Tag Archives: washington

Indian John Hill Rest Area (Westbound) Urinal Report

The Indian John Hill Rest Area makes a lovely stop along I-90 on the east side of the Cascades in either direction, and by “lovely” of course I mean “adequate”. Today I stopped on the westbound side.

There are two urinals of the standard white porcelain variety, with a two-tiered height presentation and functional wall-mounted flushing buttons. You can read about the Human Trafficking Hotline in a variety of languages while you’re engaged with the facilities, thanks to a centrally posted sign. The entire restroom was reasonably clean, and not all skeezy as is so often the case at rest areas.

As you no doubt know, Indian John Hill was named for John Quititit, a Kittias Indian who owned property on the hill and was well known among white settlers of the area in the late 1800’s. He and his family are buried near the rest areas that bear his name.

I recommend the Indian John Hill Rest Area (Westbound) for your westbound pre-Cascade urination needs.

IJHRA(W) Urinals

Space Needle Climb

I was given to understand that there would be donuts.

There were no donuts. There were t-shirts and medals, but no donuts. They had donuts in previous years, but no mention of them this year.

Base 2 Space is an annual run up the Space Needle stairs to raise money for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. That’s a good charity, but my main motivation was running up the Space Needle. My belief is that you should generally go up things that can be gone up, at least if they’re interesting things. There’s another Seattle charity stair run that’s taller, but it’s just in a regular skyscraper. Base 2 Space is “Seattle’s Most Iconic Climb.”

Milling about beforehand

I made it to the top, but there was some problem with the timekeeping. According to the follow-up email:

Our apologizes for the timing issues that arose during and after climb day. We have been working directly with the timing company to resolve these issues and ensure all times are accurate.

Despite their apologizes, I doubt if they can do anything about my time. What I think happened is that the chip reader didn’t register my time at the top until I’d been there for a while and happened to walk by it later. My official arrival time is 9:09 AM, but my first photo has a time stamp of 8:49 AM. So while my official time is 42:57, I think my real time was about 20 minutes. Which is still terrible. There were five runners over the age of 80 and four of them had better times than that. So I’m going to have to do it again next year, just to redeem myself.

And they’d better have donuts.

Official incorrect time
The Space Needle, what I ran up
Putting a good face on the bad timekeeping and lack of donuts

Pilgrimage to Waverly

In the Palouse region of Washington, in the town of Waverly, just across Hangman Creek, is the Waverly Cemetery, where one can find a number of Lemons.

  • The Road to Waverly
  • Waverly Cemetery

Most notable to me was my great-great-grandmother Diana Catherine Hainer Lemon.

From the Waverly Gazette, Friday, February 7, 1908 (with my corrections):

Mrs. D.C. Lemon, died at the home of her son, J.A. Lemon, Waverly, Wash, Thursday, Jan. 30, 190[8] the cause of death being the infirmities incident to old age.

Diana Catherine Haine[r] was born at St. Catherine[s], Canada, May 27, 1827. She was married to Isaac Lemon in Burford, Canada, Jan. 24, 18[4]5. Nine children came to bless this union, seven of whom survive her. Shortly after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Lemon moved to Eri[e] county, Pa., where she resided until ten years after the death of her husband. Last April Mrs. Lemon __ moved to Waverly to live with her son, J.A. Lemon.

Mrs. Lemon was a devoted Christian and had been a church worker for more than 60 years. She was 80 years, 8 months and 3 days old at the time of her death, and while she had lived beyond the limit of ordinary lives, her death was a sad bereavement to her loving children, who have the earnest sympathy of all. Interment was in the Waverly cemet[e]ry.

  • Diana Catherine Hainer Lemon
  • James Alexander Lemon

My great-grandmother Merta Lemon was the ninth of the nine children mentioned. My grandmother was the eighth of Merta’s eight children.

Other Lemons were also present.

  • Lemons
  • Lemon with Pipe Demarcation

There were several of those bathtub-shaped demarcations, with no indication of their purpose. Most of them were concrete, but Abby’s was made out of metal pipe.