I’m still in northern Michigan, cat sitting a couple of cuties who happen to get hungry and whine loudly very early each morning. Last night that turned into a good thing for me.
Though it wasn’t a full moon yesterday, it was pretty darn close. I noticed it come up earlier in the evening, but hadn’t planned to photograph it setting, because that was supposed to be around 5:00 a.m. and I didn’t want to be awake at 5:00 a.m.
At first the sky was pretty much black and white.
But kitties didn’t consult with me and started complaining about breakfast being late around 4. I gave in and fed them and was going back to bed when I saw the moonlight on the water of Lake Michigan.
I lay there, in bed for a long time, watching that light, arguing with myself. Did I want to put the camera on the tripod and lug it down the 44 stairs into the sand and see what I could do?
Almost what I had in mind.
No I did not.
But when would I ever be in this position again? An almost full moon. A warm night. The sound of the lake moving beneath the moon. So I got my sorry self up and out and down the stairs and I’m so glad I did.
As the moon lowered, the light from it lessened. Time to adjust the settings.
I had this vision in my head of a perfectly focused, perfectly lit moon, sitting above a beautiful light path across the water. That’s what I was going for.
The moon began to turn red is it got closer to the water.
Of course that’s not what happened.
There was just one thin layer of cloud for the moon to move through.
As I sat in the sand, focusing on the moon I realized I couldn’t see the light on the water. And if I focused on the water then the light of the moon was totally blown out.
Of course it was. The setting necessary to see the details of the moon are entirely different than the settings needed to see the light dancing across the small waves on the lake. So you’re going to see this in pieces, some moon, some water.
Even more red.
And on top of it all, when I started there was a small light way off to the south. A freighter was chugging north up the lake. At one point it passed through the light path from the moon.
That light over on the right is a freighter moving right along.
The gentle sound of the waves in conjunction with the chug of the freighter and the lowering, redding moon under the bright starts was just magical.
The best I could get.
I’m sharing it with you so that you can imagine the magic too.
Time is sliding away again, as it does, and I want to tell you about our time at the end of September in Washington DC.
Reagan National Airport from the Metro platform.
This year we did something different in that we combined the big fundraising dinner with our biannual Sorrow to Strength conference. We’ve been doing the conference for as long as I’ve been with the Truck Safety Coalition, more than 20 years. But we’ve only done the annual fundraising Gala twice before.
We were in town to make a point.
The objective in doing it all during the same weekend was to save everybody some money. The hotel gave us a discount for doing 2 events, back to back. And we, as volunteers would only have to pay to travel to DC once.
Change is hard.
The Gala, on Friday night, was fun, the food was delicious, and we raised a decent amount of money between sponsors and volunteer donations. But we still have a long way to go before we can say we’ve raised our entire annual budget –we’ll be scrambling at year end just like every year, but we’re getting better at finding funding sources.
It was a lovely evening.
Satrday morning people were invited to attend a session where the staff and a few volunteers showed us the ‘roadshow’ they’ve been doing the last two years.
Showing us one of the very first underride guards built.
In 2023 we received a grant from the DOT (Department of Transportation) to meet with at least six police departments across the country and talk about underride crashes, and how to designate them on crash reports.
We and the DOT feel these types of crashes, where a passenger vehicle goes under a tractor trailer, are under reported, both because some police departments don’t know enough about them, and because on most police crash reports there is nothing to indicate underride.
We dream about getting to zero.
We heard from a volunteer who had spoken at some of the shows, and with the manufactor of an underride guard that is being put on some trucks in some cities now. It was all very interesting and hopeful.
A Texas retired crash reconstructionist spoke at our road shows and our conference.
Then Saturday afternoon we met with the families and survivors and shared our stories. As usual this was a traumatic and overwhelmingly emotional time. This year there were so many new families. More than half of us in the room were there for the first time, and their families had suffered loss so recently.
So much to learn at our conference.
It breaks my heart. We’re glad they found us, but we wish the trends were going down. They are not. More than 5500 people died in crashes with commercial trucks in 2023, the last year we have data for. Over 150,000 were injured.
And some if not all of the safety measured we’ve fought years for are being rolled back.
Sunday we learned about the issues, and there are many. We focused, though, on a couple we think we can make progress on. We think safety is nonpartisan, but not all issues are. The two we spoke most about certainly are.
Just up the road from our conference hotel.
We think AEB (Automatic Emergency Braking) should be required to be included on all new buildsof all sizes of commercial trucks. For awhile we actually had the DOT headed that way, but then the trucking industry pushed back and the smaller trucks, those like box trucks, dump trucks, utility trucks, were taken out of the rule. We want all trucks to be required to have AEB. There are all sorts of little delivery trucks running around our neighborhoods now. Why wouldn’t we want them to stop when someone pulls out of a driveway or a kid rides his bike across the road? AEB is already on many cars, people are getting used to it. Why not include it on all trucks?
And drug testing in fatal crashes. It’s already a thing that is supposed to happen. Companies are required to get their drivers tested if there is a fatal crash. But 40% of these drivers are NOT being tested. The companies just blow off the requirement and if caught pay a fine. In my dad’s case the driver was not tested. My dad, dead and at the morgue, had blood pulled and tested. Why, I don’t know. A 75 year old man, stopped in traffic, was tested for being impaired, but the driver of the truck that hit and killed him was not.
Then Monday we went to the Hill to talk to staffers about our issues. DC and the area around the Hill was uncharacteristically quiet. It was two days before the potential government shutdown. Members, if they were in town, were on the floors of their chambers. Staffers were nervous and preoccupied.
Everybody was worried and a bit discouraged too.
In addition to Hill meetings I was also lucky enough to attend and speak at a meeting with other volunteers and a TSC staff person at the DOT where I met the probable new Administrator for FMCSA (Federa Motor Carrier Safety Administration). He hasn’t been confirmed yet, but he likely will be. I think he’s going to be good, his background is police work and he said all the right things. But then, they all say all the right things in the beginning. I will reserve judgement until I see what he does.
The Acting Administrator is not in this image…as he’s not confirmed yet.
Overall I think our meetings went well, or as well as we can expect in these times. Best of all? The new families rocked it. They moved out confidently, told their unimaginable stories of loss, and talked about our two issues (and any others that they felt called upon to talk about) with folks who have the ears of those who need to make the changes.
Sen. Peters is from my state, but he’s retiring which makes me sad.
That’s why it’s called Sorrow to Strength. They come to the conference in overwelming grief, they share that grief and it gets a tiny bit easier to bear among others like them. They learn some new skills, they practice those skills, and they go back out into the world a little stronger, more confident and maybe feeling less hopeless.
And that’s how our four days in Wasington DC went.
Part of our ‘debriefing’ after all our meetings were over. (No I hadn’t started drinking when I took this!)
Of course I’ll be asking for donations again during our Giving Tuesday campaign in November. And maybe next April for my birthday. But you can donate any time. Just go to trucksafety.org and push the DONATE button.
Dad and I thank you. And thanks for reading all of this.
Last Thursday my husband and I flew to Washington DC to do some Truck Safety work. We flew home yesterday and today, on this first day of the Federal Government shutdown, I was driving to northern Michigan.
Much angst in the city.
As I drove I pondered all that is going on, and how it will affect regular people who are just trying to move forward in their lives, whatever that means to them.
Round and round and round we go.
And I wished we could go back to the days depicted on the back of a menu in a DC restaurant where we dined last Thursday evening.
Hey! It’s official! It’s time to stand up, step out, get going, and plan your walk or drive or skip or hop or swim or jog for this year’s Walktober!
These guys get overlooked all the time.
Take us somewhere that you love to go, or somewhere you’ve never been before. Tell us (and show us with pictures if you can) about it and why you’re happy you went, or why you’re disappointed in your chosen place. Do you think we should stop and visit it if we’re ever in the neighborhood?
Solo sunbathing.
Tell us all your hopes and dreams. OK…maybe that’s too much information, but tell us about your adventure, where it is and what it’s like, and then link it to this post.
Wood ducks
Early in November I’ll assemble a post with links to all of your posts, and then everyone can come along on your walk, hop, jump, skip…well….you get the idea.
Common yellowthroat. I waited a long time for him to come pose for me.
So let’s set the official Walktober dates, OK? Because if you’re like me you’ll let it go until the last minute or you’ll forget about it all together if there aren’t specific dates. Right? Right!
Mama deer taking a break from parenting. Her youngster is to the left behind the trees.
So how about our official Walktober kick off on October 1 (who will be our first entry?) and end by October 31? That gives us the entiremonth of October to get outside and enjoy ourselves. I hope you all have at least one perfect day.
A bluejay lets his friends know about the treats down below.
I have a concert to play on the 28th, and dog rally trials on the 24th and 31st, so I’m really busy at the end of the month. I better not wait to get my Walktober done!
Swans in morning light.
The pictures in this post, except the last one, are all from a walk I took a few weeks ago at my favorite bird park, Kensington, with an updated Nikon camera, focus set to latch onto birds eyes.I was pretty happy with it.
You just know he’s going for the peanut.
If you have questions about Walktober let me know. I’ll get back to you as quick as I can.
Meanwhile, Ms. Penny is giving serious consideration to where she would like to take you for her version of Walktober. She invites any other dogs (or cats or birds or lizards!) to go on a walk and tell us all about it too. She thinks hopping or skipping would be too hard and she doesn’t have a drivers license.
She says it’s not that difficult to hyjack your mom or dad’s blog.
This is one option, mom, but I’d like to take the folks somewhere more exotic.
She does it all the time. She says parents are so gullible.
I just don’t think it’s possible for me to travel cross country and not stop for a barn photo opportunity.
Even if it’s a drive I’ve made many times before there always seems to be something that looks pretty enough to warrent a detour from the freeway.
The question is, always, is there an exit nearby and can I find my way back to that beautiful barn without spending too much time searching?
And, once I get back there, will there be a place that’s safe for me to stop and snap a quick shot?
In reality I see many amazing farms while traveling on big interstates and they’re often not possible to find again. Usually there are miles and miles of interstate before the next exit, and no obvious roads back to what I saw.
But I remember them, and they make me smile, so even though I don’t get to keep them forever in my files, I get to enjoy them for a brief moment.
And that counts for someting too.
***Don’t forget to be thinking about where you’d like to take us on your version of our annual Walktober! Take a walk, or ride a bike, or hop, skip or run and take a few pictures to share with us. Post about it and link your post to my Official Walktober post (which I haven’t written yet but I will very soon!) and at the end of October, or maybe in early November, I’ll put them all together in one giant post for everyone to enjoy.***
On my way down Lookout Mountain I saw this. Of course I had to turn around and spend some time in awe.
Well! Following those interruptions, let me show you how we spent our last day camping at Cloudland Canyon State Park in northern Georgia.
We’d been noticing signs for Lookout Mountain, pointing north from the road our campground was on. We pictured a big mountain with wonderful views and figured that could be interesting.
So on our last day of adventuring we decided to find it. I put “Lookout Mountain” in my gps and off we went. Along the way we saw very large homes perched on the edge of the canyon and we wondered what would happen if you happened to be playing catch on the deck or your basketball took a bad bounce.
Somewhere down there, we were sure, were a whole lot of lost balls.
Anyway, after about thirty minutes my gps said we were there. But where, exactly? The streets had become very narrow and curvy. The houses were large and likely built in the 30s or 40s. They were beautiful.
But where, exactly, was Lookout Mountain? More on that later.
We saw a sign for an Incline railroad going down to the valley floor, so we parked and went to investigate. It was a tram, of sorts, that ran on a rail way down into a town.
I’m not sure what town, but they said we could see downtown Chattanooga so maybe that’s where you ended up. The woman selling tickets said a very wealthy man who owned a bank down there, and a house at the top of the mountain didn’t like having to walk to work, so he had the incline built.
I tried to do some research and all I could find was something about a worker, building the incline in 1886, being killed. But at least that give us some idea of the era the original incline was built. I thought when I was there that there should be a whole display about the history of the area and the incline. But it’s just about impossible to find out anything.
We stood on the observation deck and watched one tram go down the steep incline and then the other tramp came up.
It looked kind of fun, but not $22.00 worth of fun, so we bought some fudge and wandered the neighborhood.
There was a big empty lot next to the Incline tram where obviously there used to be a home. What a view it must have had!
We were amused by a sign on a tree by the road that must have been there a long time. I guess it was the place to be if you wanted to picnic back in the day!
Wandering further down the street we enjoyed the fences….
….and gates along with the gardens.
Eventually, at the end of the street was another state park, this one dedicated to a battle during the Civil Warm. We went inside the park building and talked to the ranger who finally enlightened us about where Lookout Mountain was.
It was right there. We were standing on it. The entire ridge was Lookout Mountain and in fact our campground was on Lookout Mountain too! He pulled out a 3D topographical map and showed us how it all fit together.
And then we went into a big room which described the civil war battle that had been waged there so many years ago. The huge painting was fasinating in it’s detail.
We explored more that day, looking for a local potter who’s sign we had also seen on the main road. After making a couple wrong starts (and almost ending up in a private home accidently) we headed down a beautiful shaded road…
…which took us to a corner with another sign pointing the way.
Unfortunately the potter wasn’t around when we first arrived, so we explored the outside of his studio where there was plenty of interesting stuff.
Lots and lots of interesting stuff.
More stuff outside than what was inside we learned, when the potter arrived. He hadn’t been making anything for awhile, so we just explored the outside a bit more and then moseyed along.
We ended up at a local diner for lunch/dinner. I think people have misconceptions about camping. Yes you can bring all your food with you, and get ice for your cooler every day, or have a camper with a fridge…but you can also go out some of the time…which we have done on previous trips too. It’s a nice break and you often meet interesting people.
Our four day Georgia mountain adventure had come to a close. In the morning we packed up, glad that it hadn’t rained at all and everything was dry.
We stuffed it back into our vehicles and said goodbye at our now empty site. It’s always a little sad to wrap up a good camping trip. But for me, well, I had two days of driving through farm country ahead.
If you’ve been around for more than a year you’ve probably read about or even participated in a Walktober. It’s someting that began when Robin over at Breezes at Dawn went for a walk, took a few pictures and shared it all with us while inviting us to go out and share our own walks.
These images were taken at Kensington last week.
It evolved into an annual event with people from all over the country, and even the world, doing their walk sometime in October, taking pictures and posting about it while linking to Robin’s Walktober post.
Showing off
Then sometime at the end of the month, or the beginning of November Robin would do a post featuring everybody’s adventures.
Fall is definitely on the way.
What fun to see different places in the world! And to know that people all over are out doing their Walktobers at the same time!
Autumn light.
This year Robin needs just a little help to get Walktober organized, so I’ll be doing it for her. As it gets closer to October I’ll probably remind you once more, and then sometime in early October I’ll post the ‘official’ Walktober post that you can link to once you do your own walks.
Little orange flowers with morning dew.
Near the beginning of November I’ll collect all of your posts and do a final review of everybody’s Walktober.
Joe Pye nears the end of it’s summer work.
BUT! Least you worry that you don’t like to walk, let me reassure you it doesn’t have to be a walk. It could be a drive, or a boat ride, a kayak trip down a stream through fields filled with cows.
Caught in light.
It could be a pogo stick hop through your neighborhood, or a tour of your own backyard. It could be rural, in a forest, along a beach, or a city experience through a busy midtown.
The beginning of the leaf drop.
You can skip or ride your bike or do the tango on your walk. You can ski or snowmobile if you have enough snow. How about roller skating? Now that would be a Walktober!
It’s your Walktober to do whatever moves your heart.
Subtle.
I don’t know where I will take you this year, but here’s where I went last year.
We have a couple weeks to figure it out this year, right? RIGHT! So put your Walktober caps on, and watch for the official Walktober post. I can’t wait to see where to take us all!
In case you’re wondering what people do when they’re camping but not hiking up and down mountain ravines, let me show you!
We had a fire nearly every night. Here Beth is taking a picture of the engineering of the fire pit.
You might decide that you’d like to take a stab at a camping weekend somewhere beautiful near you. We’d love to be the inspiration if you decide to make the leap.
This is your typical bundle of firewood purchased from the park. $7.00
Or you might already be a camping sort of person and just want a new place to visit. If that’s the case, we’re your girls!
We roasted the obligitory marshmellows.
Personally, I like campgrounds where there’s some space between sites. Preferably some trees and shurbs that give you some illusion of privacy. Because let’s be real, when you’re camping you just don’t have much privacy at all.
We even ate one each.
I’m OK with that. I have no problem sitting in my chair next to my fire reading a book as people walk by with their dogs, waving hello.
We took some goofy pictures too.
My experience has been that most people that camp are really nice.
Our next door neighbor. 4 kids and two parents.
And there’s always something close by to explore. Just get in your car and drive and see what you find.
What’s in here?
We were camping at this park in the hopes it had a dark sky at night so that I could try to do a little photography. We ended up with one cloudless night, and we headed out to the park’s disc golf course to see what we could find.
Comfy on a chair, working on the settings to catch the stars.
There wasn’t much in the way of a foreground there, so I mostly focused on the stars and didn’t worry about it.
Even with the light polution you can see the Milky Way.
But then I thought maybe I should at least try to put the truck in the shot.
The adventure truck beneath the Milky Way.
I think I need more work on that sort of image, but it was fun. A cool night, but not cold. No bugs to speak of. No scary noises, nobody else around to worry about.
And we were back in our tents shortly after midnight!
Back to bed for a good night’s sleep.
Can’t go wrong when you get to sit out under the stars!
I still have to show you what we found when we went out exploring. Guess there’s one more post in this series of photos!
Change Is Hard 