Merry Christmas

 

Steamboat Rock

Both boys are home this year. I am not sure that will be a regular thing in the future, so we'll enjoy it while we can.

Walking is going well. I am writing mid-day for a change, but as of now I have taken over 5,000 steps today and 226,900 for the month versus a goal of 230,000 by end of day, so I am right on track. Before I started trying to take 10,000 steps per day toward Miami back on October 1, the most steps I took all year in one month was 214,000 in August, so I passed that mark yesterday, with nine days left in December. The next monthly mark is to pass the 279,000 steps I took in October, which should happen next Tuesday.

766,000 steps to date equate to 383 miles, which puts me in Hartline, Washington, a place I did not know existed as of this morning. I passed Coulee City twenty miles back, which I know I have been to more than once, because more than once I have driven past Steamboat Rock, a rock which looks a bit like a steamboat rising from the ground, and that means I drove between Coulee City and the Grand Coulee Dam.

A little geography: A coulee is a ravine, and the Grand Coulee Dam is at the north end of a large ravine called the Grand Coulee. So it is the Coulee which is the grand item in Grand Coulee Dam, not the dam, although the dam is quite large.

Past Coulee City, I do not recognize the towns until close to Spokane, and I may have never been this way. I only have 220,000 steps or so left in Washington State, and I am already looking past Idaho and on to Montana, which will take about 1.4 million steps to cross. The good news is that once I cross Montana, I will be close to halfway across the US west to east.

If you are reading this, Merry Christmas, and if you are not, Merry Christmas anyway.