Wyoming Visit

After our wonderful reunion week, Court and I spent a few days with Mom. (I hope to post on the reunion, but with such great posts from Court, Anna and Shandra, so far, mine won't add much.)  On Wednesday, Court headed for Rock Springs, Wyoming, to pick up Dani for their hiking adventure in the Wind River Range. Mom, Liz and I headed for Afton, a visit to the cemetery and our next big adventure. The headstone at the cemetery had been recently placed and was lovely.

Thursday morning we took off in Terry's plane for Torrington.  It was hazy across much of Wyoming from the many fires in the Rockies.  Here was a view of the Wind River Range as we approached South Pass.

Cousin Dick met us at the airport and took us to a facility where Aunt Eleanor is staying near her home.  We surprised her and enjoyed lunch together.  Aunt Eleanor will be 99 in November.  She looked great!

We left Mom and Aunt Eleanor to visit for a bit, and Dick gave us a grand tour, including the cemetery where Grandma and Grandpa Hastings are buried.  We drove by the old homes, visited the college campus and had a great afternoon seeing Torrington after all these years.  I don't think I had been back since Grandpa's funeral in the fall of 1966.

We spent a great evening at the Vandel home visiting with family.  The next morning, we took off for Afton.  I took a few more pictures.  This is near Laramie Peak, I believe, not too far out of Torrington.

We watched the maps and the roads below, as we made our way across a lot of brown plains.  Finally, we approached the south end of the Wind Rivers again.

Approaching the Wyoming range on the East side of Grey's River.

 

Grey's River road below.

Approaching the Salt River Range.

 

Nearing the Valley

 

Afton as we circled before landing.

We had a great two days.  I love flying, and the flights were relatively smooth over the mountains.  Thanks to Terry, we got to see Aunt Eleanor, Dick and family again after so long.

Priceless

Excellent discussion of what's wrong with our current health care system, and how we are continuing down the wrong track.  Goodman supports my belief that most of our problems are a product of the perverse incentives and unintended consequences of well-intended laws.  He reports such findings as that when individuals are paying for a portion of their own care they spend substantially less on health care with no noticeable difference in outcomes.  Heath insurance isn't really insurance against risk at all; it's actually prepayment for normal healthcare needs.  Insurers are incentivized to overtreat the healthy and undertreat the sick.  They advertise for the healthy and try to avoid those with forseeable health problems.  Of course, the problem with losing health insurance when you change jobs is entirely a function of getting insurance through your employer, in turn a function of the tax benefit of employer-provided insurance, which in turn was largely a product of wage and price controls during World War II.  Government programs (Medicare and Medicaid) underpay providers, hence, many providers won't accept those on government programs.  Consequence?  One-third of emergency room visits are by Medicaid patients who don't have a primary care physician.  And in countries with national health care systems, access to primary care physicians is easier and to specialists is harder.  Hence, the higher mortality rates in places like the UK and Canada than in the US for many forms of cancer. 
  Anyway, any book that supports my beliefs is a great book.  I highly recommend it.