So first, let me put in this link to fangs_fur_fey  where I replied to some of the questions of the week.

Today began with a call to the plumber to fix the water heater (the bottom element was out so you get about a half-a-shower's worth of hot water and then it's all cold from there. Luckily (and shockingly and amazingly), it was repaired by 11 a.m. So we decided we'd drive toward Yellowstone and do some geocaching.

Unfortunately my sore throat and headache returned and my daughter's hacking cough. That was unpleasant. We stopped in Virginia City, this old mining town that's become a sort of town-sized museum, and found a cache. Then drove on toward Yellowstone.  On the way we saw:

A moose, several herds of antelope, several family groups of mule deer, white tailed deer, two enormous herds of elk, two family groups of big horned sheep (right on the road--literally), several swans, ducks, geese, a single bull elk with an enormous rack (antlers--don't be that way), and then snow. Huge drifts of snow. There are a lot of gates that won't get opened until the melt. It was amazingly deep.

Did another cache along the Madison River in Ennis, had an ice cream cone in West Yellowstone (the entrance there is shut so you can't get into the park except by snowshoe and maybe snowmobile) and then back home. It was a good day. Not much accomplished of course, but what can ya do?

I shall have pics of some of those in the next couple of days. Oh, should mention had very very strange dreams last night. i can't begin to describe them, since I don't remember them that well, but it was a sort of shake up my whole life and psyche and play Yahtzee with them. Weird, bizarre, fun, entertaining, strange. I love dreams like that.

And now, to go be something like productive for a few minutes.

Progress on The Turning Tide:
 

27431 / 120000 words. 23% done!