Heat Be Gone

It's over.  Yep. Done.  The recent heat wave will now be remembered by some numbers in the climate data record book.  It was a really long stretch of hot weather--the hottest we've experienced for late August in our short seven year Idaho tenure.  We're VERY happy to wave bye-bye to the heat wave.  Today's high is only progged for 81 degrees and tomorrow will be at least another ten degrees cooler.  Meanwhile, tomorrow's low is progged to be in the THIRTIES!  Yep--20 degrees cooler than this morning's low temperature!  Up north, it could be downright C-O-L-D.  Check this snippet from the morning NWS AFD:

"...BUT MUCH COOLER  BOTH IN THE DAYTIME AND AT NIGHT. LOWS TONIGHT WILL BE IN THE 40S/50S IN MOST AREAS...WITH THE HIGHER ALPINE VALLEYS LIKE  STANLEY DROPPING INTO THE 20S. HIGHS TOMORROW WILL ONLY IN THE 60S  AND 70S IN VALLEY LOCATIONS. IT WILL BE EVEN COOLER THURSDAY NIGHT  WITH LOWS IN THE 30S AND 40S AREAWIDE...WITH PLACES LIKE STANLEY AND COPPER BASIN AT OR BELOW 20."

As we've saying for quite some time--somebody upstairs flips a switch and, poof, summer's over.  Gary W. is hiking in the Sawtooth Wilderness and, boy, will he be surprised during the next couple of nights!  His hiking group will go from microwave oven hot to the deep freeze without any transition whatsoever.  We can't wait to hear how that plays out.  We've been faithfully following Gary's footsteps via his SPOT.  What an amazing device.  Here are two terrain screen shots.  It looks like they have been off trail since they left Goat Lake on Monday.  They went up and over a steep ridge and are now nestled in a small lake-filled glacial bowl.  They hiked for well over 7 hours yesterday and it must have been a grueling grunt judging from the difficulty of their route.  (more narrative below the two screen shots.)

DF & LBR Terry M. and I logged some time yesterday considering how to provide "input" on the evolving plans for an extreme makeover of Memorial Drive and the adjacent high use portion of the Greenbelt.  This makeover has been in the works for many years but appears to be coming to fruition during the next couple of summer seasons.  We met with one of the honchos and talked to the other through his window screen.  Yep--you can do that in Idaho Falls.  Who needs a formal sit down meeting when you can stroll up to somebody's window and say "HEY" and get right down to business.  Very Mayberry-esque, actually.   Below is the screen shot of an interactive map showing the gist of the project.  It's gonna be pricey and create major new impacts on the area.  It's gonna to be interesting to see how our "input" evolves and finds final form.

Four DF & LBRs sent along best wishes and suggestions for Miss Susun's situation.  She really appreciated those thoughts and we think they helped her healing process.  She is moving very slowly about the house with the aid of two rubber-tipped hiking sticks.  As we all know, Susun is the Eternal Optimist and she thinks she will be soon bounding around like Mary Poppins singing "The Sound of Music" in flower-filled fields.

 Tonight is the last weekly shooting match of the summer season for IDPA.  This will be our 13th consecutive IDPA match so far this summer.  We also participated in two ICORE matches making the total 15 events since June.  On one hand, we will be sad to see the weekly matches end.  On the other hand, we're anxious to shift our focus away from shooting sports to other pressing areas around the house.  Plus, we have to start packing for next week's Jenny Lake trip (hoping, of course, that Miss Susun's back will be better by then).  We've rallied up the newspaper to send a photographer and reporter to tonight's final event of the summer.  We went out to our home on the range yesterday for some practice and feel really good about the evolution of our skills and accuracy this summer. The NWS says the winds will be howling 20-30 mph this evening.  What a fitting finale for the season. It's been quite a roller coaster ride this summer and we will be both happy/sad to see it end.

One closing piece of trivia of slight interest to our desert readers.  Labor Day is the peak of the sweet corn season here.  Down there it's early July so there's almost a two month "corn shift," if you will.  We've seen plump ears as low as 12 cents each this week.  Numerous street corners are decorated with pickup trucks piled high with fresh-picked sweet corn.  Meanwhile combines continue combing lion-maned barley fields.  It's a wonderful time of year here and high time the heat hightailed the heck out of here!

Have a great last day of August and Many Cheers!  jp