Greetings from Yellowstone

Well, sort of. We're about 50 miles north right now. We started our road trip to Indiana yesterday. Drove to Missoula. That's a pretty cool western city. The downtown area was happening at 7:00 in the evening even though it was Sunday. We found a Montana/Wyoming pizza chain that the girls loved because our table was right by the kitchen. They got to watch them throw the dough and the guy making the pizzas was friendly. He told them all about how they make the dough and what kinds of pizzas have which ingredients as he made them.

Today, we headed down I-90 toward Livingston. I had planned on going straight through and then heading down to Mammoth Hot Springs on the northern edge of the Park for the afternoon. When we got to Bozeman, I realized that we could skirt the western edge of the Park and go in through West Yellowstone with a chance to see more of the Park today. That was a decent enough choice, road work inside the Park notwithstanding. On the plus side, we saw a ton of buffalo/bison (depending on who you talk to), lots of "regular" old white tail deer, some elk, a coyote and then finally, a momma grizzly with a cub. Elliot spotted a beaver swimming out of his den but as I got the camera out, he was gone.

The traffic in the Park was exactly what I expected. People coming to a dead stop because some rare bird was in a tree 3 miles away. And the grizzlies had traffic backed up something fierce. But we saw them too and got a few pictures as we sat still on the road.

We're staying in a hotel tonight that Jennifer and I stayed in on our way to Alaska in '04. This was planned way back in January when I originally laid out this trip. Actually being in the hotel has brought back a flood of memories. And I think it had something to do with not driving directly into Livingston this afternoon. I probably could have checked in early and let the girls hit the pool for a while before driving down to Mammoth. As the three of us walked in, I told Elliot that she has been here before. She just couldn't remember it. She was in mommy's tummy.

Tomorrow, as we had always planned, we'll leave early so we can get a jump on the day, see Old Faithful, check out the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and barely sate my indulgence in National Parks. We spend the night in Yellowstone but truthfully, I can't wait to get out of Livingston right now.

The Tooth Fairy visited my house for the first time tonight

It was awesome and sad all at the same time. It's something I had been looking forward to doing for Elliot. I just never thought I'd be doing it alone.

It's been 6 weeks since this all started. People have been asking me "How are you guys doing?" And I answer with "We're OK. But OK is a completely relative term." It's obviously hard to explain how I feel at any given moment. We'll be leaving for a road trip to Indiana on Sunday morning and as it draws closer, there's just a constant reminder that Jennifer wont be on the trip with us. As I make plans for what to bring on the trip, I realize that I have never had to worry about packing for the girls because she always did that. I spent about making Bingo gameboards for the girls this evening. That was fun. I visited Michael's, Dollar Tree and Target gathering some other car activities. And all the while, I'm wondering, "What would Jennifer have come up with to keep the girls entertained?"

There's a song I like called Bittersweet Symphony. One of the lyrics goes "But I'm a million different people from one day to the next". I can't think of any better explanation of how I feel.