The Gritty-Town Traveling Bicycle Show

We have been wanting to get out and enjoy some of our surrounding nature and do some things we haven't done before.

Today we joined nine members from church for a bike ride on the first portion of the
"Trail of the Coeur d'Alene's"

We started in Plummer, Idaho and rode 15 and a half miles to Harrison on Lake Coeur d'Alene. We had lunch and then rode the same trail 27 and a half miles back to the cars. At least it seemed like it was that long.

The trail is an old rail bed that has been paved over and made into a biking walking trail. The first five miles after you leave Plummer are downhill so the ride starts off very easy as you glide through the forest.

At the bottom of the grade, Lake Chatculet appears and you ride along that for a ways. Then you cross this old railroad bridge and you are riding next to Coeur a'Alene lake for the rest of the journey to Harrison.

At Harrison, we enjoyed lunch. Susan and I decided to buy something when we got to Harrison. We found a nice place for a burger and then joined everyone back in the park. It took about an hour and a half to get to Harrison and we stayed there until 1:30. Now was the time to really pay the piper and return to the cars.

Again, an enjoyable trip but by now, my loins were starting to rebel. I had to get off the bike occasionally and walk around to get the blood flowing in that region again.

Remember the first five miles? It was down hill. That means that the last five miles are the opposite of that. It was a gentle grade so it was no big deal except for the fact that I had 25 miles under my belt and now the loins were on fire with soreness and numbness.

I stopped for rest every mile. To make it worse, I was out of water. The picture below accurately depicts my disposition at that point.



All in all, it was a great trip and now that I am in recovery mode, I'm glad I did it. But, I have a lot of getting in shape to do before I am ready to do anything that long again.

Susan and I got home and headed for the showers and then a cold beer induced nap.

One the most impressive features of the trail is this sculpture at the trail head in Plummer. I could not find the name of the artist on it but I know it is the work of David Govedare, a local artist who has done many similar sculptures including the Bloomsday sculpture downtown in the park.

It is really a wonderful piece of work. It has great detail and many subtle features you don't see right away. It's a pretty crappy picture that does not do justice to the sculpture.

The Painters are Back

We've been working in the sky walks for the last week putting up logos for the Coaches Vs. Cancer campaign which is revving up in a week or so. It is going well now but it didn't start out that way. we got the order of the logos wrong and had to re-paint one sky walk. Then we almost did it again on the second sky walk but caught before too much paint had gone up. Still, it set us back a good hour.

Tonight and last night, we were in and out in just over two hours. This pleases us! here are some pictures of the project.

If you think this is kind of hard to see, you could be right. It really depends on the time of the day. Direct sunlight helps.

Glacier Park

We went on a quick trip to Glacier National Park when Margaret was here. It was fun but waaaaay too short. I could spend a month at Glacier and not get enough.

We left on Thursday, July 28th and took our time driving over. We stopped in Wallace and explored the Jameson Hotel while enjoying a beer. We stopped at the $50,000 Silver Bar, a tourist trap 15 miles into Montana. We traipsed our way up the Flathead Valley and arrived at our lodging around se7en.

The next morning, we made our way into the park spent the day traveling on the "Going to the Sun Highway". It took the better part of the day to go up, hike around and return.

That night, we went to dinner at McDonald Lodge. We checked out a little musical program in their auditorium and then dined in the restaurant.

Before heading back to Spokane on Saturday, we returned to the lodge for an 11AM boat cruise around Lake McDonald.

Afterwards, we drove to Whitefish to have lunch and wander around town.

We made it back to Spokaloo around 8pm. We covered 750 miles in those three days. Way too much driving!

Here are a few more pictures of the trip.

The Magic of Miss Margaret

We were visited last week by Susan's sister, Margaret. She was with us for a week from Des Moines...the one in Iowa, not Washington. The sisters had a wonderful time cavorting around the Antique Shops of Spokane as well as dining in the various dining spots Susan scoped out.

We took a quick trip to Montana and played around Glacier National Park. I will have notable pictures from that trip coming up. But first, I must comment on the improvements Margaret made to our home.

Susan says that Margaret is the Stencil Queen and I have to agree. She gave us a good lesson in stenciling as well as giving us a good head start on our various stenciling projects we have planned.

Here are the photos.

WOW! What a difference! Our plain ol' ceiling looks suddenly classy. And that means that we look classy. It will only take people talking to us to discover we are not classy at all. But we will try not to let that happen.

The design is patterned off the tile mosaic on the floor. Susan plans another stencil to go around the walls just about the trim line. That same pattern will follow the railing up the stairs. It will make us even classier. It may require a classiness test just to read this blog. But I would have to compile the test and correct them as they come in and that would make me angry and non-classy appearing.

Thank you, Margaret! Being as classy as we appear is a lot more work than I thought.

The Fireworks Concert 2011

Susan's sister Margaret has been visiting us from Des Moines for the past week. It has been a whirl wind of activities and they will be chronicled here.

But first, let's talk about the last Sunday in July, which is the Fireworks Concert in the Park. We had a wonderful time in the park as usual and the concert and fireworks were fabulous.

The best thing about this concert which starts about 9:00, is getting down to the park around six and enjoying the convivial comradeship that takes place. It is a fabulous time and we have a great group that comes down to enjoy the festivities. We eat, drink and generally be merry.

Here are the pictures.

We all agreed that this was one of the best shows they've done in recent memory. The timing of the fireworks, whether planned or not, seemed to really match up with the music.

Bike Day

I rode my bike to work today. It's a gorgy day and I have to ride and get more exercise. It's really a nice way to start my morning. I get my blood flowing, I enjoy an easy, mostly flat ride downtown, I ride through the park where the river is still flowing at an impressive rate, and I and my bicycle catch the bus to Liberty Lake. I can read the paper on the way out and then roll into work well ahead of my start time, which allows me to do things like...Blog.

I stopped at Starbuck's once I got off the bus and spilled a good deal of coffee on my half mile ride from the coffee salon to the work dungeon.

All in all, it's another day on this side of the dirt and life is good.

The QVC Anti-Hoarder Help Line...Me

It is the end of a long weekend. We got a lot of stuff done but not much of it was house related.

There is this woman I know. I grew up with her. Our Dad's were Frat Brothers so it seems we have known each other all our lives.  Our families spent time at the lake in the summer and skiing in the winter. For the sake of this narrative, let's call her Marimba.

I don't want to say that Marimba is a hoarder. But she is very close. The fact that she knows she is on the verge of hoarding status is a point in her favor toward overcoming the hoarding.

However, to save time and cut to the point, she's a hoarder. Even worse, she is a hoarder with access to QVC. I don't even want to tell you how many unopened QVC boxes from we came across.

She has asked me to help her move stuff out of her house to a large barn she has on her property. I got started on Saturday. I moved the extraneous contents of her garage into the barn.

Before any moving could take place, there was some cleaning up of the barn to do. It has been sitting vacant for some time and the insulation in the roof was coming down due to a massive infestation of mouses. The mouses have been having quite a time in this barn and the result is mouse turd Armageddon.

With the help of my trusty Phil, we pulled down the insulation and got it packed off to the dump. Here are some pictures.

Mirimba would probably kill me if she knew I had these pictures on the InterWeb. She's very cautious about her privacy. Overly cautious, one might say.

But, you have no idea where this is. Hell, I barely remember!

The rest of the day was spent in relative non-productive lazy time. I ran a few errands and bopped around a bit but I had the truck and didn't feel like driving around in it a lot. It is a pig on gas and it drives like a truck.

Gutter Test

The new gutters I put up on the front of the house are getting their first test in actual rainy weather conditions today. So far, they appear to be working admirably. One side of the gutter system is more admirable than the other. The water is really pouring out the downspout on the east side. The west side has some trickle going but not much more than that.

The big test of course will be this winter when the rain turns to heavy ice and puts a lot of pressure on my homemade braces.

But for now I'm happy to see the raindrops not falling on my head when I use the front steps.

Where's George?

For a couple of years now, I have been actively participating in a passive sort of way with a website called Where's George. Every now and then I come across a dollar bill that has the name of the website stamped on the bill. The idea is to go to the website, enter the serial number of the bill and see where it has been and how many people have entered it. I thought it's a fun idea.

Almost every time I have entered a bill, I am the second person to have made an entry. Maybe once or twice I was third but never more than that. I have never come across a bill with a substantial history of any kind.  

I bring this up today because I have a bill to enter.

I will bet big money that I am again, the second guy on the list for this bill. Here I go. Stand by.

Typing - Accessing - Entering - Collating -

I win! Second guy. It started in Hayden Lake 32 days ago. Enough of this B.S. It's time to work.

I have some priming to do on the deck. It's a nice day to be out painting so I am going to get to it. Holy Shit! It's One O'clock already.

It is now approaching 5:30 and I have been priming pieces of wood and Susan has been sanding and plastering. She's a dusty disaster area.

I noticed something while I was outside today.

I planted this raspberry stalk last year and it is going to produce some berries this year.

In fact, it has one ready to go and I'm going to let Susan have it since it is her birthday month.

We had a brief visit from my pal Mike who was on his way up to Priest Lake for their yearly family gathering. He spent last night with us and will be back for another night later this week.

We had a nice discussion on the front porch last night that covered a lot of ground and lasted for about two bottles of wine.

A Tale of Two Hops

It has been pretty hot the last few days and it is taking a toll on the lawn. Even worse, one of my hops plants appears to be withering on the vine. Or, the vine is withering. In any event, it is not doing well. I might almost say that it is doing the opposite of well.
Below is a picture of the Sterling Hops Vine. It has been growing fine, with great speed and a fair amount of verve. It doesn't look so vervy right now.

The next picture is the Hallertau Hops Vine. It is lush and really verviful.

The only thing I can think of that I might have done to contribute to this was a couple weeks back when both plants were covered with aphids. I sprayed some soapy water on both plants and that seemed to help get rid of the bugs.

If it is the soapy water that caused the problem, it's strange that it hurt one and not the other. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye on it.

A couple of weeks back, I planted some grass seed around the front yard in some bad patches of lawn. I was about to give up on it when I noticed it finally starting to germinate and grow last night. So far, I only have seed growing in a couple of the patches. Two out of eight is not good odds but perhaps the others are lagging behind.

I'll be keeping an eye on that as well.

What a Weekend

It is the "Monday Morning" after the three day weekend and I am preparing for work and reflecting on the past three days.

We done good!

We accomplished a lot and we had lots of activity. Floating the river was great. We got some sun, had a little picnic and enjoyed the copious amounts of nature that seemed to be everywhere around us.

I had a brain fart when we got out there because I had forgotten the gate code to get into the property. I'm getting old and showing it daily.

Here's photographic evidence.

The last picture is that Deer Skeleton I discovered and wrote about back in May. I didn't have my camera back in May so I had to get this picture.

We did ride our bikes downtown to watch the fireworks but I have no photographic evidence to relay. I couldn't find the camera as we were heading down.

But if you've seen fireworks before, you have a pretty good idea of what we watched.

The great part, as always, was getting home. riding our bikes through the throngs of cars and people was a breeze and again, home in ten minutes.

What a Country!

Stand Back While I Celebrate Freedom

It is the third day of the weekend and today's plan is to float the Little Spokane River. The weather is again fabulously summerish so it will be great float.

Mom's birthday party up at Arbor Crest last night was fun even though Mom didn't attend. She called me in the afternoon and said she had a bit of a summer cold and wasn't feeling all that great. So we invited some other people to fill out our reserved table and had a nice evening.

This is a shot looking to the east from right at the cliff.

Later, Susan and I will be riding our bikes downtown to watch the fireworks in the park. I'm not sure who will be joining us there but fun will be had and freedom will be celebrated.

Mystery of the Burned Lumber

I don't know exactly what happened last night but when I went out into the backyard this morning, This was the scene I stumbled upon. I have no idea what happened to the pile of wood that was there only last night.

It is quite a puzzle to solve...or not!

We have little things to do around the house today. We are trying to stay off a schedule of any kind. Scheduling that kind of schedule is quite a puzzle to solve.

Susan is trying to clean up a persistant rust spot on her car. I am goofing around the yard and sitting here on the computer.

Later, we're going up to Arbor Crest for a picnic and some wine. Friday was Mom's birthday and we have invited her up along with some other folks to enjoy the evening, listen to some swing music and drink the grape.

I hope we can stick to the schedule of not scheduling anything.

The List - Revisited

It is the first day of the Independence Day Holiday Trilogy Three Day Weekend-A-Ganza. My accomplishments on this first day were few but loaded with audacity.

If you remember "The List" you will also recall that today is its two month anniversary. Of the se7en items to be completed on "The List", two are complete, four are in various stages of completeness but not completely completed and one I can no longer do because there are no tulips to smell.

So I completed number se7en today. Put a rain gutter on the front of the house. I am one part short of being absolutely done with this but I am calling it good. I thought it might take three or four hours...it took all day.

Here is the house as I began the project.

Here is the freshly installed rain gutter. Again, nothing too complicated, it took me se7en hours.

I also installed one of the air conditioners in the bedroom since the weather, and today's weather in particular, has been fabulously summer like.


I did some other stuff but specifics escape me.

I plan to light me up a Stump Fire this evening. The Stump Fire has gone from being a slow but inexpensive way to remove a tree stump to an outright blatant disregard for the laws of man and nature.
Note to Prosecutor: This Blog is not about my real life. I have to make this stuff up in order to experience the life I wish I had. No actual Stump Fires have ever taken place. Ever! Anywhere!

I have quite a pile out there to send to Stump Heaven.

It will be Glorious! If it were to happen, that is.