Covid Shots Clarified

Last week I complained that it's not really clear what's going on with Covid right now. Well, while meaningful, comprehensive measures of disease activity and risk are still unavailable ("unavailable" meaning deliberately defunded, removed, and/or barred by government hijacked by disinformation peddlers and conspiracy theorists at multiple levels) we at least now have clarity on who should get another shot of the Covid vaccine and when it will be available.

The FDA on Monday approved the boosters formulated for the XBB.1.5 subvariant. Example news coverage: NBC News article, 11 Sep 2023. There's a two-step dance between the FDA and the CDC in the US. The FDA determines it's safe, then the CDC issues recommendations or guidelines on who should get it. The UK's NHS recently issued very narrow guidelines, recommending the shot only for persons aged 65+ or working in high-risk environments or with severe illness. Thus it was a bit surprising when the CDC came out on Tuesday with a broad recommendation that everyone over 6 months old get the booster. Example news coverage: Washington Post article, 12 Sep 2023.

Furthermore, to the question of when is it available, the answer is almost immediately. CVS Pharmacy evidently had good contingency plans for this positive decision and announced it would have shots available at 1000s of its pharmacies this week. Other pharmacy chains should follow soon. I will likely get the shot in October and pair it with a flu shot.

Dam, That's Big!

North Cascades Travelog #16
Coulee Dam, WA - Tue, 5 Sep 2023, 10am.

Today we're headed back to GEG airport in Spokane to fly home. Our 4 day trip to eastern Washington and the North Cascades is almost over. Almost over is not the same as over-over, though. There's still stuff left to do and time to do it! We stopped in Coulee Dam, Washington, to see the Grand Coulee Dam.



The Grand Coulee Dam is the largest dam and largest hydroelectric generation plant in North America. The photo above shows a view from outside the visitors center. The scale of this behemoth can be hard to discern from pictures. The dam is 5,223 feet wide— nearly one mile across. It's 550 feet tall. People often marvel at the Hoover Dam east of Las Vegas... the Hoover Dam is about 32% taller (726 feet vs. 550) but, at 1,244' across, less than one-quarter as wide. The Grand Coulee contains 11,975,521 cubic yards of concrete, more than 3.5x the volume of the Hoover Dam, and the collective 6,809 megawatts its hydroelectric generators can produce is more than 3x the Hoover Dam's output.

Just to put that 550' height figure in perspective.... If the Washington Monument had its base at the river level at the foot of the dam, only the tip would peek over the bridge at the top of the dam, by five feet. The Statue of Liberty's torch (the highest part of the monument) would come just over halfway up the dam, even including the 151' tall pedestal the statue stands on. This dam is big.

Big Nuts, Big Tools

When you've got a size queen like this dam you're going to need big nuts and big tools.



"Everything's bigger at Grand Coulee," this sign at the visitors center explains.

On a Midnight Plane to Georgia— I mean, North Carolina

West Virginia Travelog #1
SFO Airport - Fri, 15 Sep 2023. 10pm

Tonight Hawk and I are at SFO airport, embarking on a week long trip to the east coast. Our flight leaves a few minutes before midnight and will arrive about 5 hours later in Charlotte, North Carolina. Once at CLT we'll rent a car and drive north across the foothills of North Carolina, across the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and into West Virginia. Why West Virginia? In two words: bucket list.

They Moved My Bucket!

Oh, I've been to West Virginia before. Visiting the state is not the bucket list item I'm traveling to fulfill. I ticked that bucket list item years ago! The bucket list at play here is Visiting all US national parks. And that's a neverending odyssey because they keep moving my bucket!

Three years ago Congress designated a new national park, New River Gorge National Park and Preserve in West Virginia. It went onto our list right away. Now we're getting to it.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you get buckled into your seats, sit back, relax, and get ready with your buckets.

Backlog Almost Cleared

I had hoped to finish blogging about my previous trip, the PNW trip two weekends ago, before embarking on this one. I didn't finish— though I have come close! My most recent blog, Dam, That's Big!, is #16 in the series. I've already posted #18, wrapping up that trip, so I've got just one more to go.