Touring the Paper Mill

My cousin TJ is an engineer at the local Paper Mill, so offered to give us a tour.  Which was awesome!  But HOT.  It's 105 degrees outside, where there's NOT heavy machinery running.  Inside was even hotter.  I had serious questions about OSHA standards for the workers in those conditions, but there actually didn't seem to be many workers around, as most of the process is automated.  This is apparently the oldest paper mill still around west of the Missippi, built in the early 1900s by the same family that owns the newspaper.  The process was so interesting (stinky and HOT, but interesting!!) and I was amazed at the efficiency of the plant.  Every byproduct is reused for another purpose, and this particular plant's environmental rating is through the roof.  Ingenuous use of algae to clean water, steam to run machines, recycling paper from the community, that kind of stuff. 

THANK YOU TJ!!

Reagan (finally) Learns to Ride a Bike

Maybe it's the abundant pavement.  Maybe it's that she trailed behind her Dad on a Tag-along for miles on a mountain trail.  Maybe it's because mama finally has time on vacation to work with her, and Grandma is there to push her along.  Whatever the reason, Reagan FINALLY has learned to ride a two-wheeled bike.  And she loves it!!  It's about time, sistah.  Now about that swimming and tying your own shoes thing....

More Time On The Lake

It's stinkin' 105 degrees outside.  Watcha gonna do?  Nothing.  Except be in the water. 

 

 

 

Lake Time

Spokane is hot Hot HOT (we haven't seen triple digits in the Upper Peninsula for... have we ever???)  There's no better place to be than in the water when it's that hot, so that's what we did.