Use A Cookie To Send PersonID To Different Page

[xnaLearner]

Hey guys so atm when the user goes to the holiday page, they can do 1 of 2 things 1)use a drop down box to select 'person name' and click 'view' this will display all the current holidays for this person 2)click 'create new' which will bring the user to a create page which allows them to add a new holiday(from here they select person name from drop and and select what date from calender) This all works, however if the user originally follows the first path of selecting a person name and clicking view(it will display their holidays) if they then take the path of 2 and click 'create' it will jump to the create page. however the drop down box will be back at 'select' i would like the existing person selected from the previous drop down to display in this drop down. A cookie or url/parameter? anyway Im stuck please help I've tried a cookie.

[code]
[HttpGet]
public ViewResult Index(string sortOrder, int? currentPersonID)
{
var holidays = db.Holidays.Include("Person");
HolidayList model = new HolidayList();

        if (currentPersonID.HasValue)
        {
            model.currentPersonID = currentPersonID.Value;

        }
        else
        {
            model.currentPersonID = 0;
        }

        model.PList4DD = db.People.ToList();

        //hyperlink to sort dates in ascending order
        ViewBag.NameSortParm = String.IsNullOrEmpty(sortOrder) ? "date" : "";
        var dates = from d in db.Holidays
                    where d.PersonId == currentPersonID.Value    
                    select d;

        switch (sortOrder)
        {
            case "date":
                dates = dates.OrderBy(p => p.HolidayDate);
                break;
        }

        model.HList4DD = dates.ToList();

        var cookie = new HttpCookie("cookie\_name", "currentPersonID");
        Response.AppendCookie(cookie);     

        return View(model);
    }

public ActionResult Create()
    {
        var cookie = Request.Cookies\["cookie\_name"\];
        if (cookie != null)
        {
            string value = cookie.Value;
            //int? value = cookie.Value;
        }

        ViewBag.cookie = cookie.Value;

        ViewBag.Id = new SelectList(db.People, "Id", "Name");
        return View();

//tried to use the currentPersonID in index as an int but it wou