1. I started the morning doing some more cleaning in the back yard, uncovering the deck furniture, hooking up the outdoor hoses after turning on the outdoor water, hosing down the area around the back porch, and vacuuming the interior of the Sube.
I vacuumed the Sube to prepare for a day on the road with Patrick and Meagan. Since Saturday was the first time I'd met Meagan, I wanted to spend some time with Patrick and Meagan on our own to get to know them better.
We started our day at Goose and the Tree in Pinehurst for a very tasty breakfast and our conversation was easy and fun -- this was true all day long. We then drove on the old highway through Smelterville, past the Silver King turnoff, right by where the lead smelter used to be, past Deadwood Gulch, through the old mine yard, and on into Kellogg where we took a quick look at the public library, the house Mom, Dad, Christy, and I lived in until 1962, and other landmarks.
2. Soon we were on the freeway, gliding over Lookout Pass, easing into St. Regis, and meandering on the state highway to Paradise, Plains, and Thompson Falls, MT. Patrick and Meagan and I continued yakking about different things and we drank in the splendor of the Montana landscape, the mountains, the Clark Fork River, and the occasional wildlife. We got out of the car at Goose Landing Park to admire the reservoir lake and enjoy the vivifying fresh air.
3. Upon our return to Idaho, we met Debbie, Christy, and Everett at Wallace Brewing and soon we hopped next door for dinner at the 1313 Club.
Back in Kellogg, Debbie visited friends playing Bingo at the Elks while Patrick, Meagan, and I made a quick stop at Yokes.
Before long, I spent a couple hours or so in bed reading From Death to Life: Notes of a Transplant Surgeon by Joshua Mezrich. I'd heard Dr. Mezrich interviewed on the podcast, To the Best of Our Knowledge, back on March 1st. I'm not quite a hundred pages into the book and already I have a much more detailed understanding not only of the medical science that informs taking organs from donors, transporting the organs, and reviving them once transplanted into a recipient, but also of the history of transplantation.
Mezrich's book is part autobiography, part medical history, part medical step by step explaining the transplantation process. I will need to reread the medical sections with a dictionary and familiarize myself with much of the terminology, but, upon first reading, I am understanding the gist of how transplantation works much better and the complex work that goes on behind the scenes once an organ becomes available.
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