Sad change in plans

The Woman’s dad Jim has had a tough bout medically lately. He may be confusing the meds he takes, he has been able to eat little for quite a while, and has become unbelievably weak. As a result, he ambulanced over to Regions Hospital for help. They discovered a very aggressive for of urinary tract infection, so aggressive that they quarantined him for fear of it getting out in the hospital.

Weak, not eating, and not up for what they suggest to deal with the aggressive infection, he has decided he wants to be checked into a hospice. Emergency flights out of Mount Rainier National Park are not something doable. Our next option was to set out the 300 to Spokane so the Woman could catch a flight to St. Paul to see her dad. That leaves me with a marathon 1,400-mile jaunt to St. Paul with Colectiva and the pooch.

After dropping the Woman at the airport, I decided to kill a couple of hours in downtown Spokane. Neither the Woman or I had ever been here – now it’s just the Woman who hasn’t. It didn’t strike me as either cosmopolitan or quaint like some of the smaller burgs we’ve visited in the state. But it is right on the Spokane River, and Spokane Falls are pretty much right in the middle of downtown.

While not a lot to see, I did walk around enough to find a restaurant on the bluffs overlooking Spokane Falls. I grabbed a local Porter, some seared Copper River Salmon in soy sauce with ever so thin ginger slices, and lived the dream.

Tomorrow early I begin the marathon, with hopes that Jim will still be around when I get there. So, for now the planned itinerary has been scrubbed. We will see in a bit whether any of it can be salvaged, not that salvaging it is important at this time.

Talk to you soon!