I’m a pretty healthy guy. I watch what I eat, get lots of exercise, and spend a lot of time outdoors. I’ve lost nearly 20 pounds in the last couple of years and am getting close to where I think I should be. I see my regular family physician once a year for a physical and rarely have need to visit in between. I take no drugs except an occasional ibuprofen for a headache or muscle pain when I’ve overdone it. With all that I’m probably outside the norm for most Americans.
I’m also self-employed, which means that if I want health insurance to cover some catastrophic health event I pay as an individual. I don’t get the benefit of an employer-negotiated and subsidized rate with the insurance company. Last year at the “open enrollment” period we switched companies to get a lower rate. Then they raised it more than 10% mid-year. Our family coverage costs us $402 per month for a high-deductible plan. We pay the first $3,400 of medical costs each year before insurance kicks in. We’ve got the accompanying Health Savings Account, but basically just run medical expenses like eyeglasses and the dentist through it for the tax advantages. We certainly haven’t built up a balance there and other investments pay a better return.
The folks in the photo above, Frank and Liz Morrow, caught my attention this afternoon while bicycling a loop around Lake Samish. They were holding their banner on the North Lake Samish freeway overpass to help spread the message. I stopped to talk with them briefly. Liz told me that most of the drivers passing by honked or waved their support for the message of universal health insurance coverage. She said she thought most people really do support it, but agreed with me that there’s a lot of paranoia being spread around by a few people who are opposed. Liz and Frank’s t-shirts promote Health Care Now!.
My friend David Perry posted this great video explanation on his Facebook page tonight. It’s worth sharing as it’s one of the clearest explanations I’ve seen.
At the end of the day, I want a system that provides basic fairness in health care and health insurance to everyone in our nation, which is not the case now. Access to health insurance should not be based on employment status any more than it should be based on religion or political party. A federally-run single payer system is one good model that can be very fair and efficient. It may not be the only way to reach the end goal, but it deserves a chance.
Thanks to the folks on the overpass for motivating me to share these thoughts tonight and for letting me snap their photo with my iPhone.
Sunday was our first really nice day after more than a week of summer that felt more like autumn. The sky cleared and the air warmed to the upper 60s. In short, a perfect day for a hike in the mountains. A couple of weeks previous I’d been up on the side of Mount Larrabee and looked over at Tomyhoi Peak. I decided to go for the reverse view.
I hadn’t been on Tomyhoi since a climbing class trip back in the early 1990s. I set out to go all the way to the summit. It’s about 12 miles round trip with over 4000′ of elevation gain, topping out about 7100′. I hoped there would still be lots of alpine flowers blooming so I carried my big camera, a couple of lenses, and tripod. I also stuck my ice axe on my pack, expecting to need it on the final snow slopes. I hike pretty fast when I’m by myself and gained the first 1000 feet in 30 minutes, the turnoff from Gold Run Pass to Yellow Aster Butte in 45 minutes. Then I slowed down to enjoy the scenery.
But since I really wanted to get all the way to Tomyhoi, I didn’t stop much as I contoured around the basin and climbed up toward Yellow Aster. Then I dropped down the steep switchbacks to the tarns where I stopped to make a few photos and then continued on north. From a distance, Tomyhoi looks like a long gentle slope from the Yellow Aster tarns. As mountains go, I guess it is gentle. But when hiking uphill it certainly seems steeper.
I passed krumholtz subalpine firs and mountain hemlocks, groundcover carpets of kinnikinnik and juniper, fields of lichens studded with sparse heather and huckleberries. I dropped into and climbed back out of a big notch, eventually gaining the ridge. That’s where I found this nice little clump of rock paintbrush, Castilleja rupicola, blooming all by itself. Actually, it was coming up out of some Davidson’s penstemon that had already finished blooming. I made the photo with the camera on the ground, 32mm lens, and hardly able to see through the viewfinder because of the rock blocking my head. That’s Mt. Baker in the background. It’s a high noon shot. continue reading »
Winter arrived in Bellingham yesterday, with blowing snow last night and temperatures dropping from our typical mid-30s and low-40s down to the teens. Then the sun came out, so I decided it was time for a walk along the Railroad Trail to Whatcom Falls Park. The round trip distance is something like 8 miles, which makes for a nice Sunday afternoon stroll. It was definitely too icy for me to want to take a bike ride.
I put my new iPhone in my pocket, set to play music through Pandora, and headed out. Sidewalks and trails were icy in spots, bare in some, and just packed snow the rest of the way. The wind was still blowing, but I was bundled up against it. I started out a bit cold, but by the time I got to Barkley I was toasty warm and took my gloves off. I carried my Canon S70 camera in my pocket in case I came across anything interesting.
I don’t know the history of the building in the photo above, but I’ve liked looking at it every time I walk or bicycle the trail just east of the I-5 crossing. With the low afternoon sun accenting the weathered wood and peeling paint I just couldn’t resist.
There were lots of people out on the trail — walkers, joggers, a few on bicycles, and a couple of parents pulling little kids on sleds. Dogs of every size accompanied their humans, too.
When I got to Whatcom Falls Park there were several people on the stone bridge enjoying the rushing water of the falls. A couple of other people were also taking pictures. I used the bridge as a tripod, resting my camera on the railing so I could use a slow shutter speed and blur the water. There’s always a lot more water flowing over the falls in the winter than in the summer, so they look fuller and more exciting.
This time of year I don’t do a lot of photography, so it was good to get out and exercise my shutter finger as well as my legs. I don’t think it would atrophy from disuse, but there’s no reason to take that chance. Periodically I think I should discipline myself to make at least one photo each and every day. I’m pretty focused, but I haven’t made the daily photo a habit. Perhaps that should be my New Year’s resolution.
Mid-October is getting toward the end of the good weather in the North Cascades. I took advantage of a nice day today to head up toward Mt. Baker to photograph the mountain and the rugged crevasses and seracs on the lower portion of the Coleman glacier. I made this self-portrait at the high point of my hike, a bit over 5900 feet elevation. The crevasse I’m stradling wasn’t very deep so I felt comfortable going out on the glacier by myself without an ice axe. However, I didn’t go any farther than where I’m standing.
The weather wasn’t as good as I’d hoped for. The blue sky in the photo was only in evidence for a short time about 3 pm, but it couldn’t have been timed any better. Most of the time the sky was a hazy white with thin, high clouds signaling an approaching front which will probably bring rain on Monday.
The Coleman glacier, which flows north off Mt. Baker and terminates into Glacier Creek, is heavily crevassed and the lower portion has substantial seracs. A climbing class of more than a dozen students was busy practicing their ice climbing on the glacier below me. I tried that once, in about the same place, and decided ice climbing isn’t for me. Maybe I gave up too easily and I should try again.
Several creeks cross the Heliotrope Ridge trail as it winds its way up toward the glacier. The higher elevation crossings were challenging because of ice on the rocks. In mid-summer the challenge is huge water flows from melting snow, but that wasn’t the issue today. In one case I threw a bunch of small stones at the ice to break it off the rocks so I could have a firm place to stand mid-stream. I really didn’t want to get wet or injured.
All told, I hiked about 6 miles with 2300 feet of elevation gain and loss today. If I hadn’t gone to the mountains I could have gone kayaking, bicycling, or worked in the garden.
I thought about going for a bike ride today, but with rain in the forecast I decided to walk instead. As I started from home it wasn’t raining and was a bit warmer than yesterday. I headed east on North Street and picked up the Railroad Trail to Whatcom Falls Park. There were a lot of people out on the trail — walkers with dogs or kids in strollers, joggers, and a few cyclists. I took off my rain jacket before I’d gone too far and rolled it up in the hood for easy carrying. I was traveling light, with just a Clif bar in my pocket for a snack. I counted on water fountains working in the parks.
Whatcom Falls was running full, but not at flood stage. I headed toward Woburn Street on the Water Line Trail, which has been designated as an off-leash dog area. There were a few dogs and their owners out enjoying themselves, all well behaved. When I got to the back side of Bayview Cemetery I headed south toward the corner of Yew St. and Lakeway. From there it was a long climb up to the top of Yew Street hill. There were three cyclists ahead of me riding up the steep hill, but even riding slowly they were much faster than my walking pace.
Somewhere along the road I saw my first flowers in bloom. Nothing interesting, just the weedy Senecio vulgaris. It’s not too unusual to see it blooming during the winter. About the time I got to the top of the hill it started to rain and I put my raincoat back on. It also seemed to be quite a bit colder and a little windy. I passed the new elementary school under construction near the fire hall. I hadn’t realized the school was going to be right next to the road. There’s no shoulder at that point and some of the cars seemed to be going a bit faster than I thought they should. I had to watch out for them.
When I got down to Lake Padden I entered the park and followed the trail around the near side of the lake to Padden Creek gorge. I headed down the gorge trail, enjoying the sound of the creek cascading over rocks beside me and noting the trees that had come crashing down in one of our winter windstorms. I took the loop trail, which follows closer to the creek, for the first time. It’s not much farther, but more interesting than the main trail. The gorge trail ends at 36th Street, which I followed until I came to the street that descends the hill and passes under I-5 to become Old Fairhaven Parkway.
There’s a fairly new trail and bridge that crosses Connelly Creek and then passes by the newish Bellingham co-housing development on Donovan Ave. I hadn’t been down that way for a while and had never seen what the co-housing group had built. It’s attractive, with the houses clustered together and all the auto-oriented stuff around the edge of the site. I followed Donovan to 16th and headed up the hill. There’s a trail where the hill is too steep for a street, and then the street continues.
There are a lot of nice front yard gardens on 16th Street, as well as on Garden Street which I followed next as I worked my way back north. There was a hazelnut (Corylus sp.) just starting to bloom along the sidewalk, probably not our native species since it was in someone’s garden. I stopped briefly to examine the catkins. When I came to WWU there was a sign pointing to the trail down to the Boulevard, so I took it and then followed the South Bay Trail into downtown and then home on city streets.
Overall, the route was a bit over 15 miles and I walked it in 4 hours 20 minutes, averaging about 3.5 mph. An online calorie calculator said I burned about 1100 calories along the way. I mapped the route using my TOPO software, which reported about 1145 feet of elevation gain and loss, with the high point at the top of Yew Street hill. There was enough water available at Whatcom Falls and Lake Padden to satisfy me, and my Clif bar was enough of a snack to hold me until I got home for a modest lunch.
Mid-October is getting toward the end of the good weather in the North Cascades. I took advantage of a nice day today to head up toward Mt. Baker to photograph the mountain and the rugged crevasses and seracs on the lower portion of the Coleman glacier. I made this self-portrait at the high point of my hike, a bit over 5900 feet elevation. The crevasse I’m stradling wasn’t very deep so I felt comfortable going out on the glacier by myself without an ice axe. However, I didn’t go any farther than where I’m standing.