Fourth of July, Liberty Lake

Karen's friends, Cam and Marcia (her college roommate) left in their Airstream trailer yesterday morning after a fun three-day visit. This was the first time I'd gotten to spend any significant time with them, and a long time since Karen had.

For much of the 4th, we spent time straightening up the house and clearing the DVR of episodes of The Colbert Report we weren't going to watch (Nikki Haley) and those we wanted to (Bonnie Raitt), watching new telecasts of Olympics trials and deleting "encore presentations," and cleaning up some pretty good leftovers.

Me, Cheryl, Pat, Theresa, Dave above Liberty Lake

Later in the afternoon, our neighbors Pat and Cheryl came by on their ATV and invited us to go with them and Dave and Theresa up to the state lands overlooking Liberty Lake to watch the city fireworks. We had a great time, riding up rutted logging roads, taking with food and libations, collapsible chairs and barbecue forks, paper plates and plastic forks. Dave also drove up some dry firewood, and before we got there he and Theresa built a small fire pit on a patch of level ground backed by rocks on a tall ridge.



After an hour-and-a-half of good conversation, fire-roasted hot dogs, mustard potato salad, quality beer, and S'mores (meh), the fireworks began, first at the Spokane Fairgrounds, then at Riverfront Park, and finally  over Liberty Lake.

Kerry and me

Karen, Cheryl, Pat, Theresa, Dave roasting hot dogs

 It was a grand vantage point, looking down on the lake and the exploding multicolored shells, as well as the lights of Liberty Lake, Spokane Valley, and Spokane itself. When the show was over, we doused the fire, cleaned up everything we'd packed in, and descended through the dark, retracing our tracks by the light of the full moon and the ATV headlights. Theresa, bless her heart, insisted I borrow an extra Carhartt jacket of Dave's that she'd brought along. Toasty. I've got to get one before I have to plow the half-mile driveway to our new house this winter.

Liberty Lake at night, with Spokane in background

Before we left for the hills, I put our Brittany, Pepper, in the back yard with a bowl of food and a bowl of water. When we got back, Pepper was loose, in front of the house, wet, dirty and smelly. It was too late to bathe him, so we dragged his dog bed into the living room and made him sleep there. He was so exhausted, he did. Shortly after we got home, Pat called to say his big old dog, Harley, was in his swimming pool when he got home. I think the two dogs were in serious cahoots last night.

Fireworks and city lights of Spokane Valley and Spokane

This morning, I let Pepper into the back yard, washed and dried his bed, and then gave him his first bath. Shower, actually, lathering him down with my shampoo (should get some dog shampoo, I guess), hosing him off and drying him off with a big thirsty towel. He loved it. I got wet. Now, smelling lightly of moist dog and shampoo, he's lying in his fresh dog bed as we watch President Obama speak at Maumee, Ohio. The sun is bright and the sky is clear. It's looking like a good day.

Pepper resting after his morning shower

A House Is Not a Home

For the past three years, Karen and I have been living in the home where she grew up. Her parents built it from 1951-1957 with their own hands. Considering Al had no training or experience in construction, he did pretty well. But, it's a relic of its times. The single-pane windows export heat and import cold; what warmth we have is provided by an ancient oil-burning furnace and a propane-burning fireplace Karen and I installed; it has one bathroom and insufficient plumbing for a dishwasher; the hookups for the washer and dryer are in the kitchen, and there is no external vent for the dryer through the pumice blocks of which the house is built (and, no, there is no wall insulation). It is not a comfortable house.

To Karen, the house is more a reminder of her unhappy teenage years. Her father was schizophrenic, her mother took a lot from him and gave nearly as good as she got, and Karen was frustrated with her parents and her isolation in the country, (all fictionalized in Karen's novel "A Devil Singing Small"). It is not a happy house, and it would never be our home.

Even before we moved into this house from an apartment in Liberty Lake, Wa., we started planning to build our final home in the eastern hills on our property. We selected a site that's warmer year-round (the old house is chilled from its proximity to Cable Creek on our western fence line) and receives more sun, being above the valley floor where the old house sits. We had a half-mile packed-gravel driveway built from the county road to the new home site and had a well drilled. Then, I got sick. Then, the stock market crashed. Then, I got sick again.

During all of that turmoil we pessimistically wondered whether we should, or could build. We optimistically hired a Spokane-based architect who designed a great house - that would have cost two-and-a-half times our budget. After I recovered from my second illness, we worked with a nearby log home company that designed another great house, but would have cost about twice our budget and come with all the inherent problems of log homes, such as log settling and twisting and cracking sheetrock.

Finally, this winter, we remembered that a friend had suggested looking into modular homes, and so we did. Stratford Building Corporation is located just 30 minutes away in Rathdrum, Idaho. We stopped in, looked at their model homes, met their construction manager, Mike Tinsley, visited the factory where they "stick-build" custom homes, and went home with a brochure. During the next few months, we worked with Stratford to develop plans, revise plans, and revise them again. On Thursday, we signed a contract agreement with Stratford. On Friday, we secured a construction loan/mortgage from nearby Global Credit Union. Today, Karen and I selected the color scheme for the entire house.

I'll be posting frequently to this blog as we progress through the construction period. We anticipate that, sometime this summer, we'll have a new house that will be a home, for the rest of our lives.

On Seeing Eagles

This morning, driving down Wellesley Ave. in Otis Orchards, Washington, I saw what seemed to be a hawk circling near the elementary school. The area is flush with red tailed hawks, and so I didn't find this particular bird remarkable - until I got closer and thought it must be the largest hawk I'd ever seen. Then, I saw the white tail and the white head. It was a bald eagle, probably over from Liberty Lake for brunch. It was a rare sight.

A few years ago, Karen and I were walking from our house in Post Falls up to the old barn when we saw a flock of crows circling the upper meadow. As we approached, they rose up, and we saw a deer carcass, which had been largely picked over. There was no blood trail. It looked like a coyote kill. Walking south along Anna Spring, we were shocked by two bald eagles crossing the trail about 10 feet off the ground, 20 feet in front of us. Magnificent. It was the first time we'd seen bald eagles here, though there are times they've been seen in profusion at Liberty Lake and Lake Coeur d'Alene.

When we lived in Laramie, Wyoming, I often saw golden eagles while on bike rides on Herrick Lane. Along that flat, undulating route, with cottonwoods along distant springs, the eagles built nests and perched atop telephone poles. Brown feathers flecked with gold, massive, watching for vermin. I thought this morning, as I saw the bald eagle, that I favored the golden eagles. Birds are what they are, but to me the golden eagle seems more stealthy, more deadly in its visual subtlety.

These days on my rides, I mostly see ducks and geese on the Spokane River along the Centennial Trail. Some quail. The occasional coyote. And, of course, red tailed hawks. I miss seeing the golden eagles as I ride, racing pronghorns across the prairie. You make do with what you've got.

Tour de Cure

This has been a tough winter for cycling. Rain, snow, slush, and yesterday more snow. That's the way it's been here in northern Idaho the past couple of winters. Just a day on the bike now and then - with enough layers and winter gear to still feel my fingers and toes by the end of the ride. My motivation is, to put it mildly, low.

But a couple of weeks ago, while visiting my diabetes counselor, I saw a poster for the Tour de Cure, scheduled for May 20. According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 50,000 riders will be on their bikes to raise money and awareness for research toward a cure for diabetes. Now I had my motivation.

I became a Type 1 diabetic in summer 2010 after two years of trying to figure out what was going wrong with my pancreas. A pancreatic pseudocyst in 2008 that burst while being drained (followed by sepsis); a diagnosis of organized pancreatic necrosis from Virginia Mason Clinic in Seattle, accompanied by three drains and stents; and finally a full Whipple procedure in July 2010 after a series of blackouts from severe anemia and blood loss. Every now and then I run into someone who knows what a Whipple is, and congratulates me on being alive. During 8 hours on the operating table, my surgeon, Ed Detar, removed my spleen, pancreas and 2/3 of my stomach, and rerouted various vital organs. Instant diabetic. Fortunately, my years of cycling had given my heart and lungs the strength to survive the surgery, though Dr. Detar said he nearly lost me four times during the procedure.

I got back to cycling as soon as I could, riding the Centennial Trail east to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and west toward Spokane, Washington, and hitting the winding, undulating back roads behind Liberty Lake, Washington. Though with a break to have a couple of bile duct stents removed to treat jaundice and early sepsis from bacterial backup into my blood system.

So, I now have a goal - the Tour de Cure. Part of the deal is helping to raise funds in support of the ADA. I've never liked asking people for money, but now I'm invested in diabetes. I posted information about the TdC on my Facebook page and e-mailed some folk in my contact list. To my surprise and delight, more than $850 has been contributed by my friends from New Jersey, Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington. Thanks, guys. As soon as this current snowfall clears, I'll be on the road training for the 2012 Spokane Tour de Cure.