TRAVEL TALES

Young Chang

The ones who didn’t ski went shopping.

The ones who wanted to seriously relax went to the spa.

The ones who preferred to sit back with a book did just that.

The rest of the 16-member all-female circle took advantage of Park

City, Utah’s slopes and skied.

But every night during their annual five-day January trip to Lynda

Shea’s Dear Valley home, the friends congregated in the Jacuzzi once the

sun started falling and shared stories of their days.

“We never stopped talking from 4 to 11 p.m.,” said Newport Beach

resident Candace Rice, who went on the trip. “Then we were back up in the

morning at 7 a.m. and we were talking again. Men would not enjoy our

trip.”

The group of 16 friends left 16 significant others and 35 children

behind at home, which for everyone is Newport Beach.

As they’ve been doing for the past nine years, the group took their

winter trip to Shea’s home to bond, catch up and, of course, pamper

themselves with good food and spa treatments.

Shea describes the group as a “sisterhood.” Shea met everyone in the

circle through area schools as everyone’s children were growing up,

through tennis clubs and charities and through being neighbors. The group

has been getting together once a month for the past 10 years to play Bunco, a dice game.

They call themselves the “Bunco Queens.”

Nine years ago, they started traveling together in the winter. Through

the years, they’ve celebrated each other’s birthdays and the birthday’s

of everyone’s children, not to mention their graduations and weddings.

They mourned for each other when death or other crises struck, and

they cooked dinner for each other’s families when mothers got sick.

“It’s unconditional,” Rice said of the bond the women have.

Shea added that they’re just “a group of ladies that have a common

bond of having fun and camaraderie.”

They range in ages from 48 to 55. Skiing down as a group, Rice said

they covered the mountains in number.

They visited the Sundance Film Festival and dined at Robert Redford’s

Italian restaurant Zoom.

Often they ate in -- once even with a meal of Russian caviar, fruit,

cheese and soup.

“By the time we got back from skiing and started talking, no one

wanted to get dressed up and go out ‘cause it just doesn’t get better,”

Rice said. “It’s just a very special, spiritual bonding.”

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