WA dry, fires, smoke, relief

I have decided to play catch-up this week; my decision, as principal editor. John is the final editor and not here today.

Talapus Lake Work – Sept 9, 2017

Last week we mentioned John was closed out of Mt. Rainier, and went instead to a work party on the I-90 corridor. Nancy’s opinion is that it was a strange work party. They spent the day removing a set of puncheon bridges on a trail that had been abandoned – after a new section of trail was completed. Before (the old puncheon) and during the removal process. Bob, Jim, and John on one section. Ladies are all up the trail.

John is still hopeful the National Park Service will open Sunrise access again before the season ends. They would still be able to make more progress on that trail. Turns out they got one more day, Sunday, but snows are called for, so it is unlikely they will return this year. If the forecast is correct there will be a foot+ of snow on the trail by Thursday evening. Still, after 10 or so years of neglect, 90% of it is a decent hike.

Sunday, Sept 10

We put out last week’s blog very late tonight, again without the following catch-up from week’s ago. These show John in his old orange faded shirt, we replaced with a nice new orange one you have been seeing in recent photos. Evonne has been good for years, taking photos of John for me on our camera, so I can see him out working on trail maintenance. Then last year she photographed us in our WTA shirts at the annual November WTA Appreciation dinner. This year it will occur again Nov. 3, and we intend to be there, unless there is last minute snow on Snoqualmie Pass. That’s I-90. Evonne took these early morning and afternoon to thank him for coming over again for the long trip to assist her on the trail crew. He’ll be just north of Snoqualmie Pass this coming Friday, to work on the Pacific Crest Trail, and the first 2 miles is also part of the Commonwealth Basin Trail. Then the PCT forks to the right and goes uphill to the Kendall Katwalk.
Picture here

Monday, Sept 11

No CPAP — Oximetry for Sept 10: SpO2 low 87, 1 events <88% with overall avg., 92.2%. Pulse avg. 56.7, low 52. Slept 7 hrs 46 min.

Received these great photos today, from Jeri Conklin, my co-owner, about our Brittany, Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’ JH (Daisy), in CA in training. DAISY pointing and working a bird. “Daisy is steady as a rock. She just needs the Brittany major to be a Field Champion,” states Jeri. Photos by Deanna Beals-Azevedo, trainer, Scott Azevedo, Nelson Kennels, Los Banos, CA.

I went to town for my SAIL exercise class.

Tuesday, Sept 12

No CPAP — Oximetry for Sept 11: SpO2 low 86, 3 events <88% with overall avg., 92.2%. Pulse avg. 60.0, low 55. Slept 7 hrs 59 min.

I spent a bunch of time on the phone this morning trying to change our email address and notify customer service to send our bill for the connection service to our domain, and pay for our extension of our domain we used to send this blog (rocknponderosa.com) . We do not have an associated email with that new domain, and we are losing our email associated with the old ellensburg.com. Someone else owns the ellensburg.com domain, and is not willing to carry on with other people using it. I spend a little time every day notifying people about changes from that email to our new one on Gmail. You will likely be hearing from me, if you haven’t already. We lose access to that account at the end of the year. If you have been using nancyh@ellensburg.com and see this message, go ahead and send me an email message to that account, and I will send you the changed address and eliminate you from that address book. Near the end of the year, I will send an email to all the people left in my address book whom I haven’t yet notified. This is a major project that takes a ton of time I don’t have to spare, but it must be done.

I went to Celia’s for a haircut at noon, with a few yellow plums, and she gave me some tomatoes in return. I need to remember to check my schedule 7 weeks out for my next haircut and make a reservation.

Stopped at Bi-Mart for Fisherman’s Friends (but they didn’t have any of my favorite original hardy ones, that are on order), GUM Soft Picks, checked my numbers, and I found a special wide-brimmed orange summer hat for John. Pretty classy, for 50% off an already good price. We’ll include a photo of him in it with his new orange shirt on, in next week’s blog.

Funercise was at 2:00 p.m. I took a pan of yellow Shiro plums to share. People there really like them. That was the end of them; John picked the tree clean. We never had time to pull out the dehydrator to keep some for winter months. We had a good turnout: Connie, Evelyn, Lynn, Nicole, and me, orchestrated by Katrina. I had my FitBit on, as usual, and today my heart was at cardio range for 14 minutes of the 35-minute program.
I dropped by the Rehab to sing Happy Birthday to Jeanne Gordon, on her 88th. She showed me the pearl bracelet Gerald gave her today, and smiled her very big smile.

Then on the way home, I dropped by Joanie’s with some corn and yellow summer squash, and picked up five ! pair of pants. which will now fit me with new elastic she put in for me.
Hope to go to bed early. Sent out jobs on our Google Groups NW Geography Jobs (list serve).

Wednesday, Sept 13

No CPAP — Oximetry for Sept 12: SpO2 low 83, 6 events <88% with overall avg., 91.4%. Pulse avg. 58.8, low 50. Slept 8 hrs 27 min.

Took care of putting the Culligan auto payment billing on Discover instead of the old American Express it was still on that died. I thought it cancelled a year ago when Costco changed to Visa.

I dropped off egg cartons, and took in a 5-gallon bucket of flowers, for the food bank. Also fixed a supplemental lunch to take that I could eat in place of the free pasta choices on Wednesdays after we play music. The other container of flowers went to the AAC with Gloria and me when we went to SAIL exercise together. Everyone was grateful. We are at the end of our beautiful dahlias and glads.

I left a 2X navy blue dress jacket at Carole’s house on the way to the AAC.

Thursday, Sept 14

No CPAP — Oximetry for Sept 13: SpO2 low 86, 2 events <88% with overall avg., 95.9%. Pulse avg. 56.4, low 49. Slept 7 hrs, 9 min.

Our KV Fiddlers & Friends (5 of us) entertained at the Meadows, and then John and I went around town on errands, and to get gasoline in his car for tomorrow.

Friday, Sept 15

No CPAP — Oximetry for Sept 14: SpO2 low 86, 4 events <88% with overall avg., 93.5%. Pulse avg. 54.0, low 49. Slept 4 hrs, 59 min. (actually slept longer, but battery died)

Still need to send Audra my food intake report so she can review it.
I went to the Food Bank early for lunch at 11:30, just in case they needed servers. They didn’t, so I sat and visited with two friends there. I took salad to go with the pulled pork. It was very good, having been donated by one of the new BBQ restaurants in town.

Went by Super 1 for meds. By Bi-Mart for Tears and Fisherman’s Friends and by Safeway for refresh colas.

Saturday, Sept 16

No CPAP — Oximetry for Sept 15, SpO2 low 84, 4 events <88% with overall avg., 94.9%. Pulse avg. 56.7, low 49. Slept 8 h, 33 min.

John set up our new Cuisinart 4-slice toaster (from Costco). Our old one is “toast.” It has the best price and reviews on Amazon. It’s a pretty silver chrome color.

We are going to Briarwood for music and food today… and gasoline for John’s car, for the early morning trip to Mt Rainier tomorrow. We had 6 people there and a nice audience, who were very involved joking and singing with us. We all had a good time. We had a good meal they served us after the music … tacos, salad, cookies, brownies, and Pumpkin ice cream. John joined us and one other hubby, Ken.

I rested an hour and did go to the Bar 14 Ranch, for a one yr old little girl’s party, and carried a loaf of Zucchini/Pineapple bread cut to share. It was given to me by a friend at Briarwood, who today gave me a new one he just tried that has all ingredients I CAN eat. I cannot eat zucchini, although I cheated and have in the past. This was frozen, so had to thaw for tonight. The new one is made as apple/ banana/ nut bread with caramel/coconut frosting. Plus, he brought a loaf cut up for the Briarwood meal after we played. I had a piece there, and it was quite tasty. They served tacos (and I had all the ingredients on my plate, except the shell, plus put salsa on it). I even had one of Lee’s Ginger cookies. I had a good meal and did not have to eat anything at the later party. I was late getting there, but it meant I had a nice visit with two former students, and the Lundys and their year old granddaughter, Uma (and her mom, Raychel, who was my student). I took a few pictures and left and was happy I went. There was music, and one of the musicians is a new surgeon in town for 2 years (Tom Penoyer), general surgery, young talented man who plays the guitar and banjo, and his wife and 3 young children were there as well.  It was worth my trip, for sure. I brought a cupcake and piece of carrot cake home for John.Raychel with two images of Uma, one of the cakes they had, Uma with grandma, Linda, and the parting sunset.

Okay. back to work. I have a ton to accomplish today, and John won’t be back until late. This may be his last trip to his favorite workplace, because Mt. Rainier is scheduled to receive many inches of SNOW in the next few days, and while this work party is large, they may not have enough people to carry out all the tools that have accumulated for the summer’s work.

Sunday, Sept 17

No CPAP — Oximetry for Sept 16: SpO2 low 88 (only one event at 88), 0 events <88% with overall avg., 94.0%. Pulse avg. 54.7, low 50. Slept 7 hrs, 31 min. I'm sure that is my best ever, since starting with the CPAP usage in 2014. NOTE: I obtained my first CPAP machine on the Buy Nothing Ellensburg site because the girl who had it lost 50 lbs, and no longer needed it. It was more portable than mine, and I figured would work for traveling if I needed to take the CPAP along. I wonder if my weight loss recently (since 6/26) is related to this. I surely hope so, because I detest using it, especially because the only reason I'm on it, is to keep my % oxygen saturation level in my blood above 88% while I sleep (to keep oxygen circulating to my organs).

I just found a Mt. Rainier orange tee shirt in a back room wooded closet. I was looking for something else at the time, and I have no memory of where or when I got it. It has not been worn, so I expect John will wear it on his last trip to Mt. Rainier next weekend.

I’ll hear when he returns tonight, if they were able to cart out all the tools from the summer’s work. That is going to be a tough job.

Six of the lesser used tools were locked in the Lookout and, if snowed in, will be waiting there next June/July when the snow melts off the trail. Then, a dozen people carried out all (26) the rest. No more than one per hand, but some were strapped to or carried in backpacks.

Rain, predicted for 11 AM at Mt. Rainier, did not arrive until the WTA crew finished at the work site and started the hike back. However, the threat was such that the Park was going to start chasing people with cars out of the 6,400 ft. Sunrise parking area at 4 PM. WTA left at 3:05. Much rain and mist in the Cascades and a light rain at home. Fires are slowed, but still burning.

John got safely home, fed livestock, us, and we are ready to do the blog.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan