bear with me!

LANGLEY, WHIDBEY ISLAND, WASHINGTON -- Hi! I'm Teddy, and for the next year I'll be traveling with my friend Sue Frause. If you don't know Sue, she writes that travel blog that's so fun to read, and out of the kindness of her non-bear heart, she's letting me write my very own bear blog!

Sue and I met in Philadelphia. That's where she adopted me while at the SATW (Society of American Travel Writers) Western Chapter conference. You see, every year SATW has a Traveling Teddy program, and when nobody else in the room volunteered to travel with me (what's with that...bear discrimination?), Sue raised her hand.

But Sue is really just a surrogate "mom" as my real "owners" are the first grade students of Gail Ghiozzi at the Garin School in Brentwood, California. Now don't confuse this with the Brentwood near LA that was made famous by some guy whose name sounds like a morning breakfast drink (OK, that's OJ for you folks who aren't trial junkies). This city of 30,000 people is located 40 miles east of San Francisco in East Contra Costa County.

These kids are pretty awesome. For the next school year they will be visiting all seven continents through their social studies and science curriculum. They'll learn mapping skills along with identifying continents and oceans as well as study people and their cultures. And of course they're curious about the plants and animals of each continent. And that includes bears, I'm sure!

Each student will have a suitcase of "artifacts" that they collect as they "travel" around the world. The collection will include art projects, writings and other information. They will even have their passport stamped as if they were truly on the road. Hmmm...I wonder if Sue has arranged for a passport for moi? I mean if I go to Fran