A No Work Day

Yesterday morning I dumped an almost full 16 ounce glass of water on my laptop.  It survived.  In the process of mopping water off the screen with a cloth napkin that was not terribly absorbent, all of the dust from Tucson still remaining on the screen has become an impenetrable layer of something.  It makes it hard to see the screen when there is light on it.  Soon I will be forced to turn the thing off, which is always fraught because one of these days it won't come back on because it is old and fragile, and clean the screen with something.  I'm fairly shocked that it continued working.  I put a fan on it all day which may or may not have done any good, but it made me feel better.  

In the afternoon we drove out to the Spokane Valley Home Depot.  Spokane Valley is closer to Idaho, and it shows.  Way fewer people were wearing masks, and the agricultural vibe is strong.  Speaking of Idaho.  They are doing zippity doo-dah all about Covid mitigation.  No mask mandates, no push for vaccination, nothing, nada, niente.  The governor and AG are trying to figure out how to circumvent the vaccination mandates put in place by President Biden. Their hospitals are buckling under the strain of all of the people in ICU.  They don't have beds, ventilators or staff.  The federal government is sending people to help.  They are also exporting patients to Spokane.  Since the Spokane hospitals are now so full of their own unvaccinated and Idaho's, surgeries like removing brain tumors and knee/hip replacements are being deferred.  I have a serious issue with that.  Not that anyone cares what I think.  In Coeur d'Alene they are setting up on the fair grounds to have infusion centers for mono clonal antibodies for people who are still only mildly sick.  I don't know why they think the same people who would not get vaccinated are going to take a lab grown artificial protein that mimics a human antibody.  NYT did a piece on the problem, which you can read here.

This was last night.  I've had this lamp for years, it was always in a place where it didn't get used, and now it's out in the open.  We turn it on, we like the light and the way it shines through Jim's sailing trophy.  Jim's team won the Swiftsure race and set a course record in 1995; the next year Roy Disney came up and won with a new course record.

I have to to wash this window!  There were some pretty clouds, we need to be higher on the hill.

Today we did no work.  There was no weeding, hauling of rocks, none of that.  Instead we took the mountain bikes out to the Centennial trail.  From this website we learn "The Centennial Trail is a nearly 40-mile paved recreational trail for pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles. The trail stretches from Sontag Park in Nine Mile Falls, Washington to the Washington / Idaho state line. It continues another 24 miles beyond the Washington state border into Idaho as the North Idaho Centennial trail through Post Falls and into Coeur d'Alene."  Part of it is under construction and requires riding with traffic for the duration.  We did find places to park that will keep us off the road.  Given the hospital situation, I'm not willing to risk playing in traffic.

This is the view of the river close to where we parked.

Our trail head is called the Military Cemetery trail head.  This is the cemetery.  It was odd how many grave markers were for infants.  1955 - 1959 seem to have been bad years to be a baby.

The trail is under construction, and there is a detour posted for work on the trail as well as road work.  We drove up to see how grisly the detour would be; we are somewhat deterred.  Anyway, this is what we saw along the way.  I have no idea why this is here.

It's an old part of town, high on the bluff over looking the river.  Look at the size of the deciduous trees.  There will be much gathering of dead leaves.

Here we have the John Finch nurses' home, built in 1929.  From the website I can't tell if student nurses lived there, or if it's a retirement facility.  It's a good looking building with an excellent view.

I would guess this belonged to an original mover and shaker in Spokane from years back.  It's a pretty cool house.

Tomorrow we go to the DMV to get driver's licenses.  Once again I will have an ID photo that makes me look like the walking dead.  Can't wait.  At least they schedule appointments now, it used to be first come, first serve and the wait was long.