Thanksgiving week

I was on holiday break all last week.  I didn't do much (hiking) except for a few short local trails.  My biggest achievement was getting new Cooper Endeavor Plus tires for the Ridgeline on Tuesday morning.  I no longer have slow leaks in any of the tires and I can feel safer riding on tires that are not slowly cracking from dry rot.

I joined RodC, JohnS and SteveA on a hike back to the Babocamari cascades on Tuesday, but I already have posted that.  

I mostly slept in until past sun rise every day and hung out with the dogs and then watched news and current events via YouTube in the evening.  I've become obsessed with the recent murders of four University of Idaho students who died from knife wounds the morning of November 13th.  All of them were members of the Greek houses on campus, which always invites secrecy. I'm certain the killer is a former member of one of the Greek fraternities who was obsessed with one of the women he killed.  It may take months before the killer is identified.

This past week is the one-year anniversary of the house fire.  It was an event I did not want to remember.  I made no plans to go anywhere for Thanksgiving, but then Ellen invited me to have a holiday lunch at her parents' house in town.  That event turned out to be much more inspirational than planned, and I thanked Ellen and her parents for a good time over good food.

It helped that her parents are both veterans.  Rebecca, the mom, served in the army, and her dad in the navy.  Both met when they were stationed in Japan in the 1970s, but she resigned when they got married because she could not be assigned with her husband.  They both shared some fun times of their early enlistment.  It was later they both became Christians.

All the dogs got extra raw poultry on Thanksgiving.

On Friday I joined Susan for a short 2-mile walk from the Lehner kill site to the SP River late in the morning.  I haven't walked much with her and her dog Allie this year, mostly because of Allie's declining health.  Walking two miles is too much for her now, so Susan tends to just walk Allie up and down her street. She got to see Wolfie again, who was very well-mannered around Susan.  Wolfie will bark at other people, but not Susan.

On Saturday I did another short 5-mile hike with Ellen along the Murray Springs-Clanton Ranch house with Hansel.  The tall weeds there have been cleared, but an old wood bridge over a narrow wash is gone, creating a wide detour going north toward the Escapule Road trail head.

One thing I didn't do was explore Keystone Peak in the Sierritas. That may happen over Christmas break when it's cooler and more overcast.  And of course finishing walking The Loop in Tucson is still a goal. Walking is my greatest therapy right now, but getting started when it's cold and dark out is a challenge for me.

I had Hansel in the front yard for several weeks.  He never ran off. He's back in the back yard.  He wasn't happy the first two nights, but it's now day 4 and he's gotten used to staring at me from behind a chain-link fence.  I would like to try having Gretel up front for a while.  Getting her out of the back yard without also luring the other three dogs back there won't be easy.

Yesterday morning a small 20-acre fire broke out above a campsite in lower Carr Canyon.  I could see smoke from the high school parking lot.  By the end of the day the fire was extinguished.

Starting today, people in federal buildings must be masked up again.  The flu, the RSV and covid aren't going away.  Damn pests!

 https://www.ci.moscow.id.us/DocumentCenter/View/24764/11-29-22-Moscow-Homicide-Update