What did you do on or to your other bike part 2

[pdedse]

Looks like a lovely ride, pdedse. When you say 'torched' about the burnt forest, do you mean it was deliberately lit? And ... did your back hold up ok?

I guess "torched" does imply on purpose, but I think most of the fires are caused by lightning, sometimes carelessness.  There was a fire in 2017 in the Columia River Gorge area called the Eagle Creek fire.  That was caused by a 15 year old setting off fireworks in the forest and burned 48,000 acres, closing miles of beautiful hiking trails for over 5 years.  He was fined 36 million dollars and required to do over 1900 hours of community service.  Apparently, the now young man has been making regular payments.  And if he does all the things he is supposed to do for 10 years, then the fines are reduced or go away.  

I'm told stenosis (narrowing of the spinal canal) doesn't go away by itself; rather, it worsens over time.  Makes me feel like I'm 100 when I get out of bed in the morning and I've become very conscious of avoiding certain movements.  Been doing 1.5 hours of physical therapy, stretching, other exercise 5x per week for about a month.  I think it helps some.  The steroid injection helped a lot, but after a month the effect started wearing off.  While I ride, I'm generally fine--except that 2nd day trying to ride "back east" in June.  I'm sure we all have our health issues.  

I'm going to try a slow paced, multi-day trip next week, 3-4 days...maybe!  With lots of breaks and down time.  Wife and I may be in the northwest less than 2 more years and I want to explore as much as I can meanwhile.