Weekend Hike

I worked the US holiday on the 4th of July and the weekend but had Monday and Tuesday off. Luckily, Atmospheric Chemist friend can take any day off he chooses in the summer since he works at a teaching college. He came up from Oil Drilling city with his dog and we had a lovely 8mile- 2,000 foot elevation gain - hike up to a pretty mountain lake. There was still some snow at the last bit but the lake was beautiful and we had it to ourselves.



Atmospheric Chemist friend and I met in Alaska where I was attending grad school and he doing a post-doc. It's one of the serendipitous things in life that finds us in the same state. He's altogether glad to come west to cooler elevations this time of year as I was happy to join him in the desert regions in early spring.

I came home to good news - my mother's latest eye appointment went well and she did not need additional surgery! She has now had 4 surgeries on her right eye and one on her left (and will need additional surgery on the left once the right completely heals). And blessedly she no longer has to lay still with her head at a 75 degree angle below her shoulders! Her vision is recovering, albeit slowly, and the spectre of blindness fades from our thoughts. It turns out that a childhood illness - ricketts - which the doctor did not believe she had (it has been an uncommon thing in North America for some time as it caused by malnutrition) made her more susceptible to retinal detachment. Who knew?