May 22, 2023 – Travels with Fred

22 May 2023

When Joel picked me up at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport yesterday I had been awake since 4:30 am PDT on the 20th of May. I got into Fort Lauderdale around 10:51 EDT on the 21st of May, so that means I had been awake for approximately 16 hours. I was a zombie. I also had a backache from sitting on the plane for 7 hours of flight – even though they were first class seats with a little more leg room.

Joel dropped me off and I immediately found my A/C didn’t work. The thermostat apparently has batteries and they died while on the trip. I had to search through my file of manuals to find the thermostat manual to see which type of batteries and how to replace them. Then I had to reprogram the thermostat to finally get the A/C working.

After that it was grocery shopping, unpacking, storing the suitcase (ladder work), washing clothes, folding clothes, and cooking dinner. I was about to drop. I went to bed at 6 pm (fortified by two stiff bourbons) and promptly conked out. I got up twice to pee but immediately went back to sleep. I got out of bed at 8 am and realized I had slept soundly for 14 hours. I feel much better today!

First up was a phone call from Holy Cross oncology wanting to schedule a chemotherapy consultation. Darla had tried to contact me before my vacation and I had tried to reach her to respond but that didn’t happen. Today we agreed on the same date as my echocardiogram, just earlier than the echocardiogram (this Wednesday). I assume they will tell me what nastiness to expect. Without my knowledge, they had already prescribed two drugs: prochlorperazine (anti sickness – think sea sickness type of drug) and ondansetron (nausea and vomiting). Actually, both work similarly. I had CVS mail me the drugs. I hate going to CVS and the $4 shipping charge is worth not having to deal with the store.

Next was making entries into my check book app. It’s hard to keep checking accounts in order when on vacation and it takes time to go through credit cards and make entries from the trip. Invariably, something is forgotten and I have to do a “reconcile” entry after all is said and done.

I’ve been on the computer ever since I got breakfast put away. First, some insurance work for the flood insurance. They asked for a photo of my drivers license. I didn’t want to send the photo email so I asked about other forms of identification that showed my home address. No, that wouldn’t work. I had to have a photo that I could black out everything but the address. I scanned my license and did block out everything other than the address and my name. I sent it off. No, wait, you also have to send the photo with the issue date. That meant another scan, re-blocking, and re-sending with the caveat that Florida licenses do not have an issue date but they do have an expiration date. My mistake, they do have an issue date and I resent that photo. I’m waiting now for the same request with a different set of blocking parameters. God bless insurance companies because I certainly will not.

Next up were surveys from Amazon and the Salish Lodge. I normally don’t do surveys but I wanted to input my opinion on these, more so the Salish Lodge. I gave the staff and valet excellent reviews but panned the food. My final recommendation for the lodge was “Get a new chef.”

The appointments person at Holy Cross made four additional appointments for chemo infusions without notifying me. They just appeared on my Holy Cross App that I happened to check. Included in the appointments were day-after-infusion injections. I assume these to be one of two things: nausea or immune system boost. I’ll probably find out about that on Wednesday.

It was good to be back home. This is gonna be a very busy week with all the appointments. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Hiking in the woods and seeing waterfalls gave me peace of mind and I feel I am in a better place to start the process involved with my breast cancer treatment. I look forward to the time after the initial infusions that I might be able to get back on the trail and do some more hiking. Hopefully, I’ll get used to the chemo quickly and will have enough stamina to continue to get out in the woods.

Meanwhile, here are a few photos that didn’t make the original posts.

The hike back up the Snoqualmie Falls Tail – the trail was paved, for the most part and wheel chair accessible if you had someone to push you uphill.

Devil’s Club (*Oplopanax horridus*) – Snoqualmie Falls Trail

Devil’s Club (*Oplopanax horridus*) I particularly like the species name.

My first view of this was along the Avalanche Lake trail in Glacier National Park several years ago. The photograph above is the mature branch of another plant I found along the Twin Falls Trail. In Mississippi, they have a similar plant, Aralia spinosa, and it is called Devil’s Walking Stick. It’s really nasty. I can attest with a personal story. I was collecting plants at Tishomingo State Park and began an uncontrolled slide down a hill and I grabbed the first thing that came into view. That was a big mistake. Click on the link and you’ll see why.

Giant Horsetail (*Equisetum telmateia*) – I love horsetails. Over the years, I’ve found four species in the wild. They are an extremely primitive plant reproducing by spores but also by rhizomes. They can form additional rhizomes and new plants at the joints. The stems are hollow. I’ve got a few more to find. The Biota of North America Plant Atlas lists 18 species.

Giant Horsetail (*Equisetum telmateia*) – the rather odd looking structure on the plant is called a strobilus. Underneath the scales are numerous sporangia containing thousands of spores each.

Prolonged exposure of rapids on Snoqualmie River below the falls.

Thimbleberry (*Rubus parviflorus*) – I’ve photographed this two other times: the South Kaibab Trail on the north rim of the Grand Canyon and in Redwoods National Park, Yurok Loop Trail.

Red flowering currant (*Ribes sanguineum*) – the flower color varies from white to pink to really dark red. I’ve photographed this at MacArthur-Burney Falls State Park near Redding, CA on the Burney Falls Loop trail and at Rainbow Falls at North Cascades National Park near Chelan Lake.

Rainbow in the mist of the Snoqualmie Falls

One of those “night” photos of Snoqualmie Falls that the iPhone “corrected” to daylight. It was really quite dark when I made this photo.

Prolonged exposure of a cascade on the way to Franklin Falls.

I think this tree is a western red cedar. What is interesting to me was the trunk had been damaged and five branches came from the trunk and then some of those branches had branches. This plant has had a hard life.

Trail to Franklin Falls – it was a little muddy but otherwise an easy hike.

Franklin Falls – I hiked down as close as I could but any further and I was in danger of slipping. The older gentleman that I referred to in early posts was hiking with a buddy when the falls were frozen and the buddy fell through the ice into the water below. The older gentleman reached for him and pulled him to safety.

Siberian Spring Beauty (*Claytonia sibirica*) – when I first enrolled in a plant identification course back at Ole Miss, this was one of the first genera I identified. It was the more widely distributed *Claytonia* *virginica*. There are 26 species of *Claytonia* recorded for the U.S. So far, I’ve found seven.

Siberian Spring Beauty (*Claytonia sibirica*) – I first found this plant at Redwoods National Park several years ago. I didn’t recognize the genus at first and after walking a little further on the trail, the genus *Clayton*ia popped into my mind. Tricky thing, the mind.

May Lily or False Lily-of-the-Valley (*Maianthemum bifolium*) – this is a European plant that has escaped into the wild. There is some confusion as to the genus but you can still find it under this title. It tends to form large colonies and probably is considered a beautiful “nuisance.”

Herb-Robert (*Geranium robertaianum*) – another European import that seams to have made the noxious weed list.

Salmonberry (*Rubus spectabilis*) – my first view of this was in Redwoods National Forest on the Klamath Beach Trail. I kept seeing brilliant colored petals on the ground and I finally found one flower on the plant intact. This one was in pretty good shape. The petals seems to be very ephemeral on the flower.

Colt’s Foot (*Petasites frigidus*) – I’ve found this two other times. Once in Redwoods National Forest on the Klamath Beach Road and in North Cascades National Park on the Agnes Gorge Trail. I assume the common name comes from the very large leaves.

Along the Twin Falls Trail. A lot of western Washington, like western Oregon, can be classified as a rain forest. The requirement is 200 cm of rain a year. All but one in the U.S. is classified as temperate rainforests. I think this trail could qualify as a rainforest trail. Love the mosses!

The rainforests in the U.S. are Tongass National Forest in Alaska, Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park, Chugach National Forest in Alaska, Redwoods National Park, Mount Hood Wilderness, Appalachian Temperate Rainforest in the southern Appalachians (north Georgia and western N.C.) Quinault Rain Forest in Olympic National Park, and the only tropical rainforest in the U.S., El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico. Of these, I’ve been in Hoh, Redwoods, and Appalachian Temperate.