Meaningful Numbers

 You see it all the time, on all the news channels: brightly coloured maps showing how many cases each state has. New York, California, Texas and Florida are dark red, because they have so many cases.

But that's not a particularly meaningful bit of information. Of course those states have the most cases: they have the most people. 

A better map would show the infestation of corona virus as a percentage of population. On that map, the dark-red states would be Louisiana, Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, New York, New Jersey, Alabama and Georgia; each of those states has more than 2,000 cases per 100,000 people. 

Close behind would be South Carolina, Rhode Island, DC, Nevada, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Texas, Arkanss, Delaware, Maryland, Iowa, and Illinois, each with more than 1,500 cases per 100,000 people.

California would be in the middle group, along with Nebraska, Connecticut, Idaho, Utah, North Carolina, Virginia, Oklahoma, Indiana, South Dakota, Minnesota, New Mexico, Kansas and Wisconsin, each with 1,000 to 1,499 cases per 100,000.

All this shouldn't make the authorities, or the people, in Texas and California feel much better about the whole thing, but it would give a more meaningful sense of how bad things are in various states.

If you want to know where your state stands, go to https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-us-maps-and-cases/ and click the column heading "...per 100,000 people." Bear in mind, too, that the great majority of cases in the northeast -- New England, New York and New Jersey -- are cases that came up in the early stages of the pandemic, before we knew as much about how to stop the spread. 

An even more useful map would be one that showed the states' relationship based on positivity rates. Positivity rates are the best indicator of how fast the virus is spreading in an area. The worst places on that map would be Mississippi (21%), Texas (19%), Florida (17.5%), Alabama (17%) and Nevada (16%), Washington (15%) and Idaho (also 15%). You can find these statistics at https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/testing-positivity, but I don't know where you can find an actual map to illustrate these statistics in a quickly-understandable way.

Condo Week 2020 Blog Posts

To read all the blog posts from our trip up to Jackson Hole, in order from first to last, click here, then at the bottom of each, click on the "newer post" link.

Condo Week 2.0: In the Books

This is part six, the final part, of the posts for this year's Condo Trip. You really should read them in order. Here's a link to take you to Part One; then click on "Newer Post" at the bottom left when you get to the end.

Thursday night in Denver (or some suburb thereof) our hotel had some technical problem, so no TV and no Internet. Somehow we didn't care. We talked half-heartedly about where to get dinner from the many take-out and delivery places nearby, but none of them interested us ... so we skipped dinner. Yeah, that happens all the time. I think I had an apple from our little stash of food.

We were up pretty early on Friday morning and out of there. I noticed that only about half the people around the hotel, staff and guests, were wearing masks. In the rest of the state that we saw, it was more like 80%. But people were keeping their distance from each other, even in the elevator. So that's something.

We got off the interstate south of Springs

Hines Creek Valley

and headed west, to Custer and Archuleta counties. In between we had a very nice lunch at the Three Barrel Brewery (with tables outside under a shade, so Carly could join us), and enjoyed the beautiful views off US 160 in the Rio Grande National Forest. But the main thing is that now I've been to all the counties in Colorado.

After that, we came down into New Mexico and went through Santa Fe, where I picked up a Subway sandwich. We stopped a couple of hours later in a little village south of I-40 and ate dinner at the city park as the last of the sunlight faded. Then we drove into Vaughn, about 20 miles further on, and got an inexpensive ($49, plus $10 for the dog) room at the Desert Motel, just the kind of place I always like to find: clean, cheap, no frills. This one comes without air conditioning, but apparently one doesn't need A/C in central New Mexico at the end of July. It was plenty comfortable.

Breakfast was at a Denny's in Roswell. On their "patio." They closed off the parking lot on one side -- the west side -- and lined up half a dozen tables in the shade of the building. Presumably in the afternoon they move the arrangement to the other side. I don't know what they do for lunch, when there wouldn't be any shade.

The audio books we've listened to on this trip were Reasonable Doubt, by Charles Todd -- a whodunit set in England in the 1920s; Murder in Mayfair, by D.M Quincy, a disposable mystery set in London in 1814, most remarkable for making almost no mention of any historical figures or events (I believe the name Napoleon came up once, but that's pretty much it; what's the point of "historical fiction" if you're not going to tie it into anything that makes a time unique or interesting?); Blue Moon, by Lee Child, an entertaining action story set in some unnamed American city, and featuring his crime-fighting hero Jack Reacher (I couldn't believe my luck when I found there was a Reacher novel I'd never read or listened to); The Evil Men Do, by John McMahon, another present-day crime thriller set in Georgia -- these novels make me wonder: when did fictional detectives quit being idiosyncratic, like Poirot and Marple and Queen and Stout, and instead all become flawed? Is anybody else tired of hearing about how the detective has to not only solve the crime but overcome alcoholism and the demons in their past all at the same time? That's not to say McMahon's book wasn't interesting -- it was -- but after a few of these novels they all start to feel formulaic. (On the other hand, there's Jack Heath's detective Timothy Blake, a cannibal who savors his flaws.) We also started Alan Furst's novel Under Occupation, a spy thriller set in occupied France, but didn't finish it. Usually we just abandon whatever we were listening to when we get home, but this one's not very long and I'm enjoying it, so I'm going to listen to the rest of it on my own.

And here, once again, is a link to the picture album for this trip.

And again: if you're reading this in your email, please click on the link to the actual blog before you delete it, so it'll register as having been seen. My blog visitor numbers are pathetic, and you have it in your power to do something completely altruistic that will make a certain someone happy. You don't have to actually read it again when you visit the blog; though I think it's always worth reading again....

2020 Condo Week 2.0: Nearing the End

This is part five of the posts for this year's Condo Trip. You really should read them in order. Here's a link to take you to Part One; then click on "Newer Post" at the bottom left when you get to the end.

The weather on Tuesday was perfect for a day spent indoors. This was fine, as we had planned to spend the morning at the National Museum of Wildlife Art, a little way north of town. We got there just after opening at 10AM on a cool, rainy day. I did not melt, nor did I clump. I only got a little wet on the walk from the car to the entry.

The museum started off some years ago as a collection of landscapes featuring local scenes and fauna. As it grew, its ambit grew to include all of North America, then all fauna everywhere. I'll let you speculate as to why this happened.

Outside the museum are a number of monumental bronzes: buffalo, of course, and elk, and other local critters, all quite beautifully done. Inside are more bronzes, but also a good-sized collection of paintings, mostly of mountain creatures but including big game from Africa, Europe and Asia. For me, though, the main draw was the landscapes. A moose statue is nice but it's nothing compared to the real thing; a painting of beautiful scenery, on the other hand, is almost as good as the actual thing. A painting of antelope on the scrub of southern Wyoming takes me back, not because of the antelope but because of the scenery. Elk in snow before a range of mountains does the same thing, again not because of the elk but because of the mountains. It's places I remember.

(On East Gros Ventre Butte, which looms over Jackson from the front of our condo, there is a single tree growing near the top, away from all the other trees, and situated exactly on the crest so that it stands against the horizon. I found myself staring at that one tree and thinking about a single tree similarly situated on a rise in Kenya

Kenya, evoked daily

; I had taken a picture of it that, to me, evokes the isolation of that bit of the world: there is the tree, and nothing else. You can slap as many animals down in front of it as you like, but it's the tree that takes me back to that time and place.)

I decided to cook that night -- one can only do takeout so often -- so we went to the supermarket and bought ingredients for conchiglie in salsa russo, and since we were there we also bought bread and cheese and had cheese sandwiches for lunch. After we got back to the condo I realized I'd forgotten an indispensable ingredient, tomato sauce, so I walked over to the fru-fru little market a block over for an 8-ounce can. It would've almost been cheaper to take an Uber back to Albertson's; I couldn't believe what they charge: $1.99 for a little can of sauce that's no better than what I can get back home for 34 cents. Well, at least it gives me something to bitch about.

Sherry knitted the evening away and we once again watched some old movies on TV (The Apartment, and something else I don't remember). This being the Year of the Pandemic, I guess I can't mind too much spending so much of our trip indoors like that, but I hope it isn't going to feature on future condo weeks. It'd hardly be worth leaving home; after all, we get all those same channels and more on our own televisions.

Cache Creek

On Wednesday we took a walk across town, then up into Bridger-Teton National Forest, up one side of Cache Creek and back down on the other. It was cool and dry, and we got started really early, when the fog was still in the valleys around us. There were very few people about until the very end of the hike, when we started to encounter a number of people on mountain bikes. 

After our first hike last week, up the side of Snow King Mountain, I felt like I'd stepped hard on a sharp rock with my left foot. It bothered me that day but was fine the next day. Then when we hiked up Cascade Canyon, I made it a point to wear hiking boots instead of tennis shoes. When I put the boots on I felt much better in them, so I figured it was just because the soles of my sneakers are pretty soft, compared to the boots, and the boots' insoles are much thicker. Still, after the hike my left foot kind of hurt again. I didn't think much of it. But yesterday, after hiking across Jackson and up the creek and back down, when we reached about six miles I just couldn't go any farther. Sherry walked the last 2 miles back to the condo and got the car to come pick me up. When I got home and took my boots off ... Oh. My. God. I could not walk at all. It feels like I have a stress fracture in my left heel. (That's just a guess; I can't think of what else it could be.) This morning when we were loading the car I put my shoes on, and found that I could at least walk with a limp. I have an appointment with the podiatrist Monday. Meanwhile, I'm afraid to take off my shoes.

Carly & Aspen
we still can't tell them apart

Today, Thursday, we got an early start leaving Jackson, and reached Golden to pick up Carly around 5pm. Now we're in a hotel just south of Denver. Tomorrow we'll get off the main roads and go through the two remaining unvisited counties of Colorado, then drive across New Mexico towards home. I figure we'll be there by Saturday night, but maybe not. We'll see. Not going to rush it.

Here, once again, is a link to the picture album for this trip.

And again: if you're reading this in your email, please click on the link to the actual blog before you delete it, so it'll register as having been seen. My blog visitor numbers are pathetic, and you have it in your power to do something completely altruistic that will make a certain someone happy. You don't have to actually read it again when you visit the blog; though I think it's always worth reading again....