Sometimes, something happens that yanks you back away from the petty drama of everyday life, makes you rethink things, makes you stop and see how you felt and how you are and realize that it’s not really important in the long run, that it’s not who you want to be.

For me, that something was the murder of a friend of mine.

Kat and I met years ago when we both worked for Verizon 411. Over the years, we hung out, had way too many good times to count….and then moved on with our lives and fell out of touch. No bad blood, our lives just moved in different directions, there were new jobs and new cities and new friends, and we didn’t really maintain contact.

I found out this morning that she’d died. At first, it didn’t really sink in. I thought that it must have been a mistake, that the woman in the newspaper article couldn’t be the same funny, outrageous Kat that I’d known. But more and more friends started mentioning it, word spread, and the likelihood that it wasn’t her depleted. I’ve felt like crying for most of the day, trying to push what happened to her out of my mind.

It really made me think about how short life is, and how people we love can be gone in an instant. It made me wonder why I was wasting time worrying over things that don’t really matter, why I had, all too recently, allowed a misunderstanding to screw up a really important friendship with someone I care about and why I was waiting to make it right (or try to), why I hold back and don’t say what I think or tell people how I feel.

On Saturday I heard a lot of talk about the end of the world. While I don’t believe Doomsday is looming, Kat’s death made me see all too clearly that the world could end for any one of us at any time. Why wait to say what we think, why hold back? I’m not trying to be paranoid or say that I’m terrified that people I love are going to die, but really, everyone will die from something, some day.

I don’t want to live with regrets. I’ve been lucky so far, I haven’t lost anyone close to me when we’ve been on bad terms. I honestly do believe that the closer you are to someone, the more their opinions matter and the more likely it is that someone’s going to irritate someone, and a fight’s going to break out. The mistake I’ve made is staying mad.

I suddenly feel like I’ve been given a totally different perspective, that I’m seeing things differently. I guess I took for granted that I’d have tomorrow to do the things I wanted to do. Tomorrow I’ll tell that person I love them. Tomorrow, I’ll explain what really happened and we’re going to sit and drink iced lattes and laugh about what a silly quarrel we had over it.

No, forget that. Today.

I hate cliches, but because I’m freshly grieving a lost friend I see some value in this one. Pretend there is no tomorrow. Don’t put off important things. Don’t waste your time. I’m not saying I’m going to pack it all in and spend my final days on a beach somewhere, because that’s silly. I’m going to go about my normal routine, go to work and pay bills and do all the things I normally do. I’ll spend time laughing with friends, snuggling my kitties, relaxing with Paul. I’ll tell the people who matter to me how I feel. I’m going to stop wasting my time on pettiness, on having the last word or the final say. It’s not worth it.

Life is way too short not to fill it with happiness.

I just had what could only be classified as one of the coolest nights ever.

I met Jen Lancaster.

Who is only one of my most favorite authors in the whole world.

My friend Keri recommended Jen’s writing to me, back when Keri was living in Yuma and I’d just moved into the new house with Paul. I remember very clearly that Keri was so excited about the author, she actually grabbed the book right there and read me a passage over the phone. I was in stitches, I almost toppled off the bed and onto the floor, I was laughing so freaking hard. Awesome bestie that she is, Keri sent me her books by Jen as soon as she finished them. I devoured them and bought my own copies. I was hooked. I was a Jen Lancaster junkie (a Jenkie? who’s to say?).

Keri and I lost touch last year when I moved to Washington and she moved back to California. I miss her terribly and I keep hoping that one day she’ll get a Facebook account, or try my cell phone number, or email me. I know she had a lot going on in her life at that point and probably still does. I haven’t heard from her since September. She must have gotten a new cell phone number because the one I have for her isn’t hers anymore.

When I found out that Jen Lancaster was coming to Seattle as part of her book tour, I immediately put in for the afternoon off work and knew that I had had HAD to go to the event. I wish I could share it with Keri.

I got to the event, which was held at a bookstore in Lake Forest Park. I saw where Jen would sign books and thought, oh I’ll just hang out here, then I can get in line right away. It was only about fifteen minutes before the scheduled start time when I figured out how this thing actually worked. Fans were to gather in an auditorium-like space near a little food court, where Jen would read a passage from her latest book and then take questions. After that was the signing, and groups would be called. If you bought a book there, you got a ticket with A, B, C, or D group, depending on how early you bought. Only after those people went would those who brought their own books be allowed a turn.

I had brought my book, having bought it from Target and enjoyed the thirty percent off. However, I didn’t want to wait until very last. I’m terrible at waiting. It makes me fidgety and cranky. I also didn’t want to spend twenty-seven bucks after tax for a book I already owned. So, genius that I am, I purchased a third copy of Jen’s first book, “Bitter is the New Black”, because I decided it would be cool to have a signed copy of her original memoir. This earned me a D ticket, which wasn’t great but was better than dead last.

The reading and Q&A were awesome. People asked really great questions, from how Jen’s dog Maisy was doing (she was diagnosed with doggy cancer) to if her grandmother was really as scary as the grandmother in the latest novel.

When I got my turn to meet her, Jen seemed a lot like, well, a normal person. We chatted about our animals and our love of pit bulls as she dutifully signed my books and posed for a picture with me, a picture that is now my profile picture on Facebook, thankyouverymuch. I acted calm, cool, collected….until the very end when I lost my brains and blurted, “I’m glad I didn’t totally geek out!”

“No, you’re cool,” she assured me.

I sputtered some other very cool things (NOT) as I collected my books and camera and waved good-bye. She is super awesome. We could totally be BFFs. Well, okay maybe not. But it was still beyond awesome to meet someone whose work I idolize, realize that she’s totally down to earth and kickass, and that she seemed to geniunely take an interest in the people that wanted to talk with her.

I’m only sad that I can’t call Keri and rave about it. Some day, I hope she walks back into my life, and I can tell her all about it.

We’ve been in California since Saturday, and it has been a trip of pure delight.

The weather is gorgeous. It’s warm and sunny and perfect. Monday afternoon, I sat on the Parkers’ back patio, drinking iced tea and reading a book. The sun was warm and toasty and relaxing, and every time I started to feel that I might be just a little too warm, the breeze would flutter across the patio and cool me off. I’ve been in shorts and t-shirts the last few days, and am completely comfortable.

I know I am romaticizing my life in California big-time. There were reasons why we left. But I have to admit, there are also things about our old life that I loved that I truly miss. It’s nice to have dinner and play cards with our families. I miss them all fiercely. Luckily, my parents will be able to come to Seattle in July for mine and my dad’s birthday, and Washington is beautiful in summertime. I think they’ll really enjoy it.

Last night my parents had a barbeque. My whole family was there, and my mom invited her best friend Debbie and Debbie’s husband Frank. Everyone went and sat outside. Steve, Dad, Paul, and I hid by the grill while the other women in the group gossiped about the royal wedding. I couldn’t really participate, as I’d spent so much time being indignant about the wedding that I knew no details. We also played with Maui, my parents’ boxer. She really likes Paul and kept bringing him a stuffed alligator with a squeaky inside for him to throw across the yard for her.

 I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so much food. Dad grilled chicken and steak, making sure to grill different pieces of steak to various levels of wellness so that everyone would be happy. Paul and I like our meat rather rare, while my sister won’t touch it unless it’s charred. Mom dipped slices of sourdough bread into melted butter and Dad put them on the grill. I love the taste of grilled bread. There was also Mom’s famous (well, in our family anyway) potato salad, beans, salad, vegetables, fruit, cheesecake, and what my sister calls cookie truffles (they’re cookie dough dipped in chocolate). We ate until stuffed, then sat around and talked and snacked on the cookie dough.

I had planned on spending the morning with my brother Steve, but he got called into work last-minute so I spent the morning helping Paul and his parents work in their front yard. Earlier in the week, Paul constructed a border around a large gathering of his mother’s beautiful roses, and now we are putting in pink rock all in the area he enclosed. Before we could spread the rock, we had to put down weed tarp to keep the area from becoming a mess of weeds poking through rock. While his parents unloaded bags of rock from the back of the truck, Paul measured and cut weed tarp and I helped him spread the rocks in each area when he was ready. It felt great to be outside, working. I was hot and sweaty and loving every minute of it.

We ran out of rock way before the project was completed and headed to Lowes for more bags. Back when we were homeowners, Paul and I spent many hours at Lowes while in the midst of different projects. I love Lowes. When I was little, my parents would take us to home improvement stores, and my mom once explained to me that these stores were like Toys R Us for adults. Now, I totally agree. There’s no limit to the wonders of Lowes. When we went there yesterday, I discovered (and snapped a picture of) a large display of pink flamingo yard ornaments.

Today, we got the rock, loaded it into the truck, and took a lunch break at El Pollo Loco. I miss El Pollo Loco! The fresh food tasted so good. I savored each delicious bite. I wish we had those restaurants in Washington.

After lunch we went back to the house, took showers, and headed over to my parents’ house to play pinochle. Years ago, I remember my mom mentioning that she wished she could find people to play pinochle with. She’d tried explaining the game to me, but it sounded complicated. Now, Paul and I both know how to play, his parents taught us, so we were able to play two games. First, Mom and Dad paired up against Paul and me, and we lost. Then Dad and I paired up against Paul and Mom, and we lost. We did pretty well, though, I think. Even though I lost both games I had a lot of fun. Mom has to go back to work tomorrow, and Dad has to leave in the evening to go back to Ojai for work, so we left right before dinner so she could relax and rest and get ready.

We went to see our old house last Saturday. It was so weird, peering in the windows of the place I used to live in. It’s still for sale, still vacant. A lot of the plants in the front yard have died but a lot of them lived, and they look (and smell!) great. I miss living in that house. I don’t hate our townhome in Marysville at all, but it definitely isn’t as grand as that beautiful house. There was definitely a part of me that felt very sad, and I had a pang of wishing we still lived there. Maybe getting out and looking at the house wasn’t a great idea, but I’m not sorry I did it. I know what I left behind. Life’s not about second guessing your choices and living in the past, it’s about accepting the path you’re on and moving forward.

California and Seattle. Being back, I definitely feel torn between the two places. California has our families, great weather, my whole childhood and so many memories. But it also has a terrible economy, no jobs, no way to move forward or do anything different. And Seattle has the opportunities I’ve enjoyed at work, green everywhere, new friends that I have grown to love dearly…..There are good things about both places.

I’m having such a good time being back. Every minute of this vacation has been exactly what I hoped it would be, and I’m sure the next few days will be wonderful as well.

I was leaving work at dusk. I walked out with my coworker Richard, we rode the elevator together and then parted ways. We didn’t talk much, just mumbled a few things about complaints we’d dealt with during the day.

 My car was parked in this hideous cement basement at my office. It was dark and gloomy, not an inviting place to be at all.

 I got in the car and switched on the lights, trying to figure out how to get out of the basement. I didn’t remember parking there or how I got in. Mine was the only car in the dimly lit room. I decided that all I could really do would be to circle the basement, scanning the walls with my headlights until I found a way out. It seemed to take a very long time to consider this and decide to act.

I wasn’t scanning the walls very long before I discovered an opening. It was littered with papers and boxes, and it wasn’t very wide….not the sort of opening that seemed to be meant for cars. I looked around again, but didn’t see any other way out. So I eased the car forward, slowly, deciding that even if I scraped the sides of my car as I went through the opening, I probably wouldn’t hurt the paint too much. If I just went slowly, I could probably buff out any scratches I might get.

The car went through much more gently than I expected. It connected with the walls, but just barely, nothing too bad. But as I came through, I noticed a concrete pole in front of me. Oh well, I decided, I’ll just bonk into it, there’s no other way to get out so I have no choice. I cringed as the front of the car connected with the pole. The sound was worse than I thought it would be. Once I was past the pole and had freed the car, I got out to inspect the damage.

Even though I hadn’t been moving fast, and even though I thought it hadn’t been that bad, the car was in terrible shape. The headlight was broken. Stomach lurching, I walked around the side and saw that the back roof of the car had been crushed down and the right side was caved in. I didn’t stop to consider how that had happened. I knew I couldn’t drive the car all the way home, so I called Paul.

“It doesn’t sound too bad,” he said when I told him about the damage. I was terribly embarrassed that I’d done this and did not tell him that I couldn’t find any other way out of the basement where I’d parked. “I’ll come take a look and we’ll get it taken care of.”

“It’s pretty bad,” I told him doubtfully, looking back at the ruins of my beautiful car.

And then I woke up.

It was Saturday morning, my alarm was going to go off in fifteen minutes, and it would be time to get up and go to the airport to leave for California. I rolled onto my side, mind swirling as I tried to process the dream I’d just woken from. Common sense had not played a very big part of the dream. How would I have gotten my car into a basement? And how would it be all smashed in just by rubbing up against a pole?  Silliness.

What a strange dream.

I’m leaving for vacation in a week in a half, and I’m seriously stressed.

I have never gone through this before. Always, in the past, I purely looked forward to vacation. I’ve never had a job where work was mine specifically to do. If I was gone, someone else would do it. Now, I’m worried about making sure all the complaints assigned to me have been responded to. Even if I manage to keep my own work up-to-date, regulatory agencies can come back and request more information at any time. Those requests come into my email inbox, so someone is going to have to be able to check those for me and be able to respond to them.

My boss seems remarkably unconcerned about this issue. I’m not sure if I regard his everything-will-be-all-right stance as a sign that I’m being too pessimistic and borrowing trouble, or if he’s not even realizing the chaos that could errupt. I love that this job is a challenge and I’m always learning something new, but at the same, the work is not leisurely and the deadlines are very serious. Today I didn’t even take my lunch hour until almost five at night because I was hammering out a complaint response.

The hectic schedule hasn’t done great things for my weight worries. This morning I set my alarm for 5am so that I could make it to the gym for step class before work. I slept badly and didn’t make it. Instead, I slept until 730. I’m tired, and these early mornings to work out feel a lot more like a punishment than something good I’m doing for myself. When I got to work, my meals for the day consisted of a cup of coffee and two cupcakes. On my late lunch hour, I made myself a bag of popcorn to munch on. NOT healthy. I’m too busy to remember to eat, which is bad, because when I do finally eat it’s whatever’s on hand and not good for me.

Tomorrow I’m going to do better. I’m trying out a different gym, doing strength training instead of an aerobics class. I can go in as early as 5am or as late in the morning as I can get away with before work. Since I have to be at work by nine, I’m thinking I can hit the gym around six and still be fine. Maybe that will help. I’m also stocking my drawers at work with healthy soups and snacks so that I can grab something easily that won’t be terrible for me to eat.

And there will be no cupcake vendors at the office tomorrow. So that will help.

Last weekend I cleaned our house. I know that sounds like a terribly mundane activity, but for me, it was truly mood-changing. I love my townhome when it’s freshly cleaned! It feels so Zen now. It’s completely changed the feeling I get when I arrive home. Just picking up the clutter and cleaning up has given the place a completely different vibe. A clean home is just so relaxing, whereas the dirty mess we WERE living in left me wanting to run far, far away and get out of there.

Saturday morning I’m going to get up early to work out and clean a little, then my buddy Sarah and I are going out to IHOP for brunch and then taking her five year old son to his school egg hunt. After that I’m off to the salon for a nice relaxing mani/pedi.

And then I have one week to completely clear out my inbox so that I can go on vacation.

Woohoo!

I must be losing my mind, because I stepped out of the laundry this morning, spotted a cat out of the corner of my eye, and made my usual kissy-kissy come-here-and-I’ll-pet-you noises. Except it wasn’t a cat, it was an empty container of litter, which is green and in no way shape or form resembles one of the felines that takes up residence around here.

Maybe I’m going a little nuts because instead of a nice spring week, it freaking snowed in places a couple days ago. On the upside, I’m starting to hear birds chirp, the sun is rising earlier, and flowers are coming back. I love dogwood trees because they are pink this time of year. It’s neat to drive down a street lined with dogwoods and see all the pink. For me, spring in Washington means the Mt. Vernon tulip festival. We went last year right after moving up, and I want to go again this year but I know Paul won’t want to do it on a weekend. I may take a day off during the week so we can go together since I love the tulips.

Spring also brings baseball, another thing I love. Paul got us tickets to Mariners games throughout the season, and I’m excited to go. Baseball on tv isn’t nearly as good as baseball in person, watching the game and being able to see the skyscrapers of Seattle in the background and hearing the train whistle while gorging myself on Rally fries. Ahhh, good times. We leave April 30th for a visit to California to see our families and to (hopefully) enjoy some warm SoCal sun. I want to sit on the Parkers’ back porch watching hummingbirds and drinking margaritas. I want to be able to wear light summer clothing without freezing my butt off. If the weather is going to be exceptionally nice, I may need to buy some new stuff. I don’t have a lot of T shirts and tank tops anymore. I haven’t needed them. Last summer there were only a few really hot days, so mostly I wore jeans. When we went camping on the beach for my birthday last July, I wore sweatshirts the whole time. Maybe I’m more aclimated now, but still, Washington doesn’t yield the hundred-plus degree weather I grew up in all summer long.

Today I’m driving to Tacoma to meet up with my cousin Melanie. It’s been way too long since I’ve seen her and I’m excited. She lives in Ridgefield, almost in Oregon, so we meet in the middle to have lunch and shop. Our plan today is to have lunch at BJ’s Brewery (and yes, I can only remember the name because when we picked it I was all, “heh, the name is BJ” and damn near snickered myself into an I’m-funny coma. I look up the address so I can program it into my GPS, and it’s time to get ready so I can hit the gas station and Starbucks on my way out of town. Hopefully I won’t be met with an April blizzards along the way.

So I’m at the gym Wednesday morning, waiting for step class to start. A thin blond starts talking to me, just casual banter. She tells me she and her husband own a business and have six kids. I tell her I work for the phone company, and live with my boyfriend and our pets. She asks how long Paul and I have been together, and I respond that it will be seven years in August. “That’s a long time! Why haven’t you gotten married?” she says.

 Grrrr. I loathe this question. There’s no good way to respond. The truth is tough: although Paul and I love each other, he doesn’t see himself getting married. It’s hard not to find it hurtful when the love of your life tells you, to your face, that he doesn’t want to marry you. But then I look at all the good things, and I don’t want to throw away a special relationship just because he won’t get dressed up and sign a piece of paper swearing to love me forever. Since I’ve been down that road, been married and divorced, I know that in the end that piece of paper will not hold a relationship together, will not fix what’s broken. It’s difficult for me. So when people ask, especially complete strangers, I usually smile and say that if we get married I want it to be perfect, and we just don’t have the money to make it perfect.

So yeah, I lie.

 I have similar issues when people start asking me when we’re going to have kids. “We don’t want kids,” I always reply. Now, not wanting kids has nothing to do with whether or not I like kids (not that I love the idea of being woken up throughout the night, paying up the ass for daycare, being spit up on, or fighting Paul on the issue of why we cannot name a child Farnsworth). On some levels, I would love to have a child of our own. But then I think about how financially unprepared we would be for one, how difficult it would be to even spend time with our own kid with as much as we work, and how very much we’d be on our own with the responsibility. Up until a year ago, I always figured that if we changed our minds about becoming parents, we would have help from our families. Now that we live in Washington and both our sets of parents are back in California, we wouldn’t have that help.

Kids and marriage aren’t the only things that people seem to feel they have every right to run their mouths about. Appearance is fair game as well. I had a coworker a few years ago that would see me and exclaim, “You look twelve! There is no way you are old enough to work here!” I was in my early twenties and not amused. Often I wondered what would happen if I were to respond, “Oh my, you look sooooo old! How are you still working? Shouldn’t your kids have put you in a home by now?” I know that if I’d said it, I would have been thought rude. Which makes me wonder why likening me to a middle schooler is socially acceptable.

Really, the majority of people find it perfectly okay to say things or inquire about subjects that are none of their business whatsoever. These conversations are unsolicited and, in my opinion, rude. Perhaps I will start voicing this viewpoint. A friend had a good suggestion. The next time someone asks me why I’m not married, she recommends that I should say, “Where are your manners?” When that person gets Shock Face and demands that I elaborate, I can reply to the tune of, “That’s a personal decision and none of yer damn business.”

 Or, something like that.

I’m actually sort of disappointed that I didn’t know the blond at the gym was going to bring up such subjects. If I had, I would have responded to her having six kids by saying, “Damn! Haven’t you ever heard of birth control? You guys must be proof that pulling out doesn’t work! Are you some of them Mormon folk?” I know there are things about my life (and I suppose my appearance) that are not the norm for a twenty-six-year-old. I’m just doing the best I can to make the right decisions and be happy. And even if I say nothing, what I’m thinking to all those who comment on my marital status, lack of offspring, and young looks is “Fuck off.”

I’ve let some time go by since I last updated my blog, and things have changed a lot. I was at home on my day off when I got a call from a supervisor at work named Doug. He was calling to tell me that he had just accepted a new position as the supervisor of a Customer Relations department, and was selecting people to come over and work for him. I was beyond excited by the job offer, especially since I was being hand-picked for it! I accepted on the spot, and today was my first day of training. My “official” start date in my new position will be April 1st. I think it’s a funny coincidence that on April 1st of last year, I received confirmation of my transfer to Washington being approved.
I will have five new coworkers, whom I know to varying degrees. Everyone seems really nice, and we’re all excited at the prospect of this new opportunity. We six have begun packing up our old desks in preparation for moving to a new area, and we were all ready to go this morning with learning our new jobs. Doug showed me today the new place where we’ll be sitting, and it’s fantastic! Granted, I will still have a cubicle, but it is by far the biggest cubicle I’ve ever had. I’ll have all the drawer and counter space I could ever want, plus two large overhead shelves for displaying things.
The job itself is pretty straightforward: we’ll be handling executive-level and government agency complaints, seeing them through to resolution. I feel excited and I think I’m as well-prepared for this new challenge as I can be. I’ve learned so much in the last seven months on the Jeop Desk. I know a lot more about systems and procedures than I did as a sales representative, and I’ve made some very valuable contacts throughout different departments that have taught me things I wouldn’t have ever known otherwise.
I moved to Washington a year ago in search of better opportunities for myself, and this job may be the biggest opportunity yet.

It’s Saturday, it’s snowing, and I’m at work. Today has been a pleasant contrast to the hectic days I’ve had since I’ve been back at work.

The Jeop Desk is officially coming to a close next week. Our last day together is March 1st, which is Tuesday. After that, the other CSSC people and I will be part of the IHD team (escalations team, support for sales people). The other people from other departments are either going back to their regular jobs or being put into new positions as the fiber technical support team takes over the work that the Jeop Desk has been doing.

This last week, it’s felt like we’re graduating from high school: everyone’s moving on to different things, our time together is limited, and we’ll never be together in a group like this again. I haven’t spent too much time dwelling on it, because I know it’ll make me sad. I’ve made a lot of good friends and learned a lot since August, and even though we always knew it was temporary, I didn’t know just how bummed I’d be to see it go.

For myself, I feel that if this were high school graduation, I would be one of the ones looking forward to a bright future, moving on to exciting things. There is talk of me transitioning from Jeop Desk to IHD permanently, not just for March, and I’m beyond excited. Almost a year ago when we moved here, I applied for IHD and didn’t get the position. If I do now, then I’ll have accomplished a goal. I will have proved myself.

I feel confident that good things are on the horizon for me. In the last seven months, I’ve found out what it’s like to both excel at and love my job. I wake up in the morning and get ready, without the pit of dread in my stomach knowing that I’m going someplace I can’t stand to be. I enjoy my work now, and I get satisfaction from it.

Things are good, and I’m optimistic that they will only get better.

Vacation has come and gone, and I went back to work today. It seems the beautiful snowstorms of Montana have followed us home to Washington, and Puget Sound was hit with flurries off and on since we’ve been back. I have to admit, I love the pretty snow, although I do get a bit less thrilled when I have to sit in my office and stare at it with barely a glance outside when I could be outside playing in it, or sitting in a cozy chair sipping tea and daydreaming while gazing at it. The one time I stopped what I was doing today to watch the snow fall, my trainer H quickly intervened and had me back to work. Tomorrow I have to go in at seven-thirty, and next week Paul’s schedule is changing completely and he’ll work 4 10’s, with his days off being Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday. So, yeah, back to reality.

The trip was amazing. We took the snowmobiles out by ourselves on Thursday and Friday. Thursday, we didn’t really have a clear idea of what trails we would take, and we ended up having to turn around quite a few times. Completely by accident, we ended up at a little roadside diner for lunch. The lunch was delicious, I got a basket of chicken strips and french fries. The food was warm and filling and made me cozy as we got back on the snowmobile and rode back into the forest. By Friday we had our bearings and didn’t get lost as much. We liked the diner so much that we went back again. Our evenings were spent relaxing in the indoor hot tub, getting nice and warm and letting the jets massage our feet.

On Saturday, we had a day to just kick back, sleep in, and do some laundry (because we wore such heavy clothes, we decided it would be better to pack lighter and just wash clothes). We talked about going on an afternoon drive, but we were both feeling lazy and ended up just kickinbg back. We spent a blissful afternoon lounging in bed, watching reruns of “Friends”.

Sunday we were back in adventure mode, and boarded a snow coach tour that took us on a day trip to Old Faithful. Since we had done the route already, on the snowmobiles, I was a little worried that it would be a repeat of what we already knew. I was pleasantly surprised that Doug, our tour guide, was very focused on geology and taught us a lot about Yellowstone that I didn’t know before. Now I know that the park was the very first national park that was established (okay, a lot of people probably know that already). The park was established all the way back in 1872, when most people had to come in on stagecoach. The railroads started transporting passengers to Yellowstone, and luxurious hotels were built to house the rich travelers. One, the Fountain Hotel, was built in a clearing and had warm water, due to the thermal features of the Lower Basin. When the hotel was no longer deemed safe structurally, it “mysteriously” caught fire (luckily, all the furniture had been removed beforehand!). We learned that eighty percent of Yellowstone is covered in trees, and of that, eighty percent are Lodgepole Pines. We learned that the proper name for elk is wapiti, which means “white butt”. If you see an elk, it’s true. We learned that the thermal features in the park cannot be named after people or ideas, but must have descriptive names. Rivers can be named after people….the Madison River, for example, was named after James Madison. But thermal features have to have names that describe their unique features.

There’s a lot more, those were just a few of the interesting things that we learned when we were on tours. All three of our tour guides were awesome! When we took out the snowmobiles the first day, we had a guide named Cynthia who was both very good at making sure we were comfortable driving the snowmobile, but was also very knowledgeable about the park, its history, and its wildlife. On our first snow coach tour, we had a sweet man named Old Tim as a guide. He’s lived in West Yellowstone for over sixty years and he had a wealth of knowledge about the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone (which he took us to tour), and points beyond. We got great experiences from all of our tours.

The trip was so fun, I’m incredibly glad we got to do it together. I feel so close to Paul after getting to spend an entire week together, no work, no stress. We were truly the best of ourselves on the trip, relaxed and having fun.