Another Night, Another Morning in the Heat, Smoke, and Gloom
Northwest Return Travelog #13
Clarkston, WA - Sun, 1 Aug 2021. 9am.
We got back to Clarkston after 5 yesterday afternoon. It turns out we left Chief Joseph Days in Joseph, OR just in time. We felt a few sprinkles of rain as we walked backed to our car. Before we were 5 miles away it started raining harder. I'm glad we decided to come back here for dinner rather than eat on an outdoors patio there.
Look Ma, No Mask!
Speaking of "here" for dinner, restaurants in this area are becoming an increasingly dicey proposition. Nobody cares about masks. We haven't seen a single other person in this city wear a mask in public. That includes people working in businesses with big signs in the window that all staff wear masks for the health and safety of the public. And this isn't even a low-risk area. In fact, it's one of (many) highest risk hot spots per CDC a last week. Well, it's easy to see why with the foolishness of the population.
It reminds me of a meme I saw online a few days ago. "You can't fix stupid" says the caption at the top. Beneath that is a Coronavirus virion saying, "I can."
We tried finding a restaurant in Clarkston or Lewiston that offers outdoors dining. There weren't any. Why should they? Everyone knows the pandemic is over. 🙄The Great Awful Outdoors
Even if outdoors dining were available it would be hard to use right now. The temps when we were hiking atop Mt. Howard today were only in the low 80s. Down the mountain in Joseph they were mid-90s. Here in Clarkston, where the elevation is only about 720' above sea level, it hit a high of 110 F (43.3° C) this afternoon. That's not to say we wouldn't eat outside, though. We ate dinner outdoors in Moscow yesterday. We asked the waitress to bring us water and leave the pitcher.
In addition to the brutally hot temperatures there's also terrible air quality here. Smoke from wildfires blankets the region. We skipped going out to the pool last night because we felt like gagging every time we went outdoors. Instead we stayed holed up in our room with the AC running. It does a great job of filtering the crud out of the air as well as cooling it. Every time we go back outdoors and inhale some of that "fresh" air I feel vaguely like I might puke.
Well, we're just about ready to head out for today's adventure. The temps are a little cooler; only about 100 as the forecast high! The air is still gross, though, and in addition to the smoke there are also normal clouds. It's hard to tell which is which. There are chances of rain in the forecast, too. I regret not coming out here four weeks ago when it was "only" record heat we'd have had to deal with!
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/96949.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]
Clarkston, WA - Sun, 1 Aug 2021. 9am.
We got back to Clarkston after 5 yesterday afternoon. It turns out we left Chief Joseph Days in Joseph, OR just in time. We felt a few sprinkles of rain as we walked backed to our car. Before we were 5 miles away it started raining harder. I'm glad we decided to come back here for dinner rather than eat on an outdoors patio there.
Look Ma, No Mask!
Speaking of "here" for dinner, restaurants in this area are becoming an increasingly dicey proposition. Nobody cares about masks. We haven't seen a single other person in this city wear a mask in public. That includes people working in businesses with big signs in the window that all staff wear masks for the health and safety of the public. And this isn't even a low-risk area. In fact, it's one of (many) highest risk hot spots per CDC a last week. Well, it's easy to see why with the foolishness of the population.
It reminds me of a meme I saw online a few days ago. "You can't fix stupid" says the caption at the top. Beneath that is a Coronavirus virion saying, "I can."
We tried finding a restaurant in Clarkston or Lewiston that offers outdoors dining. There weren't any. Why should they? Everyone knows the pandemic is over. 🙄The Great Awful Outdoors
Even if outdoors dining were available it would be hard to use right now. The temps when we were hiking atop Mt. Howard today were only in the low 80s. Down the mountain in Joseph they were mid-90s. Here in Clarkston, where the elevation is only about 720' above sea level, it hit a high of 110 F (43.3° C) this afternoon. That's not to say we wouldn't eat outside, though. We ate dinner outdoors in Moscow yesterday. We asked the waitress to bring us water and leave the pitcher.
In addition to the brutally hot temperatures there's also terrible air quality here. Smoke from wildfires blankets the region. We skipped going out to the pool last night because we felt like gagging every time we went outdoors. Instead we stayed holed up in our room with the AC running. It does a great job of filtering the crud out of the air as well as cooling it. Every time we go back outdoors and inhale some of that "fresh" air I feel vaguely like I might puke.
Well, we're just about ready to head out for today's adventure. The temps are a little cooler; only about 100 as the forecast high! The air is still gross, though, and in addition to the smoke there are also normal clouds. It's hard to tell which is which. There are chances of rain in the forecast, too. I regret not coming out here four weeks ago when it was "only" record heat we'd have had to deal with!
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/96949.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]