down.”

I thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t. He wore a serious look of concern.

Anyway, we had a great day planned the day we checked out, so we needed to hit the road. We drove through Berkeley, and I had coffee with Laura M, editor of my most recent publication (with my co-editor, Susan Tive), Beyond Belief. I’m such a relational person that publishing has been a tremendous blessing to me in that once you’re working with a publisher, you’ve got a team of people invested in your book. Laura–and Eva, Seal Press’s publicist–have been important in my publishing journey. I was very much looking forward to putting faces to names and voices I know well on the other end of the phone.

Laura showed me around the Seal Press digs and introduced me to the whole crew. I even got some insight into some of her favorite soon-to-come book projects.

I knew about six years ago. when Seal decided to publish Second Wind, that I’d found a special publisher, but while I was in the office meeting friends face to face and looking at the shelves of quality titles Seal has put out, I felt lucky once again.

After leaving Berkeley, Bill and I drove down highway 1 to see the coast of California.  If you haven’t done this, you should. Our West Coast rivals the Great Ocean Road in Australia or the road down to Cape Point in South Africa. Craggy rocks and crashing sea call out for drivers to stop every few miles just to gaze backwards from whence they’ve just come.

But for me the best part of the drive was just north of the town of San Simeon where the Elephant Seals congregate. I love sea wildlife, and seals are some of my favorites because they’re so unafraid of humans. They’ll look you right in the eye if you can get close enough.

Check this out.

So, a hard night was followed by a delightful day. That’s how it goes.

Now we’re checking out Zion and Bryce before heading to Arizona. Stay tuned for more pics.