Got a note from my friend Jim in Spokane Valley.

"The thing about being in the big cities in SoCal (as with most big cities) is that it is always noisy, day and night. After a while, the noise kind of melts into the background, but it is still there. This was true while staying in my daughter's apartment in Newport Beach and at the resort hotel in San Diego.

"Mrs. C and I got back in the evening and after doing the obligatory unpacking, we threw open the sliding door in the bedroom and hit the hay. Our first comment to each other, almost simultaneously, was 'Listen to how quiet it is.'

"Yeah, there were a few coyotes howling in the Dishman Hills, and you could hear a train way over along Trent, but after the constant din of the big city, the quiet of Spokane Valley at 10 p.m. was startling.

"You gotta like it."

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