Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: travel


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Living on the lake – summer storm

Once upon a time (this afternoon) Katie and I were sitting on the back porch just watching the lake. Not reading a book, not napping, not looking at a phone or a computer screen.

Just watching the lake

It was a beautiful sunny day when suddenly…

A cool thing about being on a lake is that it’s always changing. From moment to moment the light changes, the wind ruffles the surface, a fish jumps, a bird swoops, clouds gather, thunder threatens.

Wait a minute. Thunder threatens? Why yes, almost every afternoon in this magical place a thunderstorm pops up.

…it turned into a dark and stormy afternoon!

Today we heard it way off to the north, but getting closer. And across the way dark clouds gathering high above a house.

I left Katie on the porch and went down to the lake to get a better look. She was not happy to see me approaching danger. But she stayed up on the porch and worried.

I’ll wait up here mama, but I don’t like it.

It got darker and darker. The wind picked up from the northwest.

It’s blowing hard up here!

Waves developed and Katie just couldn’t stay on the porch any longer. She rushed down to the shore to bark at the bad waves! She was so fast that I couldn’t get a clear shot of her.

Stand back mama! I’ll get these waves out of here!

She ran out onto the dock to bark even harder at those waves posing a threat to her mama.

These waves haven’t heard the last from me!

And the winds slowed, and the waves leveled out and Katie was a happy girl.

Mission accomplished mama!

And then the rains came and we ran for the house. We watched the storm blow from the comfort of our living room and picture window. Katie continued to bark at all the thunder overhead.

I guess that storm wasn’t quite over, was it mama?!

And soon the storm blew away, and the sky began to lighten.

Just a summer shower now.

And the sun came out and made the world bright again.

Dripping sunlight.

And Katie said…

You can count on me!

… “I told you I’d handle it mama.”

The end.

Wednesday’s storm.


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A day at the lake

One early morning duck enjoys the quiet.


After two and a half days of driving Katie and I were content to spend Sunday just watching the lake. There was so much going on in our little corner of the world.

I think the birds are used to having the yard and water to themselves and they went about their busy schedules as if we weren’t watching. We stayed still up by the house and just observed.

The swallow gourds out in the water had huge spiderwebs spun the night before and filled with fishflies. A male bluebird liked to sit up on top and survey his kingdom, and a female bluebird was busy taking fresh bugs into the top left gourd.

The morning sun lit up one of the bird apartments.

When the wind picked up, huge parts of the fly filled spider web fell into the water and fish leaped out of the water to grab the gourmet treat. It was quite a spectacle and one I wish I had captured. You’ll have to imagine it.

Later large blackbirds flew at the remaining webs, grabbing some of the stuck flies for themselves, in between being bombarded by the bluebird couple who apparently thought the bigger birds were attacking their nest. No pictures of that either.

After the bird epic slowed down I decided to kayak up the creek. At the end of our slough is a cyprus forest. It was a quiet paddle, still early morning.

Paddling toward my favorite trees.

I love these trees, and this morning the light was pretty, playing across the texture of their trunks.

The sun on the trunk made pretty patterns.

The water is high here, there has been so much rain, and I could have explored further up the creek. But I thought about snakes hiding up in the trees and turned around.

Kind of spooky back there.

It was good timing anyway, as I was pulling back into our dock the sound of boat engines and people laughing slipped up over the hills. The lake was waking up. I smiled and headed back inside to my girl who was napping happily in the air conditioning.

Time for fun in the sun.

Later in the day the clouds settled in, and the wind picked up. Quickly Katie and I gathered up lawn chairs and dragged the kayak into the boat garage.

Clouding up. But still beautiful!

And then the rains hit.

Rain slams across the lake.

And just as quickly the rain blew away and the evening settled down quietly as did Katie and I.

After the rain the lake settles into evening.

Just a typical day on the lake in Alabama. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Summer greens.


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The road leads to many barns

Poppies at one of many rest stops we visited today.


If you’ve been following us on Facebook you’ll know that Katie and I are headed South. Today we completed day 2 of our 3 day adventure. We spent last night in Indianapolis Indiana, and tonight we’re in Huntsville Alabama. It’s supposed to be a 6 hour trip between the two but of course Katie and I stop at every rest stop along the way.

Plus we were driving through barn country.

This was probably pretty once.

Katie enjoys her rest stops and I enjoy my barns. What can I say except that she’s a very patient sheltie-girl. And I try not to get off course for very long or very often. In fact I only allowed myself to get off the freeway twice today when I saw lovely barns dotting the countryside. And I only traveled 3 or 4 miles out of the way each time.

I saw so many beautiful barns that were not in a spot easily found once I exited the freeway, but I always found something else that was (almost) as photogenic as what enticed me off course in the first place.

Saw this one from the freeway and actually found it after we got on the back roads.

It’s hot in the South right now. The car said it was 97 out there this afternoon. Katie, in her crate in the back seat, slept a lot and I tried to keep the car cool for her.

Cow rests in the shade.

But as the day wore on, and about two hours away from our hotel, I noticed the air conditioning was almost negligible. I’m sure she felt nothing cool in the back seat. She seemed lethargic and I began to panic. I rolled the windows down and hoped that the breeze made up for the lack of cool. I began to talk to her loudly and often. I told her we were going to get her dinner soon. She perked up.

Jackpot! A whole bunch of barns in one shot!

I stopped for a minute to give her a long drink of water and feel her tummy. She didn’t feel too warm. Yet. I drove faster and skipped the last rest stop at the Alabama line. I figured we were only 30 minutes from an air conditioned room, and stopping would do nothing but heat us both up even more.

Barn on the back road.

So I sang to her, talked to her, and she watched me, thinking something good was coming. It was. Air conditioning! I even planned on filling the tub with cool water if I had to cool her down. Or looking for a vet if I thought she was in heat stroke.

Working the fields on this hot afternoon.

But she bounced out of the car when we got to the hotel and pulled me, prancing all the way, into the lobby. And then she wanted to play. And eat her supper. And drink a big long drink. And go outside for a walk. And play some more. And go back outside. And get a treat. Or two.

The colors in the barn go so nicely with the colors in the field.

So I guess all my worrying was for nothing.

But tomorrow we’ll be getting up early to drive the last 4 hours to the lake before the afternoon heats up. And next week we’ll be taking the car to a dealer to see what’s up with the air.

It’s always something.

Air conditioning is good mama!


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Truck Safety – the details

It’s a very busy place, Washington DC.


It all started when my dad was killed by a tired semi-truck driver who fell asleep at the wheel and didn’t see the traffic stopped ahead of him early in the morning of December 23, 2004.

Since them members of my family have been traveling to Washington DC regularly to tell our story and lobby for safety on our nation’s roads. This past week my husband and I were there again, talking to the staff of House Representatives and Senators, as well as people at the DOT, about the bigger, heavier, longer trucks that are once again being proposed by some in the trucking industry.

Riding the metro to the Hill on a beautiful day.

Back in 2015 double 33 foot trailers were proposed by the trucking industry, they say because of a driver shortage. What they didn’t say is that adding 5 feet on each of two trailers, hauled in tandem, made the entire truck 83 feet, 8 inches long. That’s similar to an 8 story building. Try passing that on a busy freeway.

We worked long hours and got back to the hotel after dark most nights.

They also don’t tell you that it will take longer to stop, that the back trailer doesn’t track correctly going around corners and that they’re harder to drive, requiring a special endorsement on a driver’s commercial license.

In one of the lady’s rooms, mid century modern makeup chairs.

There’s already a shortage of drivers, finding experienced drivers to haul double 33 foot trailers isn’t going to be easy.

Mountain sculpture in the Hart Senate Building lobby.

Aside from the safety issues, many companies ship their goods ‘intermodal’ meaning they move over land on rails as well as highways, and across the ocean on ships. The 33 foot trailers won’t fit on rail cars as they are configured now, and container ships may have to change the way the trailers are stacked as well. Some people fear that smaller transport companies will be forced out of business as shippers and brokers move to the more competitive larger trailers to ship their goods, regardless of the level of safety attributed to these trailers.

Waiting for a shuttle I thought the metro lines above were interesting.

There’s an appropriations bill in the House of Representatives right now. It’s the kind of bill that ‘must pass’ because it funds most of the Federally mandated programs across the country. Some members of Congress have added amendments to the bill that we consider anti truck safety. Allowing for a study of the double 33 foot trailers is one of these amendments.

It wasn’t all work. We ate dinner down on the wharf near an old torpedo factory that has been turned into an artist loft.

You might think that we shouldn’t be afraid of studying something, and normally I’d agree. But there isn’t much data out there on double 33s, they are running on some roads of certain states, but not many. We’re concerned that the trucking industry will fund studies of their own, and of course those will be favorable.

Right now the amendment is still in the appropriations bill. An amendment offered by another Representative to strip it from the bill failed by a few votes. So we have work to do.

We walked up and down a lot of stairs.

And this is just one issue. There are so many more that I want to tell you about. We worked all week on the Hill, talking about speed limiters, hours of service, underride crashes and the bill sitting in Congress right now, Stop Underride, that needs to move out of committee.

One afternoon we even got to take some time off and visit the national zoo!

We walked between appointments, from the House side to the Senate side of the Hill and back again, in the hot, humid air of summer in DC. It was hard. But getting the call about Dad was harder and I reminded myself how important this all is.

And yes we got lucky and saw the famous pandas.

I know truck safety is not everyone’s thing. And I know some of you will have differing opinions on how to solve the problem of truck crashes on our highways. I have so much more to tell you, and to show you, about our trip to DC last week. But this is already too long, too boring, and just a little stressful.

We had one peaceful evening on the Mall.

So I put a few photos in for relief — just in case you’d rather just look at cool stuff. I’m OK with that too.

Studying before an appointment.

I’ll tell you more about our work in another post. Stay tuned.

The flight home was thankfully incident free.


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Retirement interruption

I interrupt this retirement to go back to work in DC, trying to be a catalysis for change, trying to get people with power to stop and listen, to open their minds to the possibility of doing something a different way.

To open their minds to the fact that they have the power to save lives.

It’s no easy task.

It’s only Wednesday and I’m already exhausted.

Stay tuned.


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Flying back into the fray

We’re back in D.C., ready to work for safer roads.

Flying east with hope

We got in late last night; our flight was delayed due to mechanical problems. We arrived at the hotel long past dinner time having only eaten breakfast many hours prior.

The Potomac River gleams pink as we bank into D.C.

The hotel staff was helpful in finding us one last restaurant that would deliver though they were official closed for the evening. It’s nice when people go out of their way to be helpful.

Flaps up we’re in the Capitol now.

We can only hope the lawmakers we’ll be talking to about bigger and heavier trucks are as thoughtful.

Luggage in tow we’re going to work now.


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Neither here nor there

Katie here, continuing my travelog. Mama and I are headed home to daddy, and today is our second day of driving. All day. Yesterday I wasn’t very good about being in the car for so long, but I can explain!

Which looks better? Me or the mountains?

No one told me that we were driving home! I thought we were just going to the beach or the park and I didn’t understand that I’d be cooped up in the car all day! So I kept asking mama if we were there yet and by the end of seven hours she was about over the whole travel with Katie-girl thing.

So she says.

What a pretty day to travel!

Today I was a lot better, though by the last hour I did throw a bit of a fit. After all, my supper was more than 2 hours late! I had to remind mama that it was unacceptable to hold up a princess’s supper.

Anyway, we drove a little bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway on our way north. Not a lot of it, mind you, cause mama is on a mission to get home, but we got to see a little bit of it. She loves the layers of blue.

Perfect!

Me too, I could sit and look out over the view for a long time. Or until someone gives me a biscuit.

Enjoying the view.

Speaking of which, I’ve been snacking on treats Reilly’s mom packed for us. My guy even gave me heart biscuits! He’s a special guy, my Reilly.

Thank you Reilly sweetie!

Mama is really enjoying watching spring unfold all over again. It was spring weeks ago in Alabama and now that we’re in Kentucky we get to see the redbud and dogwood trees blooming all over again.

Isn’t this pretty?

And the deciduous trees are just budding out, with red and peach and orange and lime green making the mountains just glow in the sun. Mama couldn’t get a good picture of it cause she was driving. But the image below she took when we were at the Kentucky welcome center. The trees were on the other side of the freeway, and the light wasn’t as perfect as she’d seen when she was driving, but you can kinda see how beautiful it is here this time of year.

Can you see all the colors ?

Tonight mama is worried and is watching the weather channel. It looks like tomorrow we’ll be driving right into a bad storm. She can’t decide if we should get up early and try to beat the storm home, or if we should stay here for another night. But she says it would probably be two more nights because Saturday afternoon all the way into Sunday looks bad.

I don’t know what we’re going to do. Mama says we should get some sleep and see what tomorrow looks like. I personally think we should go back to our lake house, but mama says she has stuff to do in Michigan.

Glad we had a good day, cause tomorrow is going to be different.


Stuff to do? I thought she was retired!

Signing off….your travel guide Katie-girl.

Just another photo of me. Mama just won’t quit.