Tuesday TwitterdeDIRECTTV

My friend Kathy said she wants pictures when she comes to "Slight Detour."

So, Kathy, this one's for you.

It's the meadow where a variety of outdoor activity occurs along the Grouse Creek Road.

A gullied-out trail to the right of where I stood for this photo goes into a camping area.  It also leads to the Cowboy Trail, which eventually ends at Western Pleasure Guest Ranch.

To the left, there's a good-sized parking area and a road leading up to a clearcut.  Bill and I have snow-shoed up there in past years and enjoyed a gorgeous view of the Selkirk Range to the north and west of Sandpoint.

Seldom do we drive into the opening created by the meadow without seeing folks down the road, target practicing.

Beyond that, a road leads into a picnic area/FS potty john and beautiful Grouse Falls, and, yes, a few geocaches inhabit that area.

I've loved this meadow since the late 1960s when my first job with the U.S. Forest Service Engineers was working with an abne level and other surveying equipment as my bosses surveyed nine miles of the Grouse Creek Road.

This area is one of the first places Bill and I went on an outing when he first moved here in December 1973.  As a Louisiana-trained forester, he was amazed at the size of the old cedar stumps.

The meadow is also the setting where a mama moose scared the beejeebers out of me when I stepped out of our van to take her picture as she stood across the meadow to the left.

She put her head down and started running toward me and the van.  The kids were in the back seat, and I very quickly returned to the front seat, put the pedal to the metal and got the heck out of there.  

Mama Moose was still on the run, aimed at us,  as we sped up the road and out of the meadow area.  

I distinctly remember my fear of returning through the meadow on our way back home, knowing full well that she'd be there, waiting.  

Fortunately, the big gal was nice enough to take her baby elsewhere, probably where dumb humans wouldn't be snapping her picture. 

Anyway, as you can tell, this piece of North Idaho geography inspires a slew of memories. 

And, yes, I've ridden Lily through the meadow too. 

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Actor, poet, photographer Viggo Mortensen likes it enough to endorse it.  

That would be Marie-Dominique "Deaux" Verdier's upcoming book New Orleans Walls:  Still Standing. 

A website for the February release calls the publication "a collection of photographs and stories celebrating the people of New Orleans, coming from all walks of life, and bound together by a common passion for the city.

It is also a tribute to the spirit of the city itself, perhaps contained (to some extent) within its walls — those still standing and those crumbled, yet remembered. It is the product of a great love and dedication to this unique American city, and its contents span sixteen years of passionate photography by Marie-Dominique Verdier. A large percentage of the proceeds from the sales of this book will go to St Bernard Project and other nonprofit organizations dedicated to rebuilding New Orleans."

You can learn more about Deaux's new book at http://www.neworleanswalls.com/about.html

I met Deaux last spring when she photographed several area horse people for my Sandpoint Magazine feature on local horse activities.   She actually let me serve as her assistant that lovely spring evening at the Wood V BAR X Ranch.

Down-to-earth, fun and talented----that's how I see Deaux, and I wish her all the luck as her wonderful project continues to unfold. 

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While we're on the arts, I'll send you to the guestbook for my website www.mariannelove.com.   

Yes, you can check out my books, but more importantly, my friend Karla Petermann posted on the guestbook yesterday, explaining her project dealing with screenplays.  

There are opportunities, so check out what Karla has to say. 

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Finally, why TwitterdeDirectTV today?

Twitter those folks and tell them to quit holding their customers hostage while negotiating contract with local TV stations.

We kept seeing the banner on NBC's KHQ Channel 6, explaining that we may lose viewership of that Spokane channel if negotiations failed on Dec. 31.

Well, apparently those talks have been extended.

The Fox Channel 28 situation kinda caught me offguard.  

We no longer receive that channel, as of Dec. 31.  

Say good bye to "House," "Glee" and upcoming "American Idol."  

I'm sure Bill's not gonna like it when we have to go ask for room at someone else's inn to watch the Super Bowl.

I can live without all of the above, but it irks me to think that we pay for a service but have no say when it suddenly changes mid-stream.

Guess I'll have to find other outlets, just like I did when the Boundary Trader closed down and I couldn't get my Meadow Gold French vanilla ice cream anymore.
 

Thankfully for my ice cream needs the problem was quickly rectified. Within a few months, it was "Good bye Boundary Trader, Hello Super 1 Foods." 

Dish Network, I may be calling!

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Happy Tuesday. Iz "Glee" on tonight?