No Destination Vacation number three is now in the books. On the first day we headed north to South Dakota. The last time we were there we had tried to visit Wind Cave National Park, but it was closed and we were not able to get in. This time we checked the website and saw that it was open, so we decided to make it our first stop.
Since KH lives in that area, we decided to invite him to meet us in Deadwood. I honestly was not sure how that meeting was going to go. Part of me wondered if I would end up hitting him or if we would simply talk things through.
At one point AJ was on the phone with AE, which gave me the chance to speak with KH privately about the messages that he and AJ had exchanged. He told me essentially the same thing AJ had said. According to him, the messages were mostly just trash talking back and forth and nothing serious. He also said they were from a long time ago and that things had changed since then.
During that conversation I made it clear to him that I was not the one who had almost broken AJ and me apart. I also told him that I was not the one who had to live with the fact that an emotional affair had happened while someone was already in a relationship. That responsibility belonged to him and AJ.
After that, we continued our trip and made it to Wind Cave. From there we drove west to Glacier National Park. The park was incredible. We entered from the east side so we did not have to deal with the timed entry system. Parking was full in many areas, so we mostly drove through the park and only stopped in small pull offs that were barely large enough for the car.
At one stop we found a quiet spot along a river. We sat together there for a while, just taking in the moment in each other’s arms. While we were sitting there, a few deer wandered close to us. They seemed more curious about us than we were surprised to see them.
From Glacier we headed south to Yellowstone National Park. We saw Old Faithful and several other sights before continuing on to Grand Teton National Park.
Grand Teton turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip for me. I was able to get some great photos there, and it is easily one of the most photogenic national parks I have ever visited. We ended up spending more time there than anywhere else on the trip.
Since we were ahead of schedule, KH invited us to meet him in Wyoming and take his side-by-side out for a ride. AJ left the decision up to me, and I decided that we would go.
When we arrived, AJ seemed upset that KH had brought another woman with him. That reaction felt strange to me. If their relationship was truly just friendship, I could not understand why it would bother her.
Later, after we got home, AJ posted photos from our night in South Dakota and tagged both KH and me in them on Facebook. The way the photos and the post were put together made it look like she and KH were a couple. There were more pictures of the two of them than of everyone together.
I told her how I felt about that and removed myself from the tag because I did not want those photos showing up later as memories. After that, she deleted the post.
Later on I learned that during our night out in South Dakota, KH had told AJ that he was in love with her. Hearing that only reinforced my feeling that she may still have some kind of emotional attachment to him. Otherwise, I cannot understand why she would have been upset that he brought another woman with him.
Drifted Notes 