Mount Moran



Great Fountain Geyser

Monday, 9/27/10

Dad didn’t feel well the other day, his ibs (irritable bowel syndrome, aka a bad tummy) was acting up…

what can I tell you mark? that’s what happens when you stick around.

it doesn’t happen if you leave early….

Dad stopped by my desk at one point this afternoon, “Your mother used to always say to me, “How do you remember all their names? You always remember all your customers’ names.” And now it’s you who remember everyone’s name.”

Not sure where that came from. He had just stopped by after taking a walk around the block, it’s been spectacularly beautiful weather the last few days, Indian Summer, the last week of September. I hadn’t seen Dad all weekend. Spoke to him when we got home from Jackson last night. He didn’t come over to the store at all this morning, we saw him when we went over to his apartment to hold a couple of evaluation meetings with employees. He didn’t seem to be doing that well, but I wasn’t focused on him at all. I was focused on the meetings. After the meeting he told me that he wasn’t feeling well, he thought he was going to pass out, but he went to the bathroom and after that he felt much better. Our meetings ended around 4 pm and I sat down with him for a few minutes – he told me he needed to talk to me about something. He had been thinking about Mount Aratat, where the family cemetery plot is, where mom is buried and all Dad’s ancestors, his parents, his grandparents, his aunts and uncles. He wants me to call the cemetery and make sure he has perpetual care for all the plots. He hasn’t received a bill from them in over a year. He was worried that the plots aren’t being taken care of. So I will need to confer with my brothers and call the cemetery and see what the situation is. After telling me all that he felt better and decided to go for a walk. He seemed in much better spirits after his walk – that’s when he told me about remembering names. He hung out with Howie who was having a grilled cheese in the dining area of the store.

When I went to say good night to him at 7pm before heading home, he was in good spirits laughing because the Yankees were losing and the Red Sox were winning and the Yankees would go one more day before clinching at least the wild card.

This weekend we went to Jackson with Micah for a soccer tournament. It was a gorgeous weekend spent with soccer families and friends, the boys unfortunately didn’t score a goal all weekend, losing their 2 games on Saturday and tying their last game which was on Sunday morning. It was a beautiful drive home stopping at the Jackson Lake Lodge for a beautiful view of the Tetons and a very wide valley of willows and golden aspen trees. Unseen elk were bugling in the distance.

Later we stopped at the Great Fountain Geyser in Yellowstone. We happen to arrive at the geyser at 4 pm, it was supposed to go off some time between 4 and 8 pm. We decided to hang around for awhile, talking to other geyser gazers and just enjoying the scenery. Luckily for us the geyser started going off around 4:30, so we didn’t really wait that long before it started going off, it erupted on and off for about an hour, it was fun to watch, it was a beautiful evening, and the people there were really nice. This man from Utah who had a second home in West Yellowstone was sitting next to me and telling me all about the Great Fountain Geyser and just talking. He was a very nice soft spoken man, he and his wife truly enjoyed traveling in the park. Another family was very excited to stop and watch, they had once seen the geyser go off from far away and they thought it was huge! And then there was the geyser gazer who came towards the end asking me when the geyser had gone off and if I knew about the phases and which phase were we at? She was an official geyser gazer who left a note for people that the geyser had gone off and to expect the next eruption in 10 -14 hours…

Great Fountain Geyser...