Our second teaching gig was for the wonderful and interesting Glenys Mann (you will get to meet her shortly…next blog.) It was located about an hours drive up the west coast of the North Island in New Zealand.
The flight into Wellington was a little hair raising. The runway for the Wellington Airport is SHORT and the wind between the two islands can just whip. They closed the airport for a time the next day because they had gale force winds. The Kapiti coast is beatiful.
Glenys put us up in a great little motel next to the school where the forum was held the view outside our unit was great: green, mountain, and sheep.
But that really describes ALL of New Zealand. David’s class was good, a mix of beginner and expert beaders. 
Everyone seemed to come away feeling like they had accomplised something, even if that was only a small handful of samples! Thanks for a good time! We also met some wonderful people from the other classes. Kathryn taught the lamp working bead class and Jenny was one of her students.
Joan is an amazing fiber artist from San Francisco who we had a really great time getting to know…hoping for an invite to SF soon.
Lastly, this was something David found walking to class one morning. They tell us it’s an eel. 
What I’d like to know is what was it doing in the middle of the sidewalk and how did it get there? Are they able to climb on land and can it get into my bed? Eewh!
October 13th, 2007 at 9:21 am hugs from Portland..fun to see/read of your trip…thx oh and Ron? I have read that eels have small functioning legs which retract under the stress of discovery, so that might explain how they got to the sidewalk but not into your bed…too many people around….xoxoxo
October 14th, 2007 at 6:35 pm Hi guys, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE reading the blog. I lived in Wellington,, NZ for 4 months in 1983 and for fun we used to go to the Wellington airport to watch the planes land on the “short windy” runway. You brought back wonderful memories!! For me anyway, maybe not for the people landing in the airplanes. Hope you are both well and still having fun! Love, Christine
October 16th, 2007 at 3:02 pm Eels can travel distances over wet grass, they don’t have legs but wriggle their way to the next water on their way to where they want to go.
October 17th, 2007 at 11:48 pm Baaaaaa!!!! Now I really AM jealous! What a wonderful trip to some amazing places — and sheep! Does it get any better?
October 21st, 2007 at 8:34 pm Loved the beach picture–looks very inspiring and healing. But the eel–well, it just looks icky.
November 24th, 2007 at 5:26 pm Hi Ron and David -have finally found a moment to wander to your blog…some several months on from encountering you at Kapiti. bits of it have made me laugh until i sobbed. Anthony Bourdain could take lessons. BTW love the pic of Ron in the damp ecoprint scarf