People often give books to me as a gift……But it is sometimes awkward because my current reading list couldn’t be gotten through in a decade.

Just a decade? You are doing better than me.

Thanks for the book recommendation. My longest hikes or canoe trips have been for five days, so their hike of the Grand Canyon is far beyond what I have done. But it will be fun to read about.

My brother and sister-in-law have a bed-and-breakfast in Maine. One time a former Maryland neighbor of theirs dropped in after completing a hike of the Appalachian trail. Which reminds me a classic Maine woodland adventure tale: Donn Fendler’s Lost on a Mountain in Maine. He was 12 at the time.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199798198-a-walk-in-the-park

About a hike gone wrong in the Grand Canyon (one of my other hobbies is long distance thru-hiking/backpacking). It is very well written, not sure why that surprised me, but it did. I came damn close to reading it from cover to cover in one go. Came up a couple chapters short.

And it’s a nice photo from the hostess. I sometimes wonder if there’s some ideal mix of green/yellow/orange/red to make a perfect fall color picture. But maybe it’s better not to know, even if it does exist.

OTOH, we’ve already been told (countless times) that “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall”.
Somewhere.
Some point.

That being noted, why can’t the US be more like, um, Sweden??

‘Sweden Tells Citizens To Prepare For “War Mode”‘—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/sweden-tells-citizens-prepare-war-mode

I also record the clouds as you all know from my video links.

“ Do you own a personal home weather station and a computer with a dedicated connection to the Internet, such as fiber, DSL or cable? If you do, the National Weather Service (NWS) and local television meteorologists would love to see your data! The NWS can ingest your frequently-posted weather data into our data and display systems, which can not only improve computer model data (and subsequent weather forecasts) for your area, but also makes the NWS and local television meteorologists aware of micro-climates (unique temperature, wind and precipitation patterns) specific to your local area.”

Since the deluge and floods in Texas in July, there has been hardly any rain for three months. A nearby house that doesn’t water its lawn has cracks in its lawn. I am reminded of the 1998 flood in San Marcos, where about 2 feet of rain fell in 24 hours. After that deluge, there was no rain in San Marcos for five months.

As an indication of the deluge/drought cycle, the water level in Lake Travis rose 40 feet as a consequence of the deluge, but has fallen 6 feet since then.

My cousin in Montana informs me that there has been more rain than usual this year. More than the average 12 inches annual average.

Some things never change. Kingston Trio: Merry Minuet

They’re rioting in Africa
They’re starving in Spain
There’s hurricanes in Florida
And Texas needs rain

(I am told that Texas had a big drought in the 50s.) Actually, most of Texas is caught up on rain. But not where I am.

Rockford is about two hours outside Chicago, and kind of in the middle of nowhere.

But them from Rockford get around. My “next door” neighbor during my New England childhood was from Rockford. (Next door was a half mile up the road—but no intervening houses, so next door.) Decades later in Texas, for a year I had a boss who was from Rockford.