Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Category Archives: travel


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Celebrating

I celebrated the 4th down here in Alabama with family and friends.  And a whole lot of boating, swimming and eating.

When we were kids we lived on a small inland lake and always took our boat out to watch the fireworks the city was shooting off from the boat launch.  We’d pull into that bay and watch all the action directly overhead.  Sometimes bits of burned out fireworks would fall sizzling into the water nearby.  It was a wonderful way to spend a late evening, and I was always sad in later years that I  couldn’t watch fireworks with my family bobbing in a little boat, covered in bug spray, sweating slightly in the warm, humid Michigan night.

Well last year and again this year I got to watch fireworks from a boat filled with family and friends!

It’s just the best way to enjoy them.  Saturday night we were in my brother’s big boat on a big lake and along side of us are at least 1,000 other boats, bobbing peacefully in the evening sunset filled light.  As darkness sets in the crowd settled back and we all enjoyed the amazing colors and loud bangs of a first class firework show.  We munched on homemade salsa from my sister and smoked chicken tenders that my brother made.  What a life!

The next morning we took the boat out again, this time to watch the annual jet ski parade on the lake.  This year close to 50 jet skis, most decked out with flags and red, white and blue tinsel, gathered near an island, then took off in single file to run the entire circumference of the lake.

It was sort of heart stopping when they all took off, and in an odd sort of way it made you tear up when the long line of people proudly flying their flags roared past.

My sister was standing in the back of our boat playing patriotic songs on her bagpipe as they flew by and the jet ski drivers waved and grinned back at us.   I was grinning too, at the absurdity and beauty of it all.

After the last buzzing jet ski was long gone up the shoreline, we moseyed over to the “church island.”  It was, after all, Sunday the 4th, and there was going to be a preacher doing a church service there.  Every Sunday boats anchor off shore while a minister or preacher provide a service from the island.  This Sunday I listed while floating with my family in the cool lake water, boats bobbing all around, the sound of music and prayer filling the air.

Sunshine, flags, blue skies, music, good food, family.  Can’t think of anything else I need right now.

Well…maybe my husband and my Katie girl.


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The calm before the storm

Something woke me early this morning and the lake was beautiful.  Flat and calm, touched with the early morning sun – I had to run out and try to capture the peacefulness.

Of course last night I had thrown just about all my clothes in the washer, so everything was wet.  No problem, I’ll just scoot out in my pj’s, who’s to see?  It’s 6:30 in the morning, Alabama time.


The lake had that early morning stillness about it.  Nothing to break the reflections, soft insect and bird noises.  No people sounds.

The water looked so inviting, it made me want to run and jump off the dock.  But yet there was  something of a classical painting about it, and I didn’t want to disturb the quiet serenity.

All too soon the lake will be churning with weekenders and holiday visitors, and we won’t see this peacefulness for several days.  So I turned to tiptoe back to the house.  Then sprinted as I heard my neighbor bellow hello to a friend pulling up in their driveway.

Drats.  Hope my pjs looked like walking shorts!


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An afternoon on another lake

Yesterday I popped over to my other brother’s lake house.  It was a cloudy day, but when one is visiting a lake, one must take a boat ride!

We stopped at a friend of his who also lives on the lake (visiting by boat…how fun!) and got to meet her dog.  Such a cutie!

The clouds were dark and ominous, but it only sprinkled a little bit.

All in all, a refreshing afternoon out on the water!  Maybe the next time I visit I’ll take out his rowing scull.  But the lake would have to be a bit smoother for that!
Just another relaxing day in the south…


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Not in Michigan anymore

My trip south went well.   We loaded up the truck and off I went.

I took two days, stopped often and enjoyed the scenery.  First there were the flat farmlands of Ohio…

…then the hill country of Ohio’s southeastern edge. ..

…which is where I set up camp for the first night, on the banks of Lake Lowell in the Hocking Hills.

It was a peaceful and small private campground, and I was the only one there on the edge of the lake.  I enjoyed the sunset and watching a blue heron fishing in the lake.

I messed around with the camera some, for something to do…because it was way too early to go to bed in my little tent.

In the morning I enjoyed the quiet mist on the lake…

Then I packed up my tent, which looked  sad  before I folded it up.  I was sad too, this had been a lovely little campsite, and I hated to leave.

Then it was on into the mountains with lots of winding freeway in West Virginia and Virginia…

…until I finally arrived, load still in the back of the truck…at my brother’s house in North Carolina.

I knew I was in the South when I saw the crepe myrtle in bloom.

Today we walked into town to the farmer’s market and around Davidson College…if I get time I’ll share those pictures with you later!  Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend!  It’s HOT here, but we’re sitting down to lunch of sweet corn and fresh tomatoes, purchased locally.  Can’t wait…gotta go!


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Just gotta get on the road again

I’ll be heading south later this week, hauling some stuff down for my siblings.  I’ll probably head for North Carolina first, drop off a dresser to a brother, then on to Georgia where I’ll drop off more things to my sister, then skip over to Alabama, visit another brother and finally get all the way over to the big lake and my parents’ cabin.

I have to find windows of good weather, and Thursday looks like my opportunity.

That will mean Katie misses her agility class..but I promise to take her again when the next class starts up.  She’s still a lucky girl, because her Dad is going to stay home with her so she doesn’t have to go to a kennel.  She’ll miss her mama, but not that much.  Silly girl.


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Dreams

So do you dream?  Do you remember them after you wake up?  Are they in color?  Some of my dreams stay with me through the day, some of them have stayed in my memory for years.  I had one of those this morning that I’ll share, just because it was so odd.

Our family’s truck crash attorney J was driving me and all my siblings  from NYC to Chicago in a van to attend some sort of conference.    Before we left the city we were in a parking lot in a part of the city that was … well… let’s just say photogenic in a grubby and gritty kind of way. J is outside the van on the driver’s side talking to Jo the director of our nonprofit.  My three siblings are scrunched into the back seat.   I’m sitting in the front passenger seat, the door open, and trying to get my camera to turn on to take a picture of a building and the debris around it that actually are in some really beautiful colors, when a big and old cadillac convertible shows up, stuffed full of really big guys and they are mumbling about some white bxxxx taking pictures, and suddenly I’m feeling really threatened and I tell J to stop talking to Jo  and lets get going.

“Good idea” says J and he gets in the van and we are pulling away, but now he’s talking on his cell phone, ordering something…and then we’re in a parking garage and there are all these groups of Broadway dancers practicing their routines, all in their spangly costumes, bright colors, lots of sequins, lots of high kicks etc and we’re trying to drive through and around several of these groups and I still can’t get my camera to work..  then we get near a stairwell and someone is waiting there.  It’s a waitress with the lunch that J had ordered!  There’s a hot dog wrapped up in a white paper napkin, and a styrofoam plate of chicken, just a drumstick and a breast, bone in, and something else on another paper plate, and a manhattan (drink) in a real glass!  And it all gets handed to me along with a knife and fork also rolled in a white paper napkin.

I’m holding all this and Jeff is driving (we’re out on a road somewhere now) and I’m considering what to do with all this food, and especially the manhattan (which is a drink from WAY back in my college days!) and I tell J that he can’t have the drink because he’s driving and he said it was for ME because I seemed “a  little stressed and needed to relax” so I had all the food back to my three siblings to split up, along with the one knife and fork and settle in for the trip sipping my drink.

Then we’re in a very crowded conference room and I’m glad there are so many people there.  J says he’s going to start things off by playing a video that “insurance companies use to get you convinced of their side of the story.”  And he starts this video and everyone (but me and my siblings) is on their feet yelling that “yea, that’s what they told me but that’s not what happened” and stuff like that.  It’s very noisy and the four of us are just sitting at the tables watching.

I’m sitting next to P, one of my brothers, and my sister B comes up to our table and crouches on the other side and says, very earnestly, “Here’s an idea, what if for EVERY PENNY you have you pay 10 cents in taxes?  Wouldn’t that help with the problem?”  And P and I look at each other and I ask B, well where would you get the 10 cents if you only had a penny?  And she gets very consternated  and says that after the meeting she’ll explain it better, and goes back to her table.  I look at P and wonder aloud if maybe she said it backward?  That for every 10 cents we pay 1 cent?  But that would just be a flat tax and that had already been discussed.  Meanwhile the participants are still yelling at the video of insurance companies.

I’m pondering B’s tax solution, trying to figure out what she was talking about when Katie the dog shakes her dog tags, a sign that it’s morning, and time to get up and go outside.

So….what did you dream about last night?


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Of rocks and people

Kathy, over at her blog Lake Superior Spirit connected me to Suzi at her blog Laundry Line Divine, who was putting together a day of photographing rocks.  Yes.  rocks.  I immediately thought about all the wonderful rocks I photographed while I was in northern Michigan along the shores of a Great Lake.  You can see some of those photographs here. (Scroll down to the March 23rd entry to see an example.)

But I suppose that using photos from weeks or months ago would be cheating.  I think the whole point of this exercise is to head out and find something interesting that I might not have noticed before.  Or maybe noticed before but not in the same light.  Which brings me to the beginning of my search for rocks.

I was re digging the vegetable garden this morning and noticed the rocks I had used to mark beds last year.  But they weren’t very pretty, or even particularly interesting.

So after the garden was dug I wandered around the yard, considering how I wanted to approach this “rock assignment.”  We have rocks in our landscape out front.  Most were brought in, so I don’t consider them part of the natural way of things.  But one of them was from our own back yard, so it’s special.  I used to sit on it when it was in the backyard, I called it my “contemplative rock” and was sad when it got moved to be incorporated into the garden wall.  Though sometimes I still sit on it.

I felt like there must be other uses for rocks – other ways that people have incorporated rocks into their lives, so I set off on my bike to see what I could see; looking for the elusive rock that spoke to me.  Lots of people use rocks around here, often to mark their lot lines, to line the road or to present the entrance of their driveways.

Sometimes light on stone was interesting.

But still I was in suburbia, and what I really wanted was something more rural.  Say…a stone hedgerow in a farmer’s field.  I headed out on more rural roads, peddling away, up and down hills, through mud…and then I caught a glimpse of something way back off the road.

Venturing up the little used track…

… I found this…

…which I recognize is not a rock…but wait!  As I was wandering around taking pictures of this amazing structure I realized I was staring at the answer to my quest.  How the original farmer used rocks…and in a beautiful and functional way.  The foundation of this old barn was built from rocks, probably from the farmer’s own fields.

I never did find a fence row of rocks…but I’ll leave you with one photo of rocks that I love.  I’m cheating in that I took this last fall.  I can’t take credit for creating the rock sculpture, just for appreciating it.

Thanks for inviting me to play. It was interesting to think about the way people and rocks interrelate.  And I’ve learned to appreciate the rocks right here at home, while remembering my favorite rocks from far away.

PS:  This one is a cheater photo too..it’s from the Lighthouse at the tip of Leelanau Peninsula in northern Michigan.  Another bit of  evidence about man’s use of rocks throughout history.


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Sleep apnea and truck drivers

I’ve been in Baltimore…did I forget to tell you?  There was a sleep apnea conference sponsored by the ATA (American Truck Association) and the FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration).  We at Truck Safety Coalition have improved our relationships with these two organizations enough to attend the opening reception…and to award a Safety Leadership award – our first ever – to a man who is in charge of safety at one of the country’s largest truck companies.

And as if it was meant to be, the man who has done the most to improve safety over the past six years is the man in charge of safety at the truck company that killed Dad.  The man who looked all of us kids in the eye years ago and promised he’d do something to make the roads safer.  And though there is still a long way to go, which he acknowledged, he has worked tirelessly to make a difference, all the while keeping Dad’s picture on his desk as a constant reminder.

I was able to say a few words about Dad and about Mr. Osterberg’s work, and to hand him the award on Tuesday night.  I truly believe that Dad would have approved of what Mr. Osterberg has done so far.  And that Dad would continue to push for more.  So we will too.

There were probably 200 people in the ballroom during the cocktail and finger food reception where we spoke.  I thought perhaps, since we were going last, that most would wander away after Anne Ferro, the FMCSA administrator made her welcoming speech.  But I didn’t notice anyone leaving.  And several people told me later that you could hear a pin drop while I was talking about Dad.  That makes me feel good.

I think we made some progress that night, in mending years of wary sparring between organizations.   Maybe now everyone will realize we aren’t anti-trucking.  We’re  for safe trucking.  It’s a common goal and we can waste less time and resources if we work toward it together.

Thanks Mr. Osterberg, for remembering Dad and for working so hard to “fix it.”  We’ll be watching for the next developments.