In August Kevin & I joined his brother Steve & wife Stephanie for a sailing cruise in the PWN where we learned how to operate a large sailboat. Here are the pictures from our time.

Because photos are easier to manage on Facebook, they are a little better documented. There are also pictures there not shown here. Feel free to check out my facebook photos of our trip.

Here’s a link to the San Juan Islands where we sailed. Our trip originated & ended in Bellingham Harbor.

Well, for the past year we have had a great dedicated run which allowed us to get home every week. Right before we went on vacation in August, our load planner notified us they lost the bid on that route so we are back on the scenic highways and biways of our great country!

It has taken me a bit to wrap my head around this but there are perks involved. Mostly that we get to see a LOT of the country and possibly some folks we don’t get to see very often. Plus, I love that chirp of the computer, solving the mystery of “where we go next”! There is always a mystery right around the corner!

As I mentioned, at the end of August we went on vacation for a week and a half to the Pacific Northwest! It was lovely. We spend a couple days with our friends Craig and Kathleen before embarking on a 1 week learn-n-cruise.  We came back just after Labor Day to our new status and managed to finagle a couple days at home to pick up our doglett (who we sorely missed) from the neighbors and take care of some business.

Stay tuned. I know it’s a shock to see this blog being updated! I have loaded all my photos to my Facebook account so you can see our vacation journal there. I will add a couple new posts very soon with these photos.

Barney – No Cracked windshields…. 6+ months

The Red Bull – 5 cracked windshields…. in a 2 years window (haha… punny!)

Our New Truck… 15,000 miles… first cracked windshield!

DOT law is that if a crack is greater than 6 inches in length OR impairs your field of vision in any way, you HAVE to get it replaced or get a ticket. So every time we’ve had these cracks…. into the shop it goes! Could hardley believe we couldn’t even make it 15,000 miles in our new truck before we had to have a new windshield!

We’ve had this truck 2 weeks today.

It has 10,500 miles already, is dirty and looks lived in.

It endures comments like, “I wonder why it does that? Our old truck never did that!” Or “I wish it did “___” like our old truck”.

We had entertained the idea at one time of buying The Red Bull (our old truck). What our new truck doesn’t hear are the comments we voice to ourselves, “boy, I’m so glad we didn’t buy that truck!”

Since driving the new truck we realized there were lots of little things wrong. We put up with and got used to all the little indiosincracies which might seem odd, but without having anything to compare to, we just didn’t know!

We like our new truck. It has a lot more room in the sleeper. It came with an inverter, which made Kevin happy because he gets to take our old one home and install in his pickup. Boys & their toys! As we live aboard our new truck, our comparisans to The Red Bull get less & less. He becomes a distant memory… sniff.

We have fond memories of our first 2 trucks I will always remember.

Meet Barney, our very first truck out of school. The company we worked for, TransAm, had trucks of all colors. Being the only girl in the new employee orientation, when the guys discovered my favorite color was purple they would rib Kevin about the possibility of getting a purple truck. Now the likelihood of it happening was pretty slim, given there were 30+ in our class.  When Kevin returned from his 3-week training period and was handed the keys to his truck, he went to find it… you guessed it! A purple T600 Kenworth. We had to name him Barney!

Kevin drove the truck on his own for the first 6 weeks and just prior to picking me up for my training period, one of the steer tires had to be changed. When I started my training period, the truck handled so badly we’d get comments on the CB wondering what was wrong with our truck! Steering this truck was akin to holding onto a buckin’ bronc. We were such greenhorns we drove it this way for 2 weeks before finally calling road service and telling them about it. I can remember saying over & over to Kevin, “there’s got to be something wrong, I don’t remember our trucks at school being this difficult to drive!” What a way to learn what a 1/4″ tread height difference makes.

On another day, I was driving on a US Hwy in Colorado, when suddenly it seemed every bell and alarm went off in the truck, half scaring me to pieces! I looked at all my gages and my initial glance I couldn’t see anything amiss. But one thing hammered into our brains was if things go wrong, get off the road and stopped as soon as possible. This had more to do with losing our air pressure but I certainly wasn’t going to take any chances. After coming to a stop on the roadside, Kevin opened our hood to discover Barney had thrown every belt (I think he had 3!). The road service truck finally arrived to find they had the wrong belts and had to go get the right ones. We spent a total of 5+ hours out of commision.

The Red Bull gave us relatively few problems… one of the reasons we really like him so well. Probably the most serious offense was when the transmission decided to back out of it’s housing making a racket and had the potential of being fairly dangerous. We spent the weekend swiming and lazing in W. Virginia at the company’s expense!

The day we met The Red Bull, it was dark and rainy. This truck had 71,000 miles on it and lots more room. When we had first started with CFI they had put us into a T600 (again) so we were excited to have more room in this T2000 Kenworth. We drove this truck for 2 years putting 520,000 miles on. We spread out like we were in a country cottage, bringing all sorts of things from home. We dreaded the day we had to change trucks. But oddly enough, it was raining again the day we moved into our new truck. With just 3 hours to pack and unpack we didn’t have a lot of time to agonize over the excessive baggage, but a lot has gone to the dumpster or home!

Now we have this new white truck… and no name. We’ve had some suggestions, but none have stuck. Any ideas?

Cardinal on feeder.

I love winter. I love snow. But what I really love is how it brings out all the critters. We pretty much are in a city neighborhood with lots of houses all around but the difference is we actually live in hills too. Our little ‘hood meanders through the Loess Hills and there is plenty of forest area all around us. It’s not uncommon to have turkeys & deer strolling through (and eating) our foliage.

But winters bring birds. Lots of birds! And squirrels!

This morning I spotted a rufus-sided towhee feeding on the ground under the bush. Cardinals are the bulk of our visitors along with lots of house sparrows. But we also get an ample supply of various species of woodpeckers, flickers, juncos and chickadees. As we move toward spring we’ll begin to see wrens, robins and western orioles join them. On a drive around the lake when the ice begins to soften and break up, there is a huge influx of eagles hanging out waiting for hungry fish to appear. Then we occasionally see cedar waxwings during their spring/fall migration.

My father-in-law made us a huge covered platform feeder that sits atop a pole that the squirrels aren’t supposed to be able to get to. However, just this week I spied a little black squirrel square in the middle of the feeder and can’t imagine how he got up there. I’ve hung a couple of other feeders, one for thistle seed and the other for black oil sunflower seed. There are also a couple of suet feeders.

We have an electric water dish that my father-in-law also made. We learned that birds will come and stay in your yard if you have water available to them. It’s probably more important in the winter then at other times. The waterer is on a pole and has a little metal dish with a light bulb underneath to keep the water from freezing. Kevin planted a curved stick next to it for the squirrels to climb.

Our squirrels are little browns and blacks (don’t know any official names). The black ones are indigenous to our area. Not even across the river in Omaha can you find them. During the winter we have a backyard full of them and their brown cousins. They are feisty little critters, fighting each other (plus our dog) for the bits of food we leave around for them. We have a squirrel feeder which is 2 pieces of wood at right angles with a screw stuck through the bottom plate and hung on the tree. We put an ear of dried field corn and one squirrel will sit and eat through an entire ear in one sitting. Little pigs! They also have quite a feast on the ground from the seeds and such the birds fling off their feeder.

It is such a treat to wake in the morning, get a cup of coffee and watch the backyard alive with nature! I love it!

Flicker on feeder, background is waterer & on tree the squirrel feeder

A few minutes after dawn, a few minutes before sunrise.
Sherlene jerks back from the passenger side window; “That looks like a person laying out there!”
It was a cool morning, much too cool for someone to be sleeping alongside the road.

Several minutes later, I am thirty feet away, and looking at a young Hispanic man, head resting on a muscular arm, legs bent, and laying on his side.
He’s not moving.
I shout, again, nothing.

Once the police arrived and confirmed he was dead, I came closer, and could see the scrapes on his cheek and arms. His pants were down around his knees, and his shoes were missing.
He was big; barrel-chested big, young; mid-twenties (?), with thick forearms tattooed up the inside.
Coming closer still, I could see a large bloody area about three feet off the road. Personal items are scattered around; a cell phone, a folded paper, a credit card.

From the bloody area, and down into the ditch, I could see signs of a great struggle. Scratches in the dirt showed where thick fingers grasped to fight an attacker that was long gone down the road. Large scrapes where elbows gave a mighty push in trying to escape, too late, an unseen enemy. At the end of this gruesome trail he lay, his great struggle over.

The evidence tells us it was a hit and run. What I couldn’t see were the shattered legs. One shoe was still on the road, the other flung thirty feet away. Small bits of broken headlight scattered around. No skid marks though.

As I walked the half mile back to my truck, I will tell you that I prayed. Prayed for what? I have a lot of questions. Who was he? Where was he going? I wonder what he did yesterday. Did he laugh? Cry? What need impelled him to walk the interstate in the middle of the night?

My prayer was that by the grace of God this nameless person might find forgiveness before the Throne of his Creator. I don’t know how. Perhaps he was a Christian, I hope so. If not, I certainly forgive him anything he might have done against me or my society however indirect the transgression.

When Jesus came the first time, He shocked the world with the extent of His grace and forgiveness. My prayer for years has been that He would shock the world with the extent of His grace when He comes the second time.

I grieve for this young man. I found out later that he was walking to family in Barstow CA, a few miles down the road.

But what about his murderer, the person that fled the scene, with a faith so small, and a character so stunted that he could not stop to help, or claim his great mistake?

I pray for him, or her, especially. I hold no grudge. I have made many mistakes in my life that I could not own up to at the time. It’s a tough road to go down, and the eventual pain long term will be much greater than if they had simply pulled over, and taken their lumps.

For the young man, it is over. The chance to do the right thing, or the wrong thing, or anything, is passed. The sum of his life has been totaled, he has walked his last road, and the time for effecting the future is gone.

For the driver? His road goes on. He still has the chance to right his wrongs.

The thing I love about my Lord is that He is indeed the God of last chances. The thief on the cross can tell you that.

This, coupled with the fact that He uses all things for good helps in my faith, my faith that justice will be done, that repentance will occur, and the Lord will claim another soul with His grace and once again shock the world.

It’s a feeble grasp we hold on this life, and we never know when it will end.

It’s a giant struggle, everyday, to do what is right, and we never know what trial is just around the bend in the road.

It’s a thin line, this walk of faith, and we never know where it will lead.

God is love, let love be your guide.

Drive safe.

It’s not something you expect to see, certainly not anticipated.

As a professional driver, with thousands of miles under my wheels, I knew I would see, and have seen accidents. Some horrible, most just interesting that leave you wondering how they happened.

But today, what I saw ranks not only horrifying, but gruesome.

I had just awoke and was talking to Kevin about stuff… nothing of note. The sun was just making its way to the horizon and dawn was in full swing. Kevin was driving and I in the passenger seat. We were on I-15 in CA just south of Barstow. I was looking around when I saw a blue shirt on the side of the freeway. A further look told me it was short sleeved shirt and what looked like a head of black hair above it. I couldn’t see a face. I told Kevin, “that looks like a body”, thinking to myself, it’s way too cold for someone to be sleeping out here.

Acting quickly, Kevin pulled off on the next exit, grabbed his phone and started back to the site I had seen. It was about a ¼ to ½ mile hike back. He finally arrived and yes, it was a body, a young Hispanic looking man. It didn’t look good. He called 911, the police arrived and we became witnesses to a crime scene. Apparently, he had been walking to his family in Barstow and had been hit and the driver had run.

I can hardly comprehend the character of person who would drive off after hitting someone. I’m at a loss for words how to end this…. Except to say, there is a hurting family today and I hurt for them.

I got a new camera for Christmas. Currently, the camera is much smarter then I am, but I’m having fun taking pictures on auto-focus and sharing them.

Enjoy!

The new year is always a time for reflection. Floods of memories of the past year fill our thoughts, good and some not-so-good that give fodder for New Year resolutions.

2008 was a good year… for both of us. It brimmed with great memories, some pretty tough challenges and some goals met that had been set last January. It’s a rare thing to look positively on last years resolution isn’t it!

Today, reading a favorite writer of mine, Erin Straza, who in her New Year blog gave some good criteria for resolution/goal setting.

• What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?
• What habit would you most like to establish this year?
• What one thing do you most regret about last year, and what will you do about it this year?
• In what area of your life do you most need growth, and what will you do about it this year?
• What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

My goal is designed to inspire me to do other things…. learn and grow. Grow in knowledge, grace and love for God, my fellow travelers on his highway and for myself.  So what is that goal?

To read! Read blogs, books, newspapers, the magazines I subscribe to (eek), my friends facebook pages but most importantly, read my good book, my life’s roadmap, my bible. It may seem like an easy thing to some but reading becomes more and more difficult for me the older I get. I have the attention span of a gnat!

To a New Year!

We all went to Pizza King for dinner ~ Doug’s treat. Afterward we went to Kurt & Denita’s for dessert and opening presents.