Ethan’s Journey

 I was feeling sorry for myself today as I was trying to catch up from work. I really have no reason to complain after being on vacation. There were just so many emails. I felt like the girl in the movie Silence of the Lambs and my emails were the guy with the bucket peering over me while I was in the hole with no way out. I put in about a 10 hour day and feeling overwhelmed because I wasn’t near being caught up. After I made dinner (while in a meeting, my camera was off), I immediately was trying to get my travel costs reimbursed. I got a bill in the mail from collections saying the insurance company reversed $3700 worth of payments on Ethan’s bill from 11/2020. These are charges that have been paid, reversed, paid again and now reversed again. I don’t even have the energy to deal with this almost 3 year long battle. Maybe I should submit my hourly rate to someone and ask for reimbursement for all the time I have put into dealing with this. I probably would have enough to retire. ...

 We finally arrived home around 9:15 am. Still sooner than what they projected at the airport had we rebooked our flight.  We got about 4 hours or a bit less of sleep last night. The house needed some love so we spent some time completing jobs around the house that needed to be done, including washing all the shelves in the refrigerator, bathing all the dogs and tons of laundry to name a few. We took all the dogs for a walk tonight. Penny was most excited. Jiminy petered out on the way back. Poor guy was so tired. We all felt exhausted. Avery napped. Paul was running slow. I hit a brink wall this evening and will hopefully sleep it off tonight. Tomorrow is a new day. We loved our trip. 

  The alarm went off at 2:15. We had about a 3 hour drive to where we needed to return the car. Then a 15-20 minute shuttle ride to the airport.   Since I had the bear incident, I was a bit nervous about us driving at night. Paul was doing the driving but I was the extra set of eyes. I don’t think he really understood how fast these animals were until we passed a car that was off the road with its 4 ways on. The front of the car was smashed in, airbags deployed and windshield smashed! It was clear he hit something big. The car was off the road on our side of the road, but facing us as if he crossed over our lane into the grass. I got out the passenger side to walk over to see if the driver was ok. I paused a moment to prepare for the worst.  Was this person alive? Conscious? Badly injured?    Was I going to have to deliver life saving measures? As I approached the car, thankfully the driver got out to indicate he was ok and the rangers were on the way. Phew! In ...

 Today is my birthday. The big 4-6. I started my day with a leisurely morning with Avery and Auntie Julie. We didn’t have a plan other than to drive toward our next destination. For not much of a plan, I had the most exciting birthday ever! The first place we went was a bakery. For breakfast, I ordered a pesto, mozerella, tomato waffle. We then ventured toward Lamar Valley. We were driving along and all of the sudden this black thing darted quickly in front of me. I slammed on the brakes. All of the items in the car shifted forward from the jolt as I saw something dart from the right side of the road. Holy crap! It’s a bear! Woah. So close to the car. I was able to snap a few pictures as he continued on his way. We continued on, even though that made for a great birthday present. We stopped at a few overlooks that showcased fantastic views and history about the features which were done well. It wasn’t as people-y today.  We then came across a heard of bison close to the road. ...

 Avery and I separated from the crowd today while they did a couple of hikes. We had a leisurely morning of relaxing in bed, browsing the general store, and doing the Old Faithful Inn tour. We learned all about the construction, the upper class and how they vacationed at the Old Faithful Inn and then how it became less of a destination for the rich and included all the classes of people. We learned about the things that are still original in the building like the front door, the clock face and the iron numbers on the hotel doors. Avery and I then continued our journey towards our next lodging stopping at several cool spots along the way. We even passed a lounging bison that was within 15 feet of the car. He didn’t care either. We stopped at the sheepeater cliffs. They got their name from a Native American tribe that used to eat sheep. We ran into the rest of our group there. The cliffs were cool to look at. The chipmunks were curious and fun to watch. We continued on to Mammoth spr...

 We were on the road a little before 6:30 this morning on our journey to the Yellowstone. We had a big day ahead of us. We had plans to see a lot of things.  We visited the Biscuit Basin with the Mystic Falls hike. My back was still super sore so Avery and I did the 2 mile ish hike while everyone else did the 3.5 mile hike. On our hike we saw an endangered wildflower (I used my app to look up what it was).   We saw the blue sapphire Basin. It was brilliant. Such a beautiful color. I can see why some people want to go in those, they look so inviting (but deadly). Avery and I hiked to the falls. Everyone else did too but we were slower. It was so pretty. We then had a picnic lunch at the Whiskey Flat picnic area, under the shade of some amazing smelling pine trees. We had fun people watching as a place like this really brings out the worst in people and their kindness towards others. We left there and visited the Artists paint pots, blood geyser and then we arrived at Gibbo...

  We slept with the fan in the window to blow the 55 degree pine scented air over us. It smelled great and provided a wonderful white noise. After a leisurely morning we went and got breakfast at Teton Village. It was quite foggy. The original plan was to ride the gondola to the top of the mountain and have waffles. After breakfast some of the group road to the top on the gondola and the other part of the group went into the town of village to grab a few items. We met back up and left to visit a few more iconic spots before our scenic raft float.  They loaded us up in a big several passenger van and drove us 10 miles down the road. They had cooked us a wonderful steak dinner with the most delicious cookies. The boat was a bit uncomfortable but my back has been sore (muscle not disc pain). I declared on the boat that we would be going in the hot tub that evening. The float was amazing. We saw several bald eagles. We saw a few beavers. We saw beautiful views of the mountains spe...

 Today we did a scenic drive. We left around 9:00 and stopped at several different points with scenic overlooks. The girls were in one car and the guys in another. The views were amazing.  We went to location to location with a self guided tour learning all about how the Grand Tetons were formed from plate tectonics. We saw little bits of the glaciers near the top of the mountatins that remain. We stopped at the damn and watched Paul and Darren geek out about how the damn works. We stopped at Jenny Lodge that was built in the 1950’s. The architect caught a lot of crap with the outside design of the building. The inside atrium was underwhelming. But the back part of the building was built to frame the spectacular view. We had a drink at the bar. We then went on a scenic horseback ride through the countryside to an overlook. It was beautiful. The sun was intense and warm. The horses were hilarious. Paul’s horse was spicy. Darren’s horse ate everything. My horse was delightful. W...

 Paul, his brother Darren, and the Julie’s (sister and sister-in-law) went on a 20 mile hike. It sounded so awful to me I was going to stay with the kids. Avery, my nephew Marcus and I decided we wanted a boat ride, so we took the ferry across Jenny lake and did a 3 mile-ish hike first thing in the morning. It was beautiful. Even driving there, we took the scenic route through the Grand Tetons park. We were hoping to see some wild animals, but we saw fenced horses, chipmunks, and birds…ho hum. We arrived at the wrong parking lot. Our reward was that we were greeted with a beautiful scene. The mountains reflecting on the water. It was so serene. As soon as we got off the boat, our hiking path welcomed us with a earthy scent of pine needles and crisp air. Deep breath! Yum! We hiked a bit to Hidden Falls. It was so pretty. It was slightly steep. we then kept elevating up, up, up. There was loose gravel,  and a lot of steps. A LOT of steps. We came to a landing that had a spectacu...