Truck Drivers want to share the road. The only reason I keep pushing so much big truck this and that is because I didn't realize how one sided things really are until I came out here. Truck Drivers have a professional license. They pay road use taxes, car drivers don't. They pay hundreds of dollars for all their CDL endorsements. The industry is highly over regulated and micromanaged, more than almost any other industry. You really have no idea. And still they are pushing for more regulations. It's making it almost impossible to do the job.
I challenge anyone to ride with a driver over the road for a month and will you see the reality. Yet car drivers are never taught how to drive around big trucks. They are never taught to share the road with us. They are never taught the physics of a big truck, not safety and courtesy around them. They are not taught history of the highways nor why trucks are on the road. Nothing about commerce and shipping and what the truck driver does. No, instead they are taught truck drivers are evil road mongers, when that is not the case, not usually.
Trust me, truck drivers would like nothing more than to share the road with car drivers if only they would take the time to educate themselves and do the same.
~Sierra Sugar
I challenge anyone to ride with a driver over the road for a month and will you see the reality. Yet car drivers are never taught how to drive around big trucks. They are never taught to share the road with us. They are never taught the physics of a big truck, not safety and courtesy around them. They are not taught history of the highways nor why trucks are on the road. Nothing about commerce and shipping and what the truck driver does. No, instead they are taught truck drivers are evil road mongers, when that is not the case, not usually.
Trust me, truck drivers would like nothing more than to share the road with car drivers if only they would take the time to educate themselves and do the same.
~Sierra Sugar
Mema's magic refrigerator.
My mother's mother lived in northern Mississippi. They had 86 acres of farm land, so there was always an abundance of food, especially veggies. She had a deep freezer, a second small refrigerator, and a magic refrigerator with an unending hole in the back.
No matter how many left overs we had, or fresh fruit, or gallons of tea getting cold, or any number of things needing to go in the fridge there was always room. More to the point, she alone knew the magic combination to open that vast hole mysteriously cloaked in the back of that old fridge. Nothing ever had to be thrown away that was still edible. And no matter how many groceries she came home with from the commissary, she always found room for it all.
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| Fridge and microwave next to the bed in our 73" sleeper. |
My mother's mother lived in northern Mississippi. They had 86 acres of farm land, so there was always an abundance of food, especially veggies. She had a deep freezer, a second small refrigerator, and a magic refrigerator with an unending hole in the back.
No matter how many left overs we had, or fresh fruit, or gallons of tea getting cold, or any number of things needing to go in the fridge there was always room. More to the point, she alone knew the magic combination to open that vast hole mysteriously cloaked in the back of that old fridge. Nothing ever had to be thrown away that was still edible. And no matter how many groceries she came home with from the commissary, she always found room for it all.
Last week while night driving through the western part of Idaho there was a range of mountains ahead of us that was covered in snow. It was later in the afternoon, closer to early evening. The sun hadn't quite set yet, so the sky had that bluish haze of dusk that makes things seem magical and surreal. While my picture doesn't do justice to the actual site I saw ahead of me, hopefully you can get a little bit of an idea. We have all heard about mountains being blanketed in snow. Indeed these appeared that way, blanketed in a shimmery layer of whitish/bluish satin.
Of course cooler weather and snow at these elevations brings creatures of all sorts down from the mountain tops. This created an up-close encounter that was slightly less exhilarating than the Bald Eagles from the other day. Rounding a curve there straddling the center line was a mule deer.
A giant female mule deer.
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| A beautiful morning in Arkansas, just because. |
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| Look at that face! You can't tell me she's not smiling. |
Now let me give you a little background. This is the dog that grew up in Florida. She hates getting a bath. She hates going to the beach. She won't go near the water. And she has never been much of a playful dog nor done much running around.
Since being in the big truck she has suddenly become my “all-terrain dog”.
“Are those the waves?!” I exclaimed as we came around a bend in the trail and the shrubbery opened up to the expanse of damp beach sand. He could only laugh at me, which is his usual reaction to my apparently amusing expressions upon discovering something new.
It's funny how a song can bring back memories so vivid it's like you experienced them only yesterday. One such song for me is “Boys of Summer” by Don Henley. The music and lyrics are very poignant and maudlin of days past, especially growing up in Florida and spending summers at the beaches. Those late summer evenings when the beaches empty early due to cooler weather is a sorrowful experience for us beach bound southerners, as it signaled the end of lazy sunny days and a return to school. Even now as an adult, no longer privy to they months-long, carefree, summertime breaks, the change in weather certain songs still bring about the strong feelings of those long-gone days of youth. Needless to say, driving down the highway, in January, in Idaho, the juxtaposition of warm summer nights with the chilly windy north was rather strong.
Earlier in the morning while having breakfast with a friend we found ourselves explaining what can only be described as a true “Southernism”.
