Wedding Memories – Part 1 (Wine)

Me:  The priest handed me a gold, ornamental goblet with an opening the size of a trashcan lid.  It was massive.  It took two hands to hold it, and even then I struggled with it in my grip.  The goblet was filled to the brim with dark, red wine; and with every breath, I was afraid of spilling it.

My eyes became almost as big as the opening on the goblet as the aroma of the rich alcohol hit my nose.  I am not a drinker…at all.  I stood staring down into that red liquid, telling myself, “You can do this.  It’s just a sip.  You’ll be okay.”  The priest was saying something in Greek in his deep, melodic voice, but I wasn’t really paying attention.  I was trying to keep the panic from washing over me.

Spousal Unit:  The priest handed him a normal-sized gold goblet.  In fact, it was so ornamental that it barely held any wine in it at all.  He held it with both hands, not because he had to, but because he was being careful with such a holy artifact.  Honestly, it was a little overkill, but I grinned nevertheless, as he realized that it was real wine in there. 

He never drinks alcohol.  In fact, I don’t remember having ever seen him drink the entire time we were together.  The priest was explaining the sacrament of holy communion and that this cup represented the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ poured out for our sins.  He instructed that my soon-to-be husband was the head of the household, and as such would need to lead the household in spiritual matters.  Therefore, he would need to drink three-fourths of the contents of the goblet, and I would drink the rest.

Me:  After the priest finished speaking, he motioned for my wife-to-be to translate for me.  I looked over at her, watching her rosy lips move, as she told me that I was to drink from the cup.  She might have mentioned how much I was to drink, but I didn’t hear, so mesmerized as I was by her beautiful lips.  Then again, she might have omitted that part for her own amusement.  When she nodded at me, I raised the goblet to my lips and took a sip.  As I started to pull the cup down, the priest raised one of his gnarled hands and tilted the base of the cup up with one finger.  I felt the warm wine travel down my throat and into my empty stomach.  My whole core felt like it was on fire, and the heat spread outward, consuming all of me in its warmth.

I was choking, trying to swallow as more and more of the red liquid poured down my throat.  Finally, the priest removed his finger, and I was able to pull the cup down and gasp for air.  My face felt like it was on fire, and I was sure that there was a flush to my cheeks.  I looked down into the massive goblet and saw only a small amount of the wine left.  It sloshed gently back and forth as I passed the goblet to my wife-to-be.  In one quick motion, she down what was left and handed the cup back to the priest.

Spousal Unit:  When the priest finished explaining the sacrament, he nodded for me to translate for my husband-to-be.  He was looking at me with the biggest eyes.  I could tell that all of this was making him uncomfortable.  He’s not used to being the center of attention for hundreds of people, all of their eyes watching his every move.  Not to mention that he had no idea what was going on and couldn’t understand a word that the priest was saying.  I simply told him that we were taking communion, and he needed to drink from the cup first.

I nodded at him, and he started to drink.  When he started to pull the cup down after only a sip, the priest tipped it back up so that he’d drink more.  I could see the flush spread across his cheeks almost instantly as the wine took its affect on him.  After a minute, the priest let him stop, and my husband-to-be passed the goblet to me.  He looked so cute, so vulnerable, with his rosy cheeks.  I took the goblet and drank the small amount of wine that was left and then handed it back to the priest.

Me:  The priest started to read from his positively massive Bible, which was gilded with gold and ornamentation, then he raised out his hand over us and said something else in Greek which I couldn’t understand, but which I presumed was some sort of benediction.  At that moment, our best man and maid of honor stepped up behind us and placed these white, flowered crowns on our heads.  I could see out of the corner of my eye that they were attached to each other by a single, white, satin ribbon.  

Before I could even get a translation or an idea of what was going on, the priest grabbed my right hand and started tugging me around the altar.  I felt my wife-to-be’s hand slide into my other hand, as I tugged her along after me.  Around and around we went around that altar, as those standing closest tossed handfuls of rice over us.  Some more enthusiastic guests were winding up like baseball pitchers and throwing the rice at us as hard as they could.  Others, like my father, didn’t understand how this worked and simply threw the whole bag at us at once.

As I tried to ward off the flying rice, which was difficult since both of my hands were occupied, I suddenly realized why the priest had such a massive Bible and why he hadn’t put it down before grabbing my hand.  He was holding it up in front of his face and literally using it as a shield.  Tiny grains of rice were ricocheting off the gold and ornamentation and flying in a myriad of directions, as the priest hunkered down safely behind it.

I have to say that the dizzying effect of walking in circles around the altar was not helping my inebriated state.  The guest’s faces were a blur of color, swirling around me, going faster and faster.  Their laughter and voices blending together into an indistinguishable cacophony of sound.  All of it was making my head spin, so I closed my eyes until the priest let go of my hand.

Spousal Unit:  The priest read a verse from the Bible about two flesh becoming one, and then he explained that we would now be taking our first steps together as husband and wife.  Our best man and maid of honor placed the wedding crowns on our heads and straightened out the ribbon that attached them together.  Suddenly, I saw my husband-to-be getting pulled away from me, so I scurried after him and grabbed his hand.  The priest was leading him around the altar.

People started throwing rice at us, which is a custom that signifies blessings bestowed upon the happy couple.  The more rice that gets stuck in your hair and in your clothing, the more blessings you’ll have in your marriage.  When I later changed from my wedding dress to my reception dress, I had over two kilos (about 4.5 pounds) of rice pour out onto the floor of my parent’s house.  It was everywhere.  Down my dress, in my underwear, and stuck in the curls of my hair.  I was still picking it out days later.

Me:  At this point, several other priests standing in the back started to chant in a melodic harmony of their three voices.  Someone took the crowns off of our heads, but I continued to hold onto my wife-to-be’s hand.  When the chanting stopped, the priest said something else I couldn’t understand in Greek, and motioned toward the door.  My wife turned and pulled me down the aisle toward the exit.

Just going with the flow at this point, I guessed we were through.  We were officially married.  As we walked down the aisle toward the entrance of the church, I said to my wife, “Whatever you do, don’t let me go.”  “Why?” she asked through her gritted teeth, keeping the smile plastered on her face.  “Because I think the priest got me drunk,” I responded leaning into her as we walked.

My wife looked over at my dopey eyes and goofy smile and said, “Just hang on, we’re almost outside.  And whatever you do, don’t take me down with you.”  As the doors opened, the cool, crisp November air washed into the church and blew across my flushed cheeks.  Almost instantly, I felt my strength and senses returning.  I could feel my eyesight and my head starting to clear, and I stood a little more upright.

Spousal Unit:  After our journey around the altar, the priest introduced us to the audience as husband and wife and motioned for us to make our way out of the church.  My husband and I were still holding hands, so I gently tugged him toward the door.  He seemed to be swaying a little bit as he walked, so I looked over at him with concern.

His cheeks were bright red, his eyes seemed to be defocused, and he had this happy grin on his face.  I asked him if he was all right, and he slurred, “I think I’m drunk!”  Luckily, we were close to the exit, and I hoped that the cold air would help sober him up a little.  One thought kept running through my mind, “Do not fall.  Do not fall.”

Wedding Memories - Intro (He Said, She Said)

My wife and I get a lot of questions about our wedding.  I'm not sure if it's because we got married three times, or if it's because we got married on two different continents.  Whatever the reason, we have plenty of stories, and we love to tell them!  However, we don't always tell them the same way.  Usually she thinks I embellish too much, while I think she leaves out all of the good parts!  After all of this time, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

So, in honor of my beautiful wife and our wacky wedding experience, I thought I would devote the next series of posts to memories of our wedding.  However, I'm going to attempt to tell them from both of our perspectives, so you can get the full effect of the experiences.  They will be told in no particular order, just whatever pops into my head that day.

So, sit back and imagine you're there with us as we travel from the United States to Greece.  The whirlwind of our two-week adventure is about to begin!

Audible Oops!

We were on the way home today from Thanksgiving, and we decided to stop in Waco for some lunch.  For some reason my wife had a craving for Whataburger; so we pulled in, ordered, and situated ourselves in a booth in the very crowded restaurant. 

The booths at this Whataburger are just ergonomic fiberglass; no padding, no fabric.  I had had an upset stomach all day, which was probably a direct result of the large volume of broccoli and egg nod I had consumed over the last three days, and my stomach was gurgling.  So, after they had brought our food and my wife had started to unwrap it, I took a moment to expel some of the gas that was uncomfortably expanding inside me.

As always, I had hoped to whiff it out like a ninja in the night.  What I got instead was a very loud, very audible tuba note that was only enhanced by the naked fiberglass I was sitting on.  At first I was hoping that the noisy din of conversation in the restaurant had covered up the vulgar noise…that was until I saw my wife’s face.  Her eyebrows were raised in question, her mouth was open in surprise, and her eyes were looking at me like I had just committed the greatest atrocity of man.  I also noticed that the conversation of the family of six in the booth behind me had mysteriously stopped. 

It was at this moment, that I was struck with a thought.  The booth I was sitting on was one of those double booths, where one seat faces one table and the other seat faces the other table.  It was made even worse by the fact that the booth at the table behind me was actually a semi-circle of one solid piece of fiberglass.  So, I was literally connected to the entire family.  And I started to imagine that they had actually felt the vibrations in addition to hearing it.  An image of all six people of varying ages wrinkling their noses and casting me disgusted looks ran through my head, and I lost it.

I started to smile, then chuckle, then full on laugh.  If I was hoping to cover my guilt before, it was lost when I was laughing so hard that I was turning red and crying into my French fries.  The more I thought about the absurdity of the situation and how the fiberglass booth had betrayed me, the harder I laughed.  My wife just continued to look at me like I had lost my mind.

Whether because they were done eating or because they were so appalled by this behavior, the family behind me left soon afterwards.  This only sent me into another fit of laughing, thinking that I had actually run an entire family off with that single, audible oops.  Nobody else seemed to have noticed, and I was eventually able to calm down enough to eat my lunch.

Shelby

I spent thanksgiving with my father and stepmother this year.  I was amazed and saddened at how old their dog Shelby is looking.  He’s fifteen now, my dad having gotten him just before my wife and I got married.  I remember the day my father brought him home, this little black and white fur ball.  He was so skittish and shy at first, not knowing what to make of all of these new people that were suddenly looming up around him.  I remember getting down in the grass with him so he wouldn’t feel so small and scared.  Slowly, slowly he walked towards me, sniffed me, and climbed into my lap.  He curled up in a little ball, chewing on my finger yet still watching everyone with one eye.  

Ever since that moment, we had a bond.  I played with him all the time, trying to wear out his inexhaustible energy.  Whenever we would watch movies on Friday nights, he would lay next to me on the couch...much to my father’s disappointment and irritation.  As much as my father likes to think that Shelby was his dog, he was wrong.  He was always my dog...my boy...from that first moment in the yard.  Even when I got married and moved away, Shelby was my dog.  Whenever I would come home, he would excitedly greet me at the door.  Something he would never do with my father.  Lately, his greetings are less exuberant than they once were, but he still stiffly lifts himself up and comes waddling to the door to greet me.  Nowadays, he has no interest in running around or playing.  He just likes to lean against my leg while I stroke his head and that spot right behind his ears.  He closes his eyes and drifts away into blissful happiness.  For a moment, he doesn’t hurt anymore.  For a moment, he just relaxes into the knowledge that he is totally and completely loved.

He’s still my boy.  Maybe a little skinnier.  Maybe a little grayer around the snout.  But still my dog.  I wish I could see him more, especially as he nears the end.  I want his last moments to be the best, where someone always has time to stroke that spot behind his ears that he loves so much.  I want him to always remember that I love him.  My dog.  My boy.

Life Through the Door

When I was a child, my father worked for the Houston Police Department, first as a patrolman and later in the computer fraud department.  Unfortunately, police pay wasn’t the best, and he found it difficult at times to be the sole bread winner tasked to support a family of four.  So, he took on a lot of extra jobs to supplement his pay; working the prisoner intake desk, security detail, and event protection.  While this significantly increased his income, it meant that my brother and I didn’t see him much throughout our childhood.

When he did come home, he would grab the newspaper, head straight to the bathroom, change clothes, and then shut himself in there for hours until dinner was ready.  He claimed that it was his decompression time, where he finally got to relax and de-stress from the day.  My brother and I were told to leave him alone while he was in there, which we obediently complied with…for 5-10 minutes.  Then, one of us would sneak up to the bathroom door and tap on it.  We were greeted with a sigh and a resigned, “Yes?”  Taking this as an invitation, we would excitedly launch into whatever it was that we wanted to share with our father.

Sometimes, it was as simple as wanting to show him our latest report card or artwork.  Sometimes, especially as we got older, it was wanting to ask for the sports page out of the newspaper.  It was not uncommon for the conversation to be initiated simply by sliding something under the door to him.  We’d push it halfway and wait.  If we saw it disappear, then we knew we had our opening.

Other times, we wanted to ask for his opinion on something or to relate a story about our day.  He would never open the door, so we’re not for certain that he was actually listening to us.  He could have just been reading the newspaper the whole time.  But that didn’t matter to us.  We would prattle on happily in our ignorance.

When I think back, almost all of my entire childhood interactions with my father were through a door.  I don’t remember having much time with him in person.  I have scattered memories here and there.  But I remember our interactions through the bathroom door.  It’s a strange way to grow up, and I guess psychologically speaking, we were looking for more of a relationship with our father.  We craved his attention and time, which was sparse and not freely given.  So, children being resilient like they are, we improvised and interjected ourselves into his life wherever and however we could.

The Best Part of Waking Up

I woke up this morning, looked in the mirror, and was amazed that I had gotten even better looking than yesterday.  This isn’t vanity or conceit, it’s just a fact.  I was struck by how sexy I was, and I was suddenly tempted to become self-gay, if such a thing is possible.  

Of course I could barely see through the sleep that was still clouding my eyes, and I was having to squint at the bathroom light that was blinding my overly-sensitive pupils, so I could have in fact been looking at the swan painting on the wall or the flower arrangement on our sink.  Either way, something in that bathroom was giving off major “How you doin?” vibes.

Only the Best

When I take my wife out on a date, I do it up right.  I know a lot of guys are money-conscious, so they try to steer their date to a less-expensive alternative.  But that’s not me.  I want to lavish my wife.  So, when we go to a really fancy dinner, somewhere like McDonald’s, I let her choose anything off the menu.  None of that dollar menu stuff.  She gets only the best.

Filaki, Filaki, Filaki

My first job out of college was in retail sales in a computer and electronics store named Altex.  It was not a glamorous job.  I spent eight hours a day on my feet, trying to convince people that they needed things that they had no idea that they needed.  As an introvert, that was one of the hardest jobs I have ever had.  I had to approach complete strangers and start conversations with them, sometimes pretending like I knew more than I actually did.

My fiancé liked to call me at work to check on me during my down times.  It wasn’t uncommon for me to take phone calls from new or returning customers, but it was tricky to mislead my manager.  He was always watching us and timing how long we spent on the phone.  My fiancé wanted to end every phone call by sending me kisses, which I obviously couldn’t return with my manager watching.  She understood, but was also hurt by this.  So I had to improvise, and I took to saying, “filaki, filaki, filaki,” which is Greek for “little kisses.”  Now, whenever we’re in a public situation where blowing kisses at each other wouldn’t be appropriate, we simply say, “filaki, filaki, filaki,” and it’s our own private romantic moment.

Blink

I’m so tired today that I’m afraid that if I blink for one second longer than normal that I might not open my eyes again. I have to force myself to keep my eyes open, which means I have been sitting in meetings staring at people all day long. Most people look away uncomfortably, but several people have been defiant enough to stare back. I’m too tired to care, so a long staring contest ensues. I’m not sure if I won or not because I spaced out at some point.

20th High School Reunion

My 20th high school reunions is next week. They thought it would be a good idea to have it the day after Thanksgiving.  I guess they assumed that everyone would be in town visiting family anyway.  The stupid thing is that I only found the announcement by chance.  They posted it on Facebook, which I’m never on.  If I hadn’t happened to log on for the first time all year, I would have missed it.

As I went to the website to purchase tickets, I noticed a list of people that had already signed up.  As I scrolled through the list of a little over 100 people, I realized that while I recognized some of the names, none of them were people that I had ever actually talked to in high school.  They were the outgoing people, the cool people, the popular people.  They were people that had actually been active in high school.  I was not one of those people.  

I was the guy that hung out on the back fields to eat lunch.  I was the guy that was introverted and kept a low profile.  With sadness, I realized that none of them would even recognize my name.  Nobody would care if I went or not.  I slowly closed the webpage without buying a ticket.  I had been waiting 20 years for this moment, and now that it had arrived, I couldn’t figure out what I had been waiting for.  I regret not being more involved.  I can think of so many ways I could have inserted myself in the happenings of the school, but I didn’t.  I just tried to get through it and move on.  I don’t have a lot of fond memories of high school, but I feel that is largely my own fault.  I had the chance and didn’t take it. Now there doesn’t seem like much point in going back.  I kept in touch with the people I cared about back then, so I guess that’ll have to suffice.

To those who do go, happy 20th anniversary, Bellaire HS Class of ‘97, from the anonymous introvert on the football fields.

Hold Your Breath

I hate those suspenseful moments in a game where you’re waiting for something to happen.  Because you sit there not even wanting to blink, because you know that as soon as you do, that crap will get real.

Copy-Cats

I think it’s interesting that every time someone mentions that I have a blog, that I used to write poetry, or that I’m working on writing a novel; that the other person always replies that they’re a writer too.  There’s always a story about how they wrote a poem in high school, or a short story in college, or a postcard on vacation.  Something to try to relate.  I don’t really think it’s the same thing as maintaining a blog for over ten years.  And that’s okay.  We don’t have to be in competition.  I’m sure there are things that they do well that I don’t do.  We can all have our special thing and appreciate the special things in each other.

Dear Blog

CS was asking me about my blog and whether it was like a diary.  I told him that I didn’t start every entry with “Dear Blog” or anything, but that it did contain my thoughts and observations about life. However, I don’t put secrets in it, and it’s open to the public.  So, no I guess it’s not like a diary.  It’s like a…well, a blog.

How are you?

I always hate when someone asks how I’m doing, because I don’t feel like they really want to know how I am.  It’s just a socially-accepted greeting, and really just equates to “Hi.”  But it’s worse than “Hi,” because someone actually expects an answer to that question.  So, any answer I give will then be a lie to appease them without giving the awkward truth that they don’t really want to hear and that I don’t really want to have to explain further. 

My default answer lately has been, “I’m surviving.”  But that usually just makes people uncomfortable, because I insinuated that something might be off in my little universe, but now the burden is on them to either ask about it or chuckle and walk away slowly.  So, I think I’m going to switch to, “I’m in good health.”  That way I am not insinuating or revealing anything, and everyone can feel good about themselves that they asked and escaped without an awkward situation.  I AM in good health, so it won’t be a lie, and I’ll be able to live with myself after the encounter as well.  It’s a win-win.

The Fan That Divides Us – the Revisit

So, we have gone several nights now without the fan, and last night my wife woke me up at 2 a.m. as she not-so-quietly extricated herself from the covers, grabbed her pillow, and huffed her way out of the room.  I stopped her to ask why she was leaving, and she said that I was breathing heavy and it was keeping her awake.  Breathing heavy?  What does that even mean?  I wasn’t snoring.  I was breathing heavy.  I mean, what do I do with that?  Stop breathing?

I laughed at the absurdity of this, because the only reason she heard me breathing heavy was that it was so quiet in the room.  That’s right.  Ironically, the quiet that she so desperately craves is now causing her angst.  The fan that she has so much hatred for was actually covering up these noises all of these years, but she never gave it the respect or credit that it deserved.  Now, I think she wants the fan back, but she can’t bring herself to ask for it after she talked so much smack about it.

So, we shall both be uncomfortable.  I will be holding my breath, and she will have to hear me gasp for air every 30 seconds.  I guess now it will be the silence that divides us.

The Plagues of the Elements

I was watching the “Prince of Egypt” recently, and I was struck by a thought that I had never thought about before.  I was enamored with the 10 Plagues of Egypt and God’s use of all of the elements to accomplish his goals.  Many believe that everything boils down to four basic elements ; that is Air, Water, Fire, and Earth.  In each of the plagues God used one of these elements to create the plague, and each plague affected one of these elements…except the last one.

The last plague was performed by the Angel of the Lord against man himself.  And since man was made in the image of God, it was the fifth element against the fifth element.  The element of Man.

·         Water into blood – Water

o   Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their streams, and over their pools, and over all their reservoirs of water, that they may become blood; and there will be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.  Exodus 7:19

·         Frogs – Water

o   Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the streams and over the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.  Exodus 8:5

·         Gnats – Earth

o   Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, that it may become gnats through all the land of Egypt.  Exodus 8:16

·         Flies – Earth

o   Then the Lord did so. And there came great swarms of flies into the house of Pharaoh and the houses of his servants and the land was laid waste because of the swarms of flies in all the land of Egypt.  Exodus 8:24

·         Cattle Die – Earth

o   For if you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them, behold, the hand of the Lord will come with a very severe pestilence on your livestock which are in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the herds, and on the flocks.  Exodus 9:2-3

·         Boils – Fire & Air

o   So they took soot from a kiln, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses threw it toward the sky, and it became boils breaking out with sores on man and beast.  Exodus 9:10

·         Hail – Air & Fire

o   Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that hail may fall on all the land of Egypt, on man and on beast and on every plant of the field, throughout the land of Egypt.  Exodus 9:22

o   So there was hail, and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very severe, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.  Exodus 9:24

·         Locusts – Earth

o   Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up on the land of Egypt and eat every plant of the land, even all that the hail has left.  Exodus 10:12

·         Darkness - Air

o   Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even a darkness which may be felt.  Exodus 10:21

·         First Born – Man

o   and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstones; all the firstborn of the cattle as well.  Exodus 11:5

The Fan That Divides Us

Ever since I was a kid, I have slept with a fan.  I use it mostly to circulate the air in the room, because my nose get stopped up, and I can’t breathe if it gets too stuffy.  However, it has come to have other uses as well, such as cooling me down in the hotter months and covering up the myriad of noises that break the stillness of the night.

When I got married, my wife took an immediate hatred to my fan.  Something about the constant, consistent rhythm of the whirring of the blades…the even cadence of the noise…angers her.  Even though I know it’s a lie, she claims that she can’t sleep when I have the fan on (her snoring would lend credence to my claims).  But after fourteen years of living with the fan, she suddenly  has had enough.  On occasion, we have even taken to sleeping in separate rooms, because she refuses to deal with it anymore.

So, something as stupid and innocent as a fan is tearing our marriage apart.  Who would have thought that the mistress that would one day come between us is made from metal, wire, and an electrical motor.  Well, for the sake of keeping my wife happy and keeping us together, I have taken to turning off the fan on the odd night, so we have a sort of compromising truce.  Of course, she won’t be satisfied until it’s off permanently, but I’m not quite ready to go that far yet.  So for now, we have an uneasy cease fire.

Bye Week

So, the college football playoff committee announced its first rankings for the CFP, and surprisingly it had Georgia ahead of Alabama.  Alabama has held the number one ranking for the entire year, and they have dominated every team they have played so far.  While Georgia also has an impressive resume and has been steadily climbing up the rankings, Alabama has not faltered this year.  So, it’s surprising that a team that has been playing well lost the number one ranking, seemingly for no reason. 

What is even more surprising is that Alabama was on a bye week.  That’s right, they did not play.  So, the committee has deemed that Georgia’s win this week was more impressive than Alabama’s bye week.  Yeah, I can see how if you held the stats up side-by-side that Georgia would come out on top.  Alabama was on a bye!

This same logic amazes me about the Heisman Trophy tracking.  A player will actually lose ground in the race on the week they aren’t playing.  I don’t know how you can penalize a guy for not even being on the field.  How could they have possibly gotten worse, when they weren’t even playing?!

Big Cock Ranch

Earlier this year, my wife came to me carrying a credit card statement and said, “Is there something you want to tell me?”  I started to panic wondering about all of the things I might have done wrong and trying to think about which one she might be referring to.  I decided to go with the safe answer, “Not particularly, why?”  She handed me the statement, which had one entry highlighted in yellow.  It simply said, “Big Cock Ranch…$68.00.”  I stood there for several minutes, trying to puzzle out what I might have bought that had that description, but my mind was a blank.  I handed the statement back to her and said that I guess my credit card was compromised.

The next few minutes were awkward as she stood there staring at me with slivered eyes, like she was trying to read into my soul and uncover a truth that I had buried under layers and layers of lies, so thick that even I had started to believe them, that the lies had become reality and that I could no longer tell the difference, but that if she stared at me long enough she could peel back those lies like the layers of an onion and reveal the truth…and apparently that truth in her eyes was that I had purchased some sort of Big Cock for $68.00.  I began to sweat under her scrutiny, even though I was 87% sure that I hadn’t made this purchase, and I began to doubt myself.  She finally pursed her lips, gave me a “hmphf,” and walked away. 

But the seed of doubt had been planted.  I couldn’t get that line of the credit card statement off my mind.  Everything else on there was legitimate.  Why would someone who had stolen my credit card buy a single item?  And why would that item have been a Big Cock of all things?!  I ran through every purchase we had made for Christmas…every gift…and finally it hit me. 

I Googled “Big Cock Ranch” and found out that it was a company that sold grilling spices.  The logo was a giant crowing rooster…a big cock.  As a gag, we had bought a box of spices from them for my brother called the “Box o’ Shit,” which was a sampler pack of four different spices, but I didn’t realize that’s how it would come across on the credit card statement.  I find it funny that both of our minds immediately ran to the dirtiest explanation possible.

Aroo! Aroo!

Well today we did our second Spartan run, this one was an outdoor course.  It offered different challenges from the stadium course we did in June, among other things…mud and water.  I was proud to get the chance to compete again with my brother.  The challenge and competition brought us closer together, bound us with a common goal.  It helped us get more fit and healthy, and I’m glad of the opportunity to get to race with him.  I know that he was disappointed in this outing even as I was ecstatic.  The rope climb still bested him, while I miraculously managed to do all of the events.  Still I was proud of him.  He has come a long way and worked hard to get here.  We both have.  

It was nice to have my mother at the event as well, to cheer us on and encourage us.  I’m glad my family has taken an interest in our racing, even if they don’t truly understand why we put ourselves through this…the months of preparation and the hours of pain.  We do it to better ourselves.  To raise the bar and push ourselves over it.  We aren’t competing against other men, but against ourselves.  As Ernest Hemingway said, “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”  

And that is what we are doing. We are trying to be better than the us of yesterday. We are trying to find ways to prove that we are still alive; that we have not become part of the background. And we can never stop, because stopping would be like giving up. And quitting is not an option. I don’t want to look back one day and regret not trying.  

So, what’s next? Who knows. I have my eyes on a few other challenges…something new, something that will push me in different ways. I’m not done with Spartan, but I am going to take a little break. The training and competition is grueling, and the waiting for months in between is exhausting. For now, I need to clean the mud off and heal.

Second Chances

My brother-in-law is very serious about his current girlfriend.  In fact, he has told us several times now that she’s the one, and that he’s waiting for the right opportunity to propose to her.  I keep asking my wife if they’re engaged yet, and finally today she asked why I’m so frantic about this.  I said that I’m antsy to finally experience the Greek wedding that was stolen from me…to stand at the altar and be able to look around at what’s going on around us, to taste a Greek buffet, to eat a wedding cake, to enjoy dancing a Greek dance with no inhibitions, to let loose without all eyes on me,

…and to actually be sober enough to remember the entire thing.

Message Received…Loud and Clear

VJ and her husband prayed last night.  She said that she was a little disappointed by the answer, because she expected to see a stoplight in her mind with a specific color light lit up.  Instead, she saw nothing.  She waited a little while, and when nothing came, she decided to watch TV.  She turned on the Travel Channel, and they were airing a food show with Andrew Zimmern in some foreign country.  He started to describe the dish they were going to sample, and it went something like this, “These are tamales, which are traditionally made with beef.  However, these are green tamales, stuffed with chicken, green spinach, green Serrano peppers, and green cilantro; wrapped in green tomatillo and corn husks; and topped with a green tomatillo sauce.”

She was so taken aback by the outrageousness of his repetition of the color “green” in his description that she started to laugh.  I guess she got her answer!

The Three Stoplights

VJ caught me after work today and asked me for some advice.  She’s got a tough decision on her plate, one that could greatly affect her marriage, and she’s not sure how to proceed.  Her husband wants to do something, something that involves spending a lot of money, money that she’s been saving for a down-payment on a house.  She wants to support him, but she’s also unsure about spending their savings on an unproven plan.  It’s the ultimate question of faith.

I told her that when I find myself in these situations, I implore the three stoplights.  It comes from a sermon that my pastor preached last year.  He said that whenever he and his wife have a difficult decision ahead of them, that they both go and pray about it.  Then, they come back and talk about what God revealed to them.  A green light means that God revealed that it’s His will, and they should proceed.  A red light means that this is not from God, and they should not proceed.  A yellow light means that they didn’t get a clear feeling either way.  They only move forward with decisions where both get a green light.  There are times when God does not reveal the same thing to each of them.  On several occasions, he has received a green light and his wife has received yellow or red.  If my pastor decided to go ahead with these plans anyway, he said they always went badly.

So that was my advice to her…for her and her husband to both go pray separately and then discuss what God revealed to them.  I said that praying separately lends confirmation to the answer.  Sometimes you aren’t sure if you’re hearing God’s voice or your own voice.  So having God reveal it in two people will help confirm that it’s His will.  It also takes us out of it…our inhibitions, our anxiety, our plans.

VJ said that while she liked the idea, God doesn’t speak to her like that.  It’s usually not so cut and dry.  I told her then ask for clarity too.  Ask for God to remove the clutter, the distractions, and the noise; so that she could hear His voice and His will for this situation.  She’s going to try, so we shall see.

Camel Safari in Dubai

JR just went on a vacation to Dubai with his girlfriend.  He was telling us about all of the touristy things they did while over there, such as going camel riding through the desert.  He couldn’t believe how tall the camels are.  He was describing the process they go through to get the camels to kneel down with their front legs and then lower themselves to the ground with their back legs, so you can get on them.  Apparently, they have these sort of saddles that fit around the hump, so that two people can get on the camel with one in front of the hump and one behind it.

His girlfriend mounted the camel first, climbing in the front.  So, JR climbed onto the back end.  The moment he put his full weight down on the camel, the camel audibly groaned.  He then looked back at JR and gave him a disgusted look.  The camel was finally coaxed into a standing position, but he was not happy.  JR said that it was one of the most uncomfortable things he has ever done, bouncing up and down on the backend of a camel across the uneven desert sands.  He also believes the camel was intentionally finding the “potholes” and altering his gait to make it more uncomfortable for JR.

English as a Butchered Language

My wife has an interesting grasp of the English language.  She is Greek, and she’s fluent in English, but she doesn’t speak the same English that I speak.  She uses words that sound similar to what she’s trying to say, but aren’t quite right.  It’s cute and quirky, and I love it about her. 

So, we were looking at pictures of wolves, and she points at one and says, “Oooh, I really like that picture of the wolf grilling.  He looks so ferocious with the teeth and all.”  I started laughing because all I could think about was a wolf with gold and diamond caps, bearing his teeth, and showing off his grill.

Escape to the Wild (Day 14 – Goodbyes)

I went to visit the wolves again today for the last time.  They were already up howling into the fading night.  Their song sounded as sad as my heart…it was a fitting goodbye.  I will miss them, and I will miss this place.  Maybe if I stayed here long enough, this place would eventually get old and boring.  But I’m not sure that it would.  And even if it did, I think that time would be a long way off.  There is something primal here that tugs at me; something about the simplistic beauty that calls to my heart.  Sometimes I think that humans have overly complicated things in this life.  We have distracted ourselves from what we were meant to do.  I mean it’s funny how the simple things, when they’re the right things, can be more satisfying…more relaxing and peaceful…than all the things in the world I had left behind.  So, you tell me, which one seems more like the life I was meant for?

I know that my wife is sad about leaving as well.  Usually, she is past ready to be home by this point, but not this time.  We were both so burned out by our life.  We really needed this vacation, and we’re not really in a rush to get back to what’s waiting for us.  Time away is never long enough, but we have tried to squeeze every drop of enjoyment out of every day.  So, now we pack and head home.

We made the long drive back to Bozeman.  As we pass familiar sights, it seems like so long ago that we were here.  The Riverside Grill slides by on the right.  Buck’s T-4 Lodge whooshes by on the left.  So much has happened in the last week.  Has it really only been a week?!  Wow!  In my mind and memories, it’s been much longer than that.

We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, so we grabbed a terrible lunch at the only restaurant.  After we got boarded, we had a 45-minute delay before finally taking off.  Apparently, the weight calculation computer was malfunctioning, so they had to do their measurements by hand.  Of course the delay meant that we didn’t get out of there before the impending storm struck the area. 

It was the…worst…takeoff…I have ever experienced.  The turbulence was rough, and the plane was all over the place…and that was before we had even left the runway!  The plane literally felt like it was twisting and sliding across the runway.  When the pilot finally managed to get off the ground, it was only one wheel at a time, and the plane was leaning at a dangerous angle to one side.  Just after we were wholly in the air, there were moments when the resistance would cease, and the plane would suddenly drop.  I felt like I was floating for a second, right before I was free falling out of the sky.  The lady next to me had the vomit bag out, and I started to think that that wasn’t a bad idea.  I always said that a bus was going to get me, I just never thought it was going to be an American Airlines Airbus!

We are finally home.  That word, “home,” carries mixed emotions.  I like our home, but right now there is a symbolism tied to it that I’m not eager to pick back up.  It represents the routine, the rut.  I will try, like I do after every vacation, to carry my newfound peace forward into my life.  God showed us amazing things on this vacation, and I can only pray that He’ll continue to show us amazing things now that we’re back in the city.  Or more that our eyes are open to see the amazing things that I’m sure He’s been showing us all along.  If there’s one thing I have learned by my time in Yellowstone, it’s this…

Keep your eyes open because there could be something exciting and amazing around every turn of the road.

Escape to the Wild (Day 13 – Howl)

For the last couple of mornings, I have been getting up early and going out to enjoy the crisp, chilly morning air.  Yesterday, while on my walk, I heard a faint howling echoing down the empty streets.  I slowly followed the sound until I identified the source.  Unfortunately, it had stopped by the time I had gotten there.  At the end of our street is the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center.  They rescue animals that would otherwise be euthanized, and people can go there to get an up-close and in-person view of some of the more elusive and dangerous natives of Yellowstone.

The howling I was hearing was coming from several gray wolves in an outside enclosure.  I decided to get up again this morning and try to catch the wolves song with that hope that they did it every morning.  As I trudged down the street in the 20-degree air, I was greeted with only silence.  I started to panic that it was a one-time thing, but I decided to go anyway.  As I crept up toward the chain-link fence, I found a pair of golden eyes staring back at me from the other side.  A gray wolf, although this one was completely white, was watching me with curiosity from the other side. 

I stood there, peering through the cracks in the fence, admiring her sleek beauty when another wolf came out from behind the rocks.  This one was multiple shades of gray and white, and he was bigger than the smaller female.  All of a sudden, he lifted his head up, stretched out his neck, closed his eyes, and started to howl.  It was a high-pitched mournful sound, almost sad.  Pretty soon, the white joined in, and then other wolves from surrounding enclosures that I couldn’t see.  Each with their own unique pitch, as if each was adding his or her own unique voice to the song.  Some were not even howls at all, but merely barks and yips.  As each instrument in a symphony plays a different part, so each wolf lends his voice as he feels moved.

As the sun crept up over the distant mountains, I was reminded of that scene from City of Angels where the angels gather on the beach every morning to welcome the day.  The morning being the time when everything is new and fresh, when they feel closest to the Creator.  So, they gather to listen to the music of the day being created and to lend their voice to its song.  This is how I felt standing there watching and listening to the wolves howl.  That they were lending their voice to the song.

Part 2.

Well, today is our 2^nd 14^th wedding anniversary, so another happy anniversary to my beautiful wife.

It is our last day in the park, which has filled us with both sadness and urgency.  We are sad to be leaving a place that has become comfortable and familiar to us.  We have our routine here now, and it will be hard to have to get back into the old rut.  We feel urgency, because we want to make sure that we squeeze every possible drop that we can out of our experience here.

Not really having anything on the plan, we decided to head back to the Upper Geyser Basin.  The last time we were here, we only saw Old Faithful and didn’t take the time to walk around and see the other geysers, pools, and springs.  We arrived right after Old Faithful had erupted, so we decided to go see the other attractions first.  My wife really wanted to see the Grand Geyser, since it’s supposed to be absolutely spectacular when it erupts.  Unfortunately, it only erupts once a day, and it wasn’t going off until around 8 p.m. tonight.  We had similar luck with the Castle Geyser.  About the only one we got to enjoy was “Spazzy,” the Spasmodic Geyser.

While walking to and from the other geyser area, we came across a bison that was throwing a temper tantrum.  Apparently, someone had gotten too close while trying to take a picture, and he didn’t like that.  So, he was sulking in the trees, refusing to look at anyone.  The park ranger was shooing people away from him, giving him a time out.

We made it back to witness Old Faithful blow its top again.  I was almost arrested for throttling a man to death when he decided to stand up right in front of me, so that he could take a video and picture at the same time.  He was a Japanese man.  We have had a terrible experience with the bus loads of Orientals touring the park.  They are rude, pushy, inconsiderate of your space and position to take pictures, and they talk incessantly and at high volumes which sometimes scares away the animals.  I was able to move over enough to still get the geyser at its peak, which saved him.

We talked to a park ranger at the information center, and he told us that we might be able to see wolves in the Lamar Valley, so we decided to attempt to drive all the way there.  Lamar Valley is on the opposite side of the park from Old Faithful, and the direct road through Dunraven Pass is closed eight months of the year due to excessive snow.  So, we had to drive all the way around through Mammoth Hot Springs.  It took us a little over two hours, but we finally made it.

On the way to the Lamar Valley, we stopped off at the Petrified Tree.  It’s a descendant of the ancient Redwoods and was petrified in the volcanic eruption that shaped much of Yellowstone.  A large portion of the trunk of the tree is still standing and stands as a monument, hundreds of years old.

The Lamar Valley and the mountains around it were amazingly beautiful.  We were shocked that we hadn’t come over here before.  As we were gawking at the scenery, we almost missed the coyote walking down the road.  We stopped to take his picture as he went off the side of the road, chasing something to eat.  His coloring was very pretty…a camouflage mixture of orange, brown, black, gray, and white.  We watched him hunt for several minutes before he finally trotted off down the road.

We next stopped at the Soda Butte Cone, a striking thermal cone near Soda Butte Creek.  As we stopped to take some pictures, we ran into another couple that were gazing out at the fields and mountains across the creek.  We learned from them that on several trips to Yellowstone, that they had seen bears in this area.  They were hoping to catch one again.  We told them that we had come up here to find wolves.  So far, both of us had been disappointed.

By this point, it was getting late.  We didn’t figure that we were going to see any wolves today, so we headed back.  A few miles down the road, we found a large group of cars pulled over on the side of the road.  All of the people had binoculars or telescopes and were peering off into the distant trees.  We stopped and asked them what they were looking at, and one guy told me that there were three wolves over there…a gray and two blacks.  We couldn’t see the wolves with the naked eye, but someone mentioned that the park ranger on the hill behind us might be able to tell us more about them.

We climbed up the hill to talk to him, and he was not only kind enough to explain about the wolves, but he also let us look at them through his telescope.  At first all we could observe was some black lumps laying in the grass.  But as we stood there, a grizzly bear suddenly came out of the trees right into the middle of the three wolves resting area.  The wolves, completely not intimidated by the bear, walked toward it and started circling it.  The park ranger was describing the scene and explaining that neither side was showing aggression.  It looked more like curiosity.  He again let us look at the scene across the creek, and we were finally able to see the wolves and the bear. It was a still a little blurry from that far away, but we could clearly make out their shapes.  I would still like to see a wolf a little closer, but my wife said that we’re counting it.

Interesting Fact:  The park ranger that we were talking to about the wolves was none other than Rick McIntyre.  Ranger Rick is famous inside the park as the “Wolf Man” for his years spent observing the behavior of the wolves within and across the packs.  He knows more about the wolves of Yellowstone than any other person.

Escape to the Wild (Day 12 – Depth)

Well, today is our 1^st 14^th wedding anniversary.  So, Happy Anniversary to my beautiful wife, and thanks for sticking with me this long.

Since we missed out on Norris Geyser Basin yesterday, we decided to try it again today.  Before we headed over there, we decided to go to Canyon Village first.  So, after grabbing some sandwiches at the Book Peddler, we were on our way.  Many of the roads around that area are closed, so we had to park at the Visitor Center and hike over a mile through the woods to the Grand View observation area.  This observation area is part of the North Rim that runs along the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone is a deep gorge cut into the mountain with the Yellowstone River running along the bottom.  The Grand View observation point is near the highest point of the canyon which is around 1200 feet above the river below.

My wife wussed out and wouldn’t go near the edge to look at the canyon, so I braved it alone.  Some nice people agreed to swap pictures with me, so I would have proof that I was there.  We headed down the North Rim trail to the Lookout Point observation area where we caught our first glimpse of the Yellowstone Lower Falls.  There was an offshoot trail that headed down to Red Rock Point, a 260-foot descent into the canyon that afforded a better view of the waterfall.  Again my wife wussed out, so I hiked it alone.  The descent wasn’t too bad.  It consisted of a series of switchbacks that zig-zagged down the side of the canyon to an observation point at the bottom.  The ascent was killer.  With an average grade of 9 degrees and a max grade of 23 degrees, my calves were throbbing by the time I made it back to the top.

After my wife administered CPR to me to revive me, we headed back through the woods to the visitor center.  We decided to eat the sandwiches we had brought before heading over the geyser basin.  As we munched on our cold grilled cheese sandwiches and Cheetos, a huge raven flew down and stood by our table.  I tossed him a couple of Cheetos, which he scarfed down greedily, and then some of the crust off of my sandwich.  He hopped up on the bench next to me, and I noticed that he had orange Cheeto cheese on his beak.  I decided that if he couldn’t eat without being such a mess, then I’d have to cut him off!

After that we headed over to the Norris Geyser Basin.  This basin holds the Steamboat Geyser, which has the distinction of being the world’s tallest active geyser.  During major eruptions, water can be tossed up to 300 feet into the air.  Unfortunately, the last major eruption was three years ago, and the geyser is so unpredictable that a major eruption can happen anywhere between four days and fifty years.  We did not see a major eruption today.  However, we did see several minor ones, so we’ll take it.

The tour around the back basin to see the various geysers, hot springs, and thermal pools is about three miles.  Honestly, I wouldn’t really say that it was worth the hike, but my wife liked it. I think she enjoyed the names more than anything.  You have the Puff ‘n Stuff Geyser, the Black Hermit Caldron, the Green Dragon Spring, the Blue Mud Steam Vent, the Porkchop Geyser, and the Vixen Geyser.  Of all of these, the Vixen Geyser was the most violent and feisty.

Exhausted and worn out, we head back to town.  As we were driving along the river, I spotted a white and grayish-brown bird sitting in a tree.  We turned around and went back and were blessed with a sighting of an osprey, or river hawk.  It was mostly white with grayish-brown wings and a brown stripe along the side of its head.  Unfortunately, when I got out to take its picture, it took off down the river.

We grabbed dinner at The Buffalo Bar again, me with my chicken fried steak and my wife with her bacon cheeseburger.

Escape to the Wild (Day 11 – Maul)

Today was not a good day for my wife and I, so we didn’t even get started until well after lunch.  We ran by the Canyon Street Grill for a 1950s-style lunch and then headed to the park.  We were going to try to make it to the Norris Geyser Basin, but we decided to stop at the Artist’s Paint Pots first.  This area is a collection of thermal springs of various vibrant colors.  Underneath the surface of the water, you can clearly see dozens of vent holes, which make the springs look like painter’s palettes.

As we made our way down the ice and mud-spattered path, I came around a bend and was face-to-face with three grizzly bears!  We made eye contact, and I immediately froze.  There was a tense moment when we were both sizing each other up, trying to figure out what the other one was going to do.  I motioned to my wife to stop.  That’s when the bears decided to head down the trail the other way.  (My wife later asked me what I would have done if the bears had decided to challenge me.  I said that I guess I would sacrifice myself, so she’d have a chance to get away.  Of course, I would have also taken an opportunity to get the charging, snarling mother grizzly bear on film.  I may not have made it, but I would make sure that I captured that last moment with my camera.  Hopefully, someone would come back and get it.)  I followed, slowly and apprehensively, not wanting to run into them again.  Around the next bend, I saw them again, but this time they were disappearing into the trees along the trail.  We made it back to the parking lot just in time to see them walk by an opening in the trees.  It was the same mother and her two cubs that we had seen yesterday. My wife made a comment that we keep seeing the mother and cubs, but never see the father. I told her that the males are more solitary creatures, choosing to show up during mating season and then going off again. They’re like deadbeat dads!

Along with several other couples, we all headed around the corner, tracking the bears across the fields.  Pretty soon, there was a traffic jam of cars pulled over, trying to catch a shot of the bears way out in the field.  And to think that once again all of those people had me to thank for scaring those bears out of hiding, so they could get that once-in-a-lifetime picture.  While we were standing there waiting for the bears to come out from behind some trees, we started talking to this woman and her daughter.  She had just celebrated her anniversary last Saturday.  We really liked them, and it was fun to swap stories about our vacations so far.

The bears meandered off into the distance, so we decided to head back.  Since it was late, we decided to forego the geyser basin and just head back to town.  My wife wanted to stop in one of the turnouts and enjoy the sunset.  While we were there watching the sunset and ducks, one of the fly fishermen came up the bank to his truck.  When he saw us, he said, “Where’s your poles?”  We laughed and said that we were just spectators.  We struck up a conversation with him, and found out that he had just sold his business after 45 years, and he and his wife were talking a month-long tour across America.

Later, we grabbed dinner at The Slippery Otter, so we could have soup and salad.

Escape to the Wild (Day 10 – Encounter)

We found out in the morning that the road to Mammoth Hot Springs, which had been closed for construction, was finally open again to the public.  So, we decided to head up there before it closed again.  We stopped at the Woodside Bakery to grab some sandwiches and head off into Yellowstone.  To say that the day unfolded like an unimaginable dream would be an understatement.  There is no way that we could ever have planned or even thought up what was about to happen.  I asked God to show us His wonders, and He came through above and beyond!

Just inside the park entrance, we pulled over, so I could take a picture of what looked like an eagle’s nest high upon the mountain.  At the time, I didn’t realize that there was a bull elk walking through the field in front of me.  It was a good distance off, but I had been waiting to see a bull, as all we’d see so far were cows.  So, after snapping a few pictures as he walked in the morning sunlight, I had an idea.  I asked my wife to stopped a little ways up the road, so I could hike through the forest and get in front of him.  I had to literally squeeze between the young lodgepole pines, which were so thick and close together that they snagged on my clothing as I passed.  After a couple of minutes of squeezing between trees, trudging through the snow, and leaping across fallen trees, I finally came to a little clearing on the top of the hill.  Immediately to my left was a small herd of cows.  They looked completely surprised to see me pop through the trees, not so quietly I’m ashamed to admit, but they didn’t run off.  They just stared at me.

All of a sudden, within a hundred feet of my right, I heard an elk bull bugle a warning call.  I hadn’t even seen the other herd, but apparently they had seen me.  A group of cows and fawns emerged from the trees and began to scamper down the hill, followed by a huge bull elk.  He stopped, looked right at me, bugled again, and then raced down the hill to catch up with the others.  I was sad that I scared them off.  I hadn’t meant to do that, but it was an exhilarating experience to be that close to them.  After squeezing back through the trees, we headed on again.  At the very next bend in the road, there was a group of cars stopped on the side of the road with people all crouched down taking pictures of something in the field below.  As we slowed down, I noticed that they were all looking at the fleeing elk herd that I had just scared.  So, all of those people should thank me for giving them that experience!

Our first planned destination was Gibbons Falls.  It’s a neat waterfall that cuts through the mountain and then fans out before plummeting into the river below.  They have an overlook built, so you can view the waterfall from above as it cascades down.  The morning sunlight was just right to shine on the rushing water, and a rainbow arched in front of the falls arrayed in all of its colors.  We took a few minutes to just enjoy the roaring sound of the falls before moving on again up the road.

That was when we were blessed with our next unexpected encounter.  A very large group of cars were parked along the road and in every pullout.  We stopped, because this usually means some sort of animal sighting.  A crowd of this size could only mean something rare and special.  We joined the throng of people staring across the river, cameras trained on a splotch of trees.  Piecing together the murmurs, we learned that a grizzly bear sow and her two cubs were hanging out on the other side of the river, eating and enjoying the morning sun.  We found a good spot and waited.  It took about ten minutes for us to catch our first glimpse before they disappeared in the trees, and even then it was only the back and backside of the mother.  We moved further down river, following their path, and caught a few glimpses of the cubs, chomping on some grubs.  The grizzlies kept moving down river, and we kept following until they finally made a brief appearance right in front of us.  The mother bear was big with a head the size of a car tire.  The cubs, who someone said were about one year old, were pretty plump and fluffy.  One cub was the grayish-brown of a grizzly, the other was dark, dark brown almost black.

After that the bears changed direction and headed back up river.  So, again we all followed, when all of a sudden they lumbered down the hill toward the river.  So, we watched them as they walked along the river bank in full view, the various shades of grayish-brown on display in the sunlight.  The cubs dashing ahead as the mother slowly brought up the rear.  Then, the cubs would stop to explore and play, while the mother would stop to dig up and eat something from the ground.  Slowly, slowly they made their way along the river and then up the mountain.

We weren’t sure how we’d ever top that once in a lifetime opportunity.  We had heard people say that they had been coming to Yellowstone ten years without ever seeing a bear, and we saw one on our first time.  We stopped next at the Beryl Spring, which is the hottest thermal pool in Yellowstone.  While not a large pool, it was releasing an enormous amount of steam into the cool air.  From there, we stopped to scarf down our sandwiches and then off again toward Mammoth Hot Springs.

When we got to Norris, we found ourselves in a traffic jam as a herd of bison meandered across the road.  One bison went out first and stood in the middle of the road.  She just stood there, not moving, looking completely uninterested.  Slowly, slowly the other bison walked across the road, but that one didn’t move.  We figured she must have been the crossing guard.  When about half the herd, which was really large, had made it across the road, another younger bison stopped next to the crossing guard, and the crossing guard walked on across the road.  That younger bison then stood completely still in the middle of the road while the rest of the herd crossed.  We assumed that she must have been a crossing guard in training.

While the road to Mammoth Hot Springs was open, it still had construction on it.  So, we got stuck in a long line of cars, sitting and waiting for 45 minutes for our turn to drive down the one-lane road past the construction.  Many heated words and honks were exchanged between our car and the pilot car, which was doing 2 mph.  We finally made it through the construction and nearly drove right by the Mammoth Hot Springs.  They were not exactly what we were expecting.  For one thing, they were almost completely dried up.  They just looked like a big white hill.  The hot springs are divided into terraces that feature different pools and structures, each one unique.  My favorite was the Mound Spring.  It had many different formations of limestone and thermophile that made it fascinating.  Not to mention the slow stream of water cascading down the surface would ripple and glint in the sunlight.  The sound was peaceful and calming, like a waterfall pouring into a small brook.

We moved on up the hill to see some other terraces, when all of a sudden I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.  I grabbed my wife to stop her, as a grey fox bounded out of the snow right toward me.  He veered off behind a hill, so I pursued him down the walkway.  He ran straight at the walkway, dived under it, and then kept going on the other side.  His fur was a beautiful mixture of reds, grays, blacks, and whites.  He seemed unperturbed by my presence as he disappeared into the brush.  It ranked up there with the bear for coolness factor.

On a whim, my wife wanted to drive through the small town of Mammoth Hot Springs, so we decided to make a quick tour and then be on our way.  We no sooner entered the town, then we saw two huge bull elks eating grass near a café.  We pulled over to watch them, having never been this close to them before.  All of a sudden, the bigger of the two bulls charged the other one.  They locked antlers and began to have a shoving and twisting match around a small bush.  The park ranger that was there with us said that they were just hose-playing.  This might be a real fight during mating season, but that was long over.  The more we watched them circle and shove each other, the more they looked like two brothers wrestling in their parents living room.  As they played, they made these high-pitched grunts and yelps.  This went on for several minutes, until one of them lost interest and walked off around the corner to find some grass that wasn’t trampled down by wrestling elk.  We were amazed by the enormity of these bulls.  Their backs were level with the top of the cars they were passing, and their antlers stuck up past the roof of our SUV.

It was getting late, and we had a long drive back to the entrance of the park, so we headed back.  We got stuck in the construction traffic again going the other way, and then it was home free.  It was pitch black before we made it back to the gate, so I asked my wife to pull over in one of the turnouts by the river.  There were a million stars in the sky, something we don’t ever get to see in the bright lights of the city…layer upon layer…as far as the eye could see.  As we stood there looking at the beautiful array of stars scattered across the bluish-black sky, we started to hear bugling in the distance.  The call of one elk bull was answered by another directly across the river from us.  Back and forth they called to each other.  The night was so quiet that we could even hear antlers clacking in the darkness as two bulls wrestled with each other.

We finished our night by grabbing a pizza at Pete’s Pizza and heading back to the hotel to eat it.