Friday, August, 31, 2007

What a clusterfuck yesterday was.  Everyone's planes were all messed up, and my dad missed his connection, thereby spending the night in Atlanta since it was the last one of the night.  I felt completely guilty that I wasn't able to persuade them to hold our plane another 15 minutes for him.  It was all touch & go for about 90 minutes.  They said he would make it, then not, then he would, etc.  His plane got diverted to Knoxville since Atlanta had to close for storms, and they started running out of gas whilst circling.  I suppose the good news is that they noticed they were low on fuel before they crashed.   Apparently the VP of the US flew in to Jackson, Wyoming last night, and the airport was completely locked down.  That's why they wouldn't let us come in too late since a curfew was in effect.

It's wonderful seeing everyone!  A bunch of us decided to go to the Grand Tetons to hike.  This worked out well as I was able to spend some time chatting with a few people here & there along the trail as we got strung along.  We would catch up with each other at moose sightings.  And then there was the Great River Crossing.  One of my brothers decided to cross it on a fallen log 15 feet above the white water & slippery rocks.  That prompted Galahad to cross the slippery rocks and then rock climb up the other side.  Which prompted my next brother to cross on the fallen log, too.  My 9 year old niece was begging her mom to do that, too, but alas, she had to cross on the lower log downstream in the calm section.  Of course at some point, it started to lightly rain. 

This led my 15 year old nephew to ask me which way he should cross it.  Since it was a "TestFest" as my sister so aptly called it, I took his request seriously and told him that the bigger challenge was to cross the slippery rocks and rock-climb up the other side.  He's very big into martial arts, so I thought following his martial-arts-uncle's path was apropos also.  Galahad was very good about coaching him across, telling him where to place his feet, and what to hold onto.  It was somewhat amusing to see other tourists gathering around on the other side (the trail eventually winds that way) asking if this was a rescue mission.  He did make it successfully with no serious injuries, just some wet feet and blisters.

At the top of the mountain, I couldn't take it anymore and called my neighbor to see how Kitten was.  ;)  She said she was fine but lonely.  :(