Plumbing and Driving

Yesterday we rode the bikes out from the Military Cemetery trailhead.  I like the trail except for two climbs on the way back, one of which is rather long.  Invariably, I end up in the very lowest (easy) gear, doing a little over two miles an hour.  It might be faster to walk.  Anyway, we went out to the site of the old Seven Mile Camp.

During the depression, FDR commissioned the Civilian Conservation Corps.  He plucked unemployed young men out of the cities, and put them to work planting trees, building stone walls and national parks.   Millions of men planted billions of trees.  Seven Mile Camp was a CCC facility.  They cleared logging slash, planted trees and built the original suspension bridge over the Spokane River.  You can see the bridge in this past post.  The bridge has been redone since it was originally built.  As the country ramped up for war, the CCC was disbanded, and Seven Mile Camp was put under military control.  Eventually all of the buildings were torn down.  The chimney of the old dining hall remains.  You can read more here.

On the way back, we turned off of the paved trail and went into the woods for a ways.  There are some nice trails back there.  They are much less boring than Fish Lake trail.

Today we spent a lot of time in the car.  The handle for the shower is loose.  We thought we needed a new handle adapter, but since 2005 the entire assembly has changed, so we need the adapter as well as a new handle.  It had to be ordered and whenever it arrives at the plumbing supply place we'll have to go pick it up.  On the way to plumbing supply, we saw this.

My cell phone camera insists on focusing on the windshield, and not outside, so it's a blurry photo.  This is the biggest fire and police response I've ever seen.  Out of frame is another fire truck, several aid cars and about ten or twelve police cars.  Behind that sign mid-photo is one of the cars involved, the driver's door was laying on the ground.  I don't know if they had to use the jaws of life to get him out, or if the accident tore the door off.  It looked bad.  People here drive too fast, they think they're better drivers than they actually are.

Washington has a state wide mask mandate.  If you're inside, you should be masked.  At the first plumbing place they had an "in memoriam" picture up of one of their co-workers who had died from Covid.  Not one employee was masked, and the bulk of the customers were not, either.  You would think their friend's death might encourage the wearing of masks.  Compliance was slightly higher at the second store.  We are always masked, sometimes with a double.

After the plumbing, we headed north to go to Fred Meyer.  The GPS took us via surface streets.  It was cool, though, we went through Hillyard.  From wikipedia we learn, "The town came about due to the Great Northern Railway and was named for James J. Hill,  then head of the railroad. Between 1904 and 1912, many of the town's houses were built, to house railroad workers working in the local yard. Hillyard was the home of the Great Northern's famed shops where locomotives were manufactured, repaired, and refurbished. At the time, the Hillyard shop was the largest in the nation."  After a series of rail way consolidations, operations were moved out of Hillyard and the city fell into disrepair.  Despite being the poorest neighborhood in Washington, the residents take pride in their city; they work on preservation and host festivals.  They're trying to woo people to the area.  It really does look like small town America.

Notice the size of the wrecker.

Here is an old photo of the Great Northern shops in Hillyard during their hey-day.  There is more interesting stuff to be read here. 

After the trip to Fred Meyer, we returned home, put the groceries away and now I am writing to you.