First air travel in the time of COVID was almost EZ

We left home Wednesday, August 4, 2021. After driving from home to Pre-Flight Parking near the airport, we rode by shuttle to Sky Harbor where we boarded a Southwest Flight to Spokane, Washington, by way of Las Vegas with a plane change there. In Las Vegas we met up with Glenda's sister, Carolyn, who was flying to Spokane from Boise with a similar plane change in Las Vegas. In Spokane, we got a rental car and the three of us drove to Moscow, Idaho, to visit with Glenda's sister Jannie, who lives there at 919 Orchard Ave. Carolyn lodged on Jannie's couch, but Glenda and I had an AirBnB reservation for the two nights of our visit at Paradise View bed & breakfast, hosted by Mike and Lynn McCollough. Our lodging was on Moscow Mountain, about five miles north of town, and truly beautiful. The lodging was clean, private, and comfortable and offered a stunning view of the Moscow valley below. Lynn provided pleasant conversation over an outstanding light breakfast. Highly recommend. 

Paradise View BnB, 1005 Joyce Rd, Moscow, ID 83843

The three sisters had a very pleasant reunion catching up with each other. Laurie, the fourth sister, was missing as she had just spent a week helping Carolyn pack to move from Idaho to Pennsylvania later this year so as to be able to care for Mark's mother there. Laurie didn't feel up to making the trip north from Twin Falls. 

Much gabbing was done, several meals were enjoyed, and hugs around. A morning journey to the countryside let Jannie share the presence of her horse, Sonny, with us. 

Jannie, Sonny, Carolyn, Glenda, Dan at Sonny's boarding near Moscow, Idaho.

We left Jannie's Friday morning, August 6th to return to Spokane and fly home. All went well, except...as we were exiting IH-90 to take the Spokane airport exit, as I slowed, a truck flew by us in the near lane. As he passed, a rock flipped up from the highway which broke the windshield of the rental car. Oh, well. There goes $600.

The rest of the trip was pretty unremarkable. Of course, due to Covid, we were in face masks all the time in the airport and on the plane – same as during our earlier travel north from Phoenix. Our flight was a 2-hour direct non-stop to Phoenix. Southwest had routed Carolyn to Boise by way of Phoenix, so we were all three on the same flight out of Spokane. At Sky Harbor, Carolyn generously treated us to dinner at Zinc Bistro before we left for home. We were home by 4:30pm, retrieved our dog, Dak, from Chandra Buchanan who kept him for us, and relaxed. Carolyn reported later that she made it home safely, as well.

 

How are you? Fine, thanks. That's the EZ answer.

Today I realized that 'fine' is a very subjective concept.

As Ms. G ages and has had various health challenges, family and friends often ask how she is doing. Often, my response is, "Fine." And most days she is fine, based on the current subjective definition of 'fine' in the objective situation we live in.

A fine day for G means that she woke up feeling good and relatively alert. After arising, she walked safely to the kitchen. Hungry, she ate from the breakfast prepared for her. On a fine day, she can (and will) shower and dress herself and take care of her dental hygiene. She can get her morning medicine from the daily dispenser with only needing help to remember what day of the week it is. She will want to listen to the audio version of her scriptures for at least 30 minutes on a fine day--she can't read them anymore due to failing vision. A fine day may find her spending most of an hour in our community gymnasium working on the stationary bicycle and the exercise machines, after safely walking the 100 yards from our front door to the community center. Later, on a fine day, she may enjoy the lunch prepared for her and then an audio book before a nap. She may call her sisters or one of our kids. On the occasional days that she is better than fine, she may unload the dishwasher or fold a basket of laundry. 

On a fine day, she doesn't ask what city we live in, or what year it is. Or how many children we have or if her father is still alive. She doesn't faint from orthostatic hypotension on a fine day, nor stumble and fall while walking. On a fine day she doesn't sleep for 18 hours, or get lost in our yard. 

Not all of our days count as 'fine.' But most do.

EZ to be exceptional

I note this morning that there is good news and bad news. 

First the good news: American exceptionalism is being proven, clearly, and is on display for the entire world to see.

The bad news? Americans are dramatically proving to be exceptionally stupid.

An EZ Invitation

This is an invitation to all my rugged individualist friends: Hey, good buddy, let’s go hunting out in the wild. Bring the camp gear. Bring the guns. Let’s get some game for the freezer and maybe a trophy for the wall. Let’s have a great, old-fashioned good time!

But we want to be safe and practice the things we’ve learned about being rugged individuals, including weapon safety, proper hydration, careful orienteering, and dressing for the weather. There are other things to consider. As we go into the untamed wildlife habitat to stealthily stalk creatures, keep this in mind: Lyme disease is everywhere in the wild where we would be hunting. It can make you really sick, with skin and nerve problems, or even a fatal heart ailment! You get it from a tick bite, and those little bastards, the size of a poppy seed with a painless bite, are opportunists. But don’t get worked up about it, it’s pretty easy to protect ourselves from Lyme disease.

To be safe, just make sure to slather on a good DEET-based insect repellent while we are on our trip. You can also get hunting gear and clothing that is impregnated with DEET to give a little extra protection.

Yes, using an insect repellent is a pain, and, yes, there are some reported side effects (even a couple of deaths!) from using insect repellents. Some people have medical conditions and can’t use them at all! But if you don’t have those issues, what the heck. In the vast majority of reported cases of adverse reactions, the discomfort or illnesses are mild. Nearly 90% of reported adverse reactions to DEET don’t even require hospitalization. In any case, such negative effects are nearly always much less severe than Lyme disease.

Even with DEET and proper coverage with special cloth, there is still a chance you may get a tick bite resulting in Lyme disease. Sorry. Nothing’s perfect. There is no 100% sure way to prevent the spread of the illness. Careful use of insect repellent won’t guarantee you won’t get sick, but it does greatly reduce your risk and nearly everyone who can safely use DEET agrees the risk-benefit calculation favors careful use of the repellent. Using the repellent and distancing yourself from the brush where you may be exposed to ticks followed by a careful inspection of your skin, when applied together, greatly reduce any risk. After all, we are here for hunting and fun, right? Don’t want a preventable illness to spoil that!

Wait. What’s that you say? You won’t use the repellent? You feel like you are being manipulated by my warning? My warning is some evil political ploy to ‘control’ you and your behavior?

Well, you certainly have your rights. If you don’t want to use insect repellent no one is going to force you to do that. After all, it is your body and your decision to make, and we can all respect that. If you get sick, you will be the one suffering and incurring huge medical bills. And you won’t likely be spreading Lyme disease to your friends, family, and strangers you meet. No. It’s not as if it were a respiratory virus or something where there would be a personal responsibility to protect others from your infection. Nope. Not like that at all.

 

For more information, see:

 

Lyme Disease Treatment Guidelines. Lyme Disease Association. https://lymediseaseassociation.org/about-lyme/medical/treatment-guidelines/?gclid=CjwKCAjwgISIBhBfEiwALE19SYtP3TDQwgRa5jbpbnChAJIpgGjreBhFm0B0Pxq81ZuOVMUp7UfFAhoCn8YQAvD_BwE. (2017, February 3).

 

Schwartz AM, Hinckley AF, Mead PS, Hook SA, Kugeler KJ. Surveillance for Lyme Disease — United States, 2008–2015. MMWR Surveill Summ 2017;66(No. SS-22):1–12. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.ss6622a1

 

Can One Die of Lyme Disease? New Health Advisor. https://www.newhealthadvisor.org/Can-You-Die-from-Lyme-Disease.html. (2019, September 1). 

De-escalation made EZ.

This is my earlier write-up of an event that happened on July 16, 2018: 

Naked people give nudists a bad name! At about 9 this evening we heard loud screaming coming from out front. With my Monday night bowl of cantaloupe pieces in hand I went out front to investigate. Just outside the front door Mrs Brown ran up to me from her house and babbled something about a naked young man on her front porch. Why was he on her front porch? Because he’d been pounding on her back door and she wouldn’t let him in. A few more neighbors gathered as the naked young man walked toward us in the glow of the street light. He was loud and abusive and was waving his arms and shaking...various parts...he was told to back away but didn’t. He approached me talking loud nonsense but I did not retreat. After I was assured 9-1-1 had been called I engaged him in small talk to keep him busy until the police 👮 could arrive. He told me his name was Elliott and he was 19. I asked about medication and he said no. I asked about self medication and he said well yes, obviously. For 45 minutes we engaged him briefly between demonstrations of physical prowess that could have passed for modern interpretive dance or simulated sex with asphalt. Or both. Now that I think of it, wouldn’t that make a grand name for a punk band? Finally an officer arrived and cuffed Elliott. It took a second officer on scene to convince him to cooperate and get into a cruiser. At that point he told the officers that he had been receiving treatment at a hospital about a mile away. As the cars pulled away my eldest son FINALLY showed up with the popcorn. I hope Elliott gets good and effective treatment—he needs it. Points scored: after the fact I told the wife, “See, there was nothing sexy about that nudity.”  She agreed.

Coincidence? That would be too EZ.

 Vacationing near Lake Havasu in Arizona, we started our morning, as per our routine, with morning prayer. In that prayer, I asked that, if it be God’s will, that he use as as tools in his hands to provide service in some way to his children here on Earth. 

Around 10am we drove out to take care of a quick errand with a plan to leave the hotel at around 11am to drive to our next stop, a La Quinta Hotel near McCarren Airport in Las Vegas. The errand took us to a part of Lake Havasu City that we would not have gone to simply in our drive out of the city. Coming back to the hotel, we spotted a gas station with an attractive price of less than $3.00 a gallon posted, so we chose to stop and fill our car for the drive.

At the pump on the other side of the island was a couple close to our age filling a pickup truck and a beautiful blue and white ski-boat. In a pause, I complimented him on his boat and how well cared-for both the boat and the truck looked. This led to a conversation. He noted I was a veteran (from my Arizona affinity license plates). I noted he was a retired fire-fighter from stickers displayed on his pickup truck. We chatted and compared notes on a few items of mutual interest. He introduced himself as Richard Reichle. When his wife joined us he introduced her as Nancy. They were from Dana Point, California.

In the conversation, it came out that they were preparing to drive Nancy to McCarren Airport so she could fly home through John Wayne/Orange County airport. As a nurse, she had to be back to work in a day or so. Richard planned to stay a bit longer to do some boating so would be returning from Las Vegas to Lake Havasu. Hmmm, I said, “That’s where we are going today—our hotel is next door to the airport.” We exchanged information, including snapping photos of drivers licenses and sharing mobile numbers.

And so it came that Nancy rode with us from Lake Havasu City to McCarren Airport. She was lovely company, and picked up the tab for lunch at a Carl’s Jr in Needles, California. Richard was saved the round trip drive to Las Vegas with the attendant cost and time involved. The kicker: Both Richard and Nancy claimed to be prayerful people, Christians, and we have no cause to doubt them. They told us that they had, that morning, prayed for God to bless Nancy’s trip to the Las Vegas airport and to make it as simple and stress-free as possible. 

You may recall we prayed that we could be of service. Richard and Nancy prayed for some help. We were placed together and discovered a painless and cost-free way for us to be an answer to their prayer. 

Events such as this, you may call a strange coincidence. I call it a faith-building experience. We bid Nancy goodbye at the curb in McCarren Aiport. Our hotel was two minutes away.

EZ's Luck

Do you believe in miracles, or do you call it fate? When the inevitable is unexplainably avoided, Is it luck, Karma, grace, or just the roll of the dice?

In the mid-1980s, we set out to drive as a family from San Antonio, Texas to Las Vegas, Nevada. That’s 1,295 U.S. miles (2,084 kilometers) by the most direct route. At that time the national speed limit in the U.S. was 55 miles per hour on the open highways and less in built-up areas. Luckily, there weren’t that many built-up areas there. With gas and rest stops the drive was planned to take about 28 hours of otherwise continual driving. My wife and I planned to take turns driving while the ‘off-duty’ one slept—our car was equipped with a big, reclining seat for the front-seat passenger to make sleeping a bit easier. Our three kids would have the back seat with pillows, blankets, snacks, and Mario Brothers and Donkey Kong on a crude hand-held Nintendo to occupy them. And fighting. They always had fighting amongst themselves for entertainment.

We left San Antonio just after sunset on a Friday evening planning to drive across the West Texas flatlands in the cool of the August night. The gas stops are laid out across that stretch of Interstate Highway 10 West to allow stops every couple of hours and there’s always food and coffee as well as restrooms available at the gas stations. I had enjoyed a long afternoon nap, so I felt fresh and took the first driving shift. Even after our second gas stop, I still felt great and wanted to continue driving. I had a cold Diet Dr Pepper (heavily caffeinated carbonated beverage) and my ‘tunes’ to help me. I had wired a headphone jack into the car’s audio system so that I could listen to Men at Work, Toto, Bonnie Tyler, and Spandau Ballet on the car’s built-in stereo cassette player while the family dozed with only the highway sounds to lull them.

By two in the morning, we were a few miles east of Fort Stockton, Texas; 300 miles and six hours from home. The wife was curled up with her seat reclined, a huge pillow between her head and the passenger’s side of the car, another pillow wrapped in her arms. It had been silent in the back seat for many, many miles. There wasn’t even a green glow of a Nintendo screen visible in my interior mirror. Traffic had become as sparse as lakes in the West Texas desert. The car’s engine hummed; the tires smoothly sang their highway song. The cruise control was set at 55 mph. I planned to make a fuel stop in Fort Stockton and change drivers so I could sleep. I sipped my Dr Pepper and sang along silently to Total Eclipse of the Heart for the seventh or eighth time. I congratulated myself on planning such a stress-free family car trip. All was well. I thought.

A sudden and very loud WHACK got my attention. My eyes popped open (when did I close them?) We were no longer safe on the smooth pavement of IH-10. The passenger side wheels were in the gravel on the road’s shoulder. My training as a driver allowed me to avoid panic—fortunately—I did not slam on the brakes. Statistics and studies show that is the worst thing to do when a car’s passenger wheels leave the pavement. Rather I quickly but gently touched the brake pedal to cancel the cruise control. Then, steering very, very slightly to the left to avoid going further off the road but not to lurch the car back onto the paved surface, I began to apply the brake gently but in earnest. The car came safely to a stop. I couldn’t see ahead of the car from the dust thrown up by our wheels as we ground to a halt. I put the transmission in Park, killed the ignition, and turned off the headlights. The stop, and the WHACK, of course, awoke the family. By the time we were stopped, everyone was like, “What?” “What’s going on?” “Why are we stopped.” I couldn’t answer. I was too busy shaking and trying to breathe, wondering why we were all still alive and not broken and bleeding out on the harsh desert floor.

After explaining to my wife and the children that I had dozed and run off the road, but we were stopped and all safe, so not to worry, I stepped out of the car with my flashlight, a 3-battery MagLite, to survey the situation. I first looked at the car for damage. There was some: The passenger’s side door mirror was gone—just gone! I could see no other damage. No dents, no scratches. Walking back alongside the road about 200-300 feet, about 60-100 meters, from the way we had come I found an upright steel roadside marker post, its reflectorized top badge bent in the direction of our travel. Shining the flashlight around further from the road, I could see fragments of broken mirror on the desert floor. A miracle! We had apparently left the paved roadway at just the right time and at just the correct angle for that roadside marker pole to wipe the passenger side mirror off the car, make a huge WHACK sound to awaken me, and do no other damage. I momentarily marveled that we had not only survived unhurt but still had a sound and usable car not having rolled across the desert floor or shattered on boulders. As I walked back toward the car, I raised my MagLite beam to shine ahead to see if we had an easy route back onto the paved highway. What I saw caused my heart to stop and I fell to my knees. My breath just wouldn’t come! I thought I had been frightened and shaking when I first controlled the car to a stop. Now I was in shock. Not twenty feet (<4 meters) in front of the car was a solid concrete abutment making up the base of a highway overpass to allow a secondary road to cross over the top of IH-10. Miracle, indeed! If…if…

If our car had drifted off the highway a second or two later…if the highway roadside marker had been six inches further from the roadway…if…if… We would have gone head-on into that concrete abutment with the cruise control set at 55 mph. While we were seat-belted, automotive airbags had not yet been invented, and in any case probably could not have saved us from certain, sudden death. I don’t know how long it was before I could stand and return to the car. I didn’t tell or show my family the truth of the situation, but I did tell them we were very ‘lucky’ that the roadside marker had awakened me and done minimal damage to the car. Apologizing to all for my failure and assuring my wife I was now more than wide awake, and that I’d drive the very few miles into Fort Stockton, after which she could drive, I started the car, engaged the gear, turned on the lights and left flasher and bumped back up onto the roadway.

Call it what you may. We must surely owe our lives to some type of intervention.