Not sure why I'm blogging. My world is not centered. I'm very busy being pulled in all directions by work and family and trying to figure where I fit myself in. Life is good, but I'm feeling off, I went fishing last week and I kept missing fish. Caught a couple, but had a couple of fish just swallow, taking my fly, then taking off upstream like a bat out of hell and immediately break off, looking at my fly line I could see that my knot had unraveled...

Today was our first day of employee evaluations. We had three meetings, for the most part all went well, but I was immediately greeted by some ridiculous gossip shortly after the meetings, not worth writing about, but something I will need to deal with tomorrow...

Yesterday we went to Yellowstone National Park with Howie, Micah and Micah's friend Mike. We headed to the Firehole where Jackie and the boys went swimming while I talked to Chad from Bridger Water, one of my store vendors who happened to be there with his wife and 2 boys and saw me and said hello. We talked for quite awhile, then after he left and the boys were done swimming, well actually before he left the boys took my fishing rod and headed down the Firehole. Eventually I caught up with them, took them further down river - there were a bunch of tourists fishing, and tried to give them some pointers. Micah caught a fish and then with everybody there I caught one too. It was fun down there, but just a bit too crowded for me. We then went to Fountain Paint Pots, which is a walkway near some of the really amazing thermal activity of Yellowstone. The Paint Pots look so otherworldly from another planet - gurgling, bubbling white clay, quick sand. Then onto the geysers, Clepsydra Geyser which is pretty much always spouting off which is next to Fountain Geyser. Jackie noticed the group of geyser gazers who wait around, watch and record the geysers as they go off. A woman on a bench told us that Fountain Geyser usually goes off every 5-7 hours and should be going off soon - it was already 6 hours since the last eruption. So we decided to wait. Micah and Mike had no patience and ran off and disappeared. Jackie, Howie and I sat around and watched the sunset and all the people walking by. It was somewhat relaxing and a test in patience, especially since the other boys where just gone. After about an hour of waiting, I saw one of the gazers go to his walkie talkie and tell the other gazers who waited at an outpost a little further up and away that he could see the water rising and sure enough seconds later it started spitting, spouting and erupting. It was like a fireworks display. Pretty cool, I took lots of pictures and a couple of videos. The amazing thing about Fountain Geyser is that it goes off for like 40 minutes, we stayed for quite awhile and miraculously Mike and Micah finally showed up and got to see it shooting off. There was a very nice couple - retired school teachers of teenagers who were very empathetic of the runaway teenagers. After the geysers we headed to West Yellowstone for Chinese food. And then it was time to head home. It was a wonderful day, unfortunately early on in the drive Jackie and I had a fight - she thought I took a turn too fast and I didn't want to hear about it. So it was a relatively quiet tense ride home, as was the rest of the night after we got home. And then today was the first day of employee evaluations. And then tonight I had a fight with Andrew who couldn't help himself from interrupting me and talking back, so it was a bit tense after dinner tonight as well, though we did have a spontaneous family meeting to talk a bit about bed times, limiting electronics, school and stuff. Everybody seemed a bit tired and out of it. Micah slept till 1 pm today, but it was still earlyish bedtime for all the boys tonight. And hopefully me too.

Quicksand! On Saturday Jackie and I finally had some spontaneous alone time. We took the dogs and our mountain bikes to Taylor Fork, parked the car and rode up to Cache Creek where we hiked down to the small narrow creek and I tried to fish while Jackie hung out and wrote. I caught a fish right away, a small native cutthroat, but then again I kept missing fish, would get bites, knew where the fish were, cast right to them, had bites, but kept missing the fish, and I think it was me. My timing was just a bit off, setting too quickly, I think. It was beautiful down there, peaceful, few other people if any. It was a good ride as well, lots of uphill, but I was able to do it and I think it's very good for my knee. Oh yeah, the quicksand, after catching the first fish, I hiked a bit upstream to another hole, I stepped down into the shallow shore and immediately sunk into the mud about calf high. I almost panicked, yelled Jackie once, but realized I wasn't going to sink anymore and slowly worked my feet up, being careful not to lose my sandals. I got out washed off my sandals in the creek, and kept fishing, but like I said I kept missing fish. After fishing for awhile we headed back on our bikes - rode back to the car, tried to fish some more, but just enjoyed wandering around the Taylor Fork. Didn't get home till close to 7, had to retrieve Micah and Howie from the West Fork. I made dinner while Jackie retrieved the kids, fed the dogs. We watched a movie that night, it was a very good day.

Then came Sunday and then today, Labor Day and I worked.