The Nez Perce stop short

Ahhhhh! The Nez Perces were ahead of Howard by 150 miles! They had only 70ish left to go before they reached the Canadian border. Instead of maintaining their grueling pace and getting to safety, they oust their current leader in favor of one who wants to take it easy, to relax and rejuvenate because they don't believe Howard will catch up to them. Little do they know someone else is on their way! This astonishingly terrible choice baffles me. Get to safety first! Don't go back to the leader who had you go slow and relaxedly the LAST time you got caught and had a bunch of people get killed. Dah! Right now they're about 25 miles from the Canadian border. The end is at hand.

Crater Lake, again

Today we went back to Crater Lake again! Now that the government shutdown has ended, the national parks have been reopened. I learned that, in addition to wizard island, there is a second volcano under the surface of the lake. Pretty neat. Also, Lydia had a lot of fun playing in the snow.

Government Shutdown

Today was the deadline for congress to pass a budget and avoid a government shutdown. They didn't manage to come to an agreement, so shutdown it is. The senate is currently controlled by the Democrats, and the House is controlled by the Republicans. The house approved budgets that had stipulations about obamacare - either that it would be delayed by a year, or that the medical equipment tax would be removed from the plan. The senate is not willing to change obamacare at all, and so they are at an impasse. The last time a budget was not passed on time was in 2011, but it was passed within a day of the deadline and so there was no real government shutdown. Prior to that, it happened in 1995, and the government shutdown lasted for 21 days. I think that "government shutdown" isn't really an appropriate term, since all "essential personnel" will still be working. Essential personnel are most of the employees of the federal government. The National Parks will be closed, passport offices and permit stuff will come to a stop or at least a slowdown. The change of most impact immediately is probably the fact that military personnel won't (or may not? I'm not entirely sure) get paid. That bites for those families.