Category Archives: Road Trip

Visiting

Posted by dkrashb on

Saturday, our last day in Columbus.  We have a full agenda today.  First, a visit with the world’s best doctor for me.  Then we are taking lunch to some friends who just had a new baby.  We will wrap up the day with dinner with another set of friends.  I pop out of bed an hour earlier than my alarm, already preparing in my sleep for our day.

Seeing my doctor is always a treat.  The only thing that would make it better is if we were meeting over coffee instead of in her office.  But, this way I get to see her and get a minor issue addressed at the same time.  I suppose it’s somewhat odd to be friends with your doctor, but I’m not sure why.  Who better to trust with your health care than someone who genuinely cares about you?

After my appointment, Pat picks me up and we head to City Barbecue.  We are running ahead of schedule.  We decide to go to the grocery store first and pick up a few things for our hosts that we have been consuming.  Then, we go back towards City Barbecue, still ahead of schedule.  We decide it may take several minutes to get our order together, so we go ahead and go in.  We order a family pack, but can’t decide on only two sides, so we add two more.  When our order comes, each side is packed in a 1 quart container.  We have enough sides for about 32 people.   You can never have enough sides.

We arrive at our friends house, still a few minutes ahead of schedule.  It never fails that all the lights are green when you need to slough off time.  We even took the slower, back way to get there.  Sara is home with both children.  Geoff is not yet back from a grocery store run.

Sara greets us at the door with Lella cradled in her arms.  Her tiny pumpkin head perfectly round against her mother’s arm.  I am surprised to find myself pleased to see her.  While I’m never going to be one of those people who swoops in and snatches the baby out of mom’s arms and goos and gah’s over it, paying no attention to anything other than the baby for hours on end, I feel less afraid of appreciating the baby.  I think that in my younger years I felt like I had to reject babies entirely in order to avoid any regrets about not having any of my own.  That somehow there was a threat that I might suddenly wish for one and my biological clock would click on and my relationship with my now husband would be threatened as a result.

Having recognized that I would not be the world’s best mother and subsequently decided that the world would be better off if I didn’t reproduce, I have not, as of yet, regretted that decision.  While there are times I think my life would feel more purposeful if I had children, I have a hard time imagining giving up on so many of the life experiences I have been able to have because I don’t have kids.  Now nearly 45, there is little possibility that I will suddenly awake and want to have a baby.

Today, instead of feeling repulsed by this tiny life, I am intrigued.  She is beautiful, this tiny Lella.  I like to say her name, “Lel-la.”  It rolls on my tongue and feels like “lullaby.”  It is both a soothing baby name and a strong adult name.  I am amazed that no one ever thought of it before (well, that I know of)

As Lella awakens and looks out upon the wide world before her, her eyes open, big and bright.  She appears to watch things across the room and I wonder how far she can see.  I remember being told infants can only see the distance from the breast to the face, but she looks so fascinated that I have to ask out loud.  Sara also believes she can only see about 18 inches.  Lella makes a fist, twists her face, kicks her legs and farts loudly.  Henry, her 4-year old brother, is not the only one who is amused.  We take her upstairs for a tour of the nursery and a diaper change.  I rub Lella’s head and make sure she doesn’t roll off the changing table while Sara looks for something.

I am reminded of a terrifying event in my early teen years when an infant I was babysitting kicked his diaper off the changing table and I bent down to pick it up.  The screaming infant, probably suffering from colic, kicked so hard in the instant I bent to pick up the diaper that he flopped off the table and landed on the floor at my feet.  I believe this was the first nail in the coffin of my desire to have children.  Fortunately, the baby was not seriously injured, but I stopped babysitting infants after that.

Today, I stand next to the changing table with my hand cupped over Lella’s head rubbing her fuzzy hair, relaxed and happy to have this moment to experience baby-ness.  I can’t say that I really want to fuss over this tiny infant all afternoon.  In fact, I occasionally forget about her as we eat lunch and talk of adult things, but it’s nice to at least feel at home around this tiny, fragile life and not feel afraid that my mere presence might in someway break it.

After hanging out for a few hours, we head on back to our host’s house.  We are already exhausted and it is not even 3PM yet when we arrived.  Pat heads upstairs for an afternoon nap while I sit and talk with Georgia in between games of solitaire.  I keep thinking I will doze for a while, but in the end I never do.  It’s just as well–when Pat wakes up, he seems groggy and disoriented.  A long afternoon nap will do that to you.  I smile as I look at his rumpled hair when he comes back downstairs.  Back up we go, smoothing ourselves and making ourselves presentable for our evening out.

Closing Doors

Posted by dkrashb on

When I arrive at the Columbus office Wednesday morning, for the first time, I feel like a visitor.  My group has changed buildings.  Although I’ve been to many meetings in this building, I don’t belong there.  The people in the foyer, on the elevator, in the hall, look up as I go by and their eyes roam for a badge.  This is a sure sign that I seem out of place.

I wander around the perimeter of the building, stopping to say hello to a colleague I haven’t seen in a while and asking for the general vicinity of my team.  I wander around some more until I locate the office of one colleague and then the cubes of the rest of my team.  I stop to say hello and then find a vacant office to set up in.  I miss seeing my name outside the door.

I have a face-to-face meeting scheduled first thing.  It’s a team meeting with my one-person team.  He and I catch up and spend time going through all that’s going on until we run out of time.  Then the conference calls start.  I do not leave the office until a half an hour break in the early afternoon allows me to run across the street with a colleague to grab fast food.  I am dialing into my next conference call by the time we leave the restaurant.

I return to the office while on my call and realize I haven’t had a minute to use the restroom since arriving this morning.  I’m scheduled with back-to-back calls the rest of the day.  My calendar is triple-booked in some cases.  I sit in my windowless office in an uncomfortable position with no monitor or keyboard separate from my laptop or fancy office chair with a head rest and I wonder if coming into the office is worth it.

After my next call ends two minutes early, I decide to take the opportunity to run to the restroom.  I manage to get a hello in to a couple of people on my way and then return to the office for my next call.  I wonder if I should have sat in a cube so I’d get to see more people.  But, it’s hard to take conference calls all day in a cube.

At the end of the day, Pat picks me up, forcing me to wrap up on time.  We have social commitments every evening, so working late will mean working after going out to dinner if I have things I have to do in the evening.  Fortunately, I managed to get a lot done during a couple of my calls today–the kind where there are 80 people on the phone and only about 2 minutes of a 90 minute call pertains to me.

We have to stop to pick up a package at the house we rented for a year between selling our house and moving to Chattanooga.  I didn’t realize I hadn’t updated my shipping address until the package was en route and it was easier to make arrangements with the new tenant to pick it up there than to try to get it resent to Chattanooga.

It’s the first time we’ve been by the rental in months.  It looks the same minus the wreath on the front door.  I knock and a woman answers.  The living room is full of children behind her.  A small toddler wanders over to the door and smiles at me.  I smile back at him, get my package, thank the woman and am on my way again.

I pause for a moment, realizing that I have no desire to go inside the house and see what it looks like even though I know it’s been freshly painted since we moved out; it’s now the home of a stranger.

But our route home takes us by our old street, Walhalla, and Pat asks if I want to drive by our old house.  I say no.  I have no regrets about selling the house.  While not having a house makes it difficult to entertain, limits the comforts we can offer overnight guests, and subjects us to more noise from neighbors, I like the trade off.  When we sold our house, we eliminated a huge sense of commitment.

The freedom I feel now is such a sense of relief that I can’t imagine why I thought home ownership was a good idea.  At the same time, I loved our last house dearly.  It was an heirloom built by my father and a remembrance of my mother.  I needed that house when we bought it and changing it from my parents’ house to our house was an essential process to mourning the physical loss of my mother and the virtual loss of my father when he moved hundreds of miles away after my mother’s death.

But having gone through that process, I do not feel the need to cling to it forever.  The final farewell for me was said the day I walked among the blank walls and empty rooms and remembered.

I remembered the moments I had with my mother in that house.  The time that I spent with my father helping to build it when I was in college.  The day my parents and I moved in.  The day I moved out into my first apartment.  Returning to do laundry.  Much later, staying for a few days when I broke my face playing softball, content to allow my mom to mother me again for the first time in many years.

I remembered the Christmases we had there.  And my wedding reception the first time I got married and the potluck the second.  I wished that my mother could have been at my second celebration, but that was the only regret I felt as I walked through those rooms.

I remembered the times that Pat and I shared as a couple in that house.  And our amazing canine kids whose lives were lived out amongst those same walls, now devoid of all the marks they left from dried drool.  I cherished every memory for that moment, but then I walked away with only a few tears in my eyes, refusing to fall.

My thoughts turned to self-pity when I reached the foyer:  “I am the only member of my family left in Columbus.  My mother is dead.  My aunt is dead.  My father moved away.  My brother moved away ages ago.”

I stood at the threshold of the open door for a moment longer feeling sorry for myself–orphaned in Columbus.  But then I turned away from the inside of the house and looked out the door.  Out there, there are people I love and who love me.  Some of them are far away, but the world gets smaller every day.  I closed the door behind me and concluded a chapter of my life.  Today, I have no need to reopen that door.

We arrive back at our hosts’ house with still-hot pizza and I shift my attention from musings on the past to enjoyment of the present.  This house is full of life and love; it would be a shame to miss it.

Throwing In

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s Monday again.  I get up early, still hurting from Saturday’s adventure on the hang gliding hills.  As I unkink my body getting out of bed, I feel grateful that it’s not a workout day.  I vow that I will take a walk, however, in the hope of loosening up my sore muscles.

Since I also discover that there is no food in the house, I talk Pat into taking a short walk through the park and then a detour to the grocery store.  As we walk through the aisles trying to decide what we need, we realize that we are leaving tomorrow.  We limit ourselves to just enough food for breakfast, hoping the last of the milk will go far enough for two bowls of cereal.

Today is full of meetings.   Meetings where I have to pay attention the whole time, if not actually run the call.  I work late trying to get the things done I couldn’t get done during the day.  As it gets later, I get more stressed, realizing that I have personal work to do to get ready to leave tomorrow, too.

For one, I need to get the photos I will use in my blog ready before I go on the road.  I ran into issues with my photos exceeding my hard drive space on my (in tech years) ancient macbook pro.  After repeatedly spending hours cleaning out extra photos trying to make more space, I finally got tired of it and bought a mac mini server with a total of 1TB of drive space.  I thought I would move everything except my pictures and still have my photos on my laptop.

That didn’t work out.  I still kept running my 120GB drive out of space.  Funny out big 120GB sounded when I bought my macbook pro.

When I downloaded Aperture, Apple’s photo editing software, it turned out to be the final domino.  Not only did Aperture motivate me to start shooting in RAW again, which increased the file size of my photos by a factor of 3, but it also had all kinds of performance problems with my laptop’s 2GB of memory.

Not wanting my mac mini to go to waste, I moved my photo library and Aperture to it and started using it for photo processing.  This, however is not the best set up for a nomad into digital photography and blogging.  It means my pictures are all on a box sitting at home.  Although the server is small enough that I have taken it with me on a couple of road trips, packing a monitor is not practical and trying to use Aperture using “share screens” from my macbook pro is just painfully slow.

I would love to hear if there are other digital-photographer-want-to-be nomads out there who struggle with their IT setup and how they cope.

Today, my tactic is to plan ahead so that the photos I want to use during my trip are already uploaded to my blog site.  It’s been dark a while and the clock is telling me I’m running out of time.  I wrap up the critical things I need to do for work as quickly as I can and then get to work on my pictures.

I cut corners on my photo processing–I make faster decisions about which pictures to use, I don’t give them meaningful titles, and I don’t do much in the way of adjusting. Then I go through the process of exporting them all to small JPEG files and uploading them to wordpress.  Viola!  All pictures for the next 6 days ready to roll.

But, having packed for my blog, I now have to pack for me.  As someone whose job used to be described as a “road warrior” job, I have taken pride in my ability to pack light and quickly.  Part of the joy of traveling for me has come from my ability to minimize the difficulty of packing and hauling crap from one place to another.  Unfortunately, this nomad thing seems to complicate my traveling requirements significantly.

First, there is the fact that we drive most places.  Having a mini-van (or even just a small car) invites me to consider everything I might possibly want to have with me vs looking at what I can fit into one small carry-on and a small backpack.  Second, I feel compelled to take my camera bag at least.  Since I have yet to shoot while on a trip back to Columbus, I talk myself into leaving my heaviest lens and tripod at home as a compromise.  Third, I plan to workout with the group in Columbus, which means I need a workout bag so I can take the stuff I need to get ready for work at the gym.  Fourth, my IT needs have to be met for both home and work, meaning two laptops, an iPad, iPhone, Verizon MiFi, and all the associated power supplies.

I look at my laptop bag, laptop backpack, camera bag, and workout bag piled on the floor and shake my head.  It looks like I’m moving.  Then, I realize I haven’t actually packed any clothes yet.

I am stumped.  What clothes do I need for this trip?  The office clothes are easy enough.  But I have to check the weather forecast to decide what else to bring.  Now I’m in a panic because it’s 11PM, I’m still packing and we’re planning to get an early start in the morning.

I start the behavior that always results in poor packing; I call it “throwing in.”  This is when you stop thinking about what you’re going to wear each day and start just throwing in whatever you see on the basis of “Oh, I might wear this.”  This is how I end up places with 5 shirts that don’t go with a single pair of pants I’ve packed or with 15 pairs of socks and no underwear.

I try to stop myself.  I pull out half of what I’ve thrown in, making sure what’s left will work together, and counting underwear.  Somehow I still end up with a bag so full I have to unzip the expansion zipper to accommodate the bulk.  I set my bag aside and start getting ready for bed.

As I get ready for bed, I keep thinking of things I’ve forgotten to pack–a headband, deodorant, lotion, a brush–basically a myriad of toiletries that I wish I didn’t think I needed, but that I really miss when I go without.  I gather up what I won’t need in the morning and stuff it into my suitcase.  Oh!  My travel makeup kit–I’d forgotten about putting on makeup.

Convinced that I have more than enough stuff to make it through the days in Columbus, I call it a night, setting the alarm for 5:00AM.  But I lay awake in bed for a while, wondering how I could simplify this process and un-clutter my life.  After all, isn’t that one of our biggest goals?  I ponder the “throwing in” response and why the thought of not having one little convenience creates panic.  It’s a little hard to simplify without giving up something.  My last thoughts as I drift off to sleep are about throwing out.

Back in Chattown

Posted by dkrashb on

Having spent the night just outside of Lexington in a semi-frightening hotel, I am doubly surprised when the alarm jerks me out of a sound sleep.  First there is the expected surprise (sort of paradoxical, isn’t it?) of the alarm itself, but then I am also surprised to realize that I have slept through the night undisturbed.  I hop out of bed and get myself ready to roll quickly.  We have a 3 hour drive to home, today is a work day, and I have an important conference call this morning.  Fortunately, I was able to finish the presentation material last night and send it out for a quick review.  I check my mail to see if I have any responses.  Only one with no suggested changes.

We forgo the free breakfast that comes with the room (probably just cereal and bananas anyway) since it’s still a half an hour before the service starts.  We get in the car with me setting up to work from the car while Pat drives.  It’s early enough that nothing much urgent is happening and my cellular MiFi is getting sketchy reception as we get into the hills.  Deciding I’m as caught up as I’m going to get this morning, I put the work away and watch the sunrise over the mountains as we make our way from Kentucky to Tennessee.  It’s a gorgeous morning.

Pat starts nodding off at the wheel, so we stop for a break and to grab something to eat.  Then, we switch drivers.  I drive us the final stretch into Chattanooga.  It’s the first time I’ve been the one behind the wheel as we returned to our now hometown.  It’s only the 2nd time I’ve driven in Chattanooga since our move.  I get to experience some of the oddly banked curves of 27 as we round the city and cross the river to our exit.  I manage to drive us safely to our parking lot, but with the stop we made, it’s almost 9AM.  I grab all of my work related items and dash upstairs to get back online.

When I get online, nothing has happened.  My boss hasn’t sent me any comments on the slide deck.  No one in Australia responded to the replies I sent early this morning (already past their office hours).  I’ve still heard nothing from Singapore, Hong Kong, or China on any of the things I’m working on there.  And no one in any other part of the world sent me an email between 7:30AM and 9AM.  That hour and a half that I wasn’t able to check emails really wasn’t so critical after all.  I’m glad that I relieved Pat of driving rather than insisting I needed to be working.

During the day, fortunately during a break between conference calls (and after my most important call of the day was over), squealing tires and a big crash attract my attention.  Two cars have collided in the intersection below our balcony.  Since my camera is already set up, I indulge in a few quick shots from the window and then return to work.  I count the number of sirens required for this accident.  Both drivers are alone and both walk away with no apparent injuries, yet 3 fire trucks, 1 ambulance, and 6 police cars all come screaming to the scene.  This helps explain the ridiculous number of sirens that go by every day!  When I next look out the window, they are loading up one of the cars on a flatbed tow truck and sweeping the debris out of the street.  I get a few more quick shots and then forget all about the accident.

That evening, the sunset reminds me why I tolerate the sirens during the day for our view.  I talk Pat into going up on the roof with me so I can get a better shot of the sunset since there’s a building between us and the horizon to the West.  I watch the sun go down with deep breaths.  I slow down all of the anxiety-produced nervousness.  I settle into myself as I watch the sun settle into the landscape.

I think this is why I love to shoot–it creates stillness.  It stops the motion of time and pauses in a single moment.  While a photo stays in that moment forever, the photographer moves on to the next moment and repeats the process.  Between shots, I watch with an open mind and wide eyes.  I am eager to see what next will present itself.  All my senses feel alive and alert as I decide, “Is this the moment to shoot?  Is this?”  This is especially true during a sunset when I might shoot a hundred pictures of virtually the same thing–I watch for minute changes that make the scene worth shooting again.

Today, I am also working on some skills.  As much as I enjoy shooting, I am rarely really pleased with the end results.  Today I am practicing using a tripod and a remote shutter release in the hope of improving the sharpness of my images.  While I’m at it, I play with long exposures and car lights, which is always fun.  I also always try to improve composition.  Unfortunately, I’m finding the use of the tripod is making composition much more difficult.  In addition, my viewpoint makes getting the elements I want in the photo difficult to arrange around the rule-of-thirds.

Although I work on each of these things and take them into consideration as I set up for each shot, it is without anxiety.  After all, this is a low-risk activity.  If I don’t like the picture, I delete it.  Instead, I work with the tripod to figure out how to best position the camera for the composition I want.  I don’t worry so much about the rule-of-thirds for tonight.  I breathe into the sunset and push the button on my remote.  I feel calmness, serenity, and perhaps a little awe as I watch the light disappear.  This is why I shoot.

Embracing My Inner Jerk

Posted by dkrashb on

After feeling like I’d walked into an abandoned office building following some massive nuclear holocaust or something yesterday, I’d thought about just working from my friend’s house today.  However, I do have a couple of face-to-face meetings scheduled, plus I have a lunch date that is closer to the office and closer to Pat’s daytime destination.  So, I have Pat drop me at the office again.  Now this is a bit of a sore subject.  I was supposed to have the car today so that I could get to my lunch date and a doctor’s appointment at the end of the day without having to worry about Pat driving back and forth to cart me around.  However, Pat did not come up with a plan that would allow him to get from my office to the workshop where he’s working today without a car.  So, I’m a little irritated that I am the one who is always stuck asking for rides.

But now, I get to the gym and am a little more cheerful.  I get to walk outside during the sunrise, something that always makes my morning, and then laugh a lot with the guys I workout with.  By the time I’m on my way up to my office, I have forgotten about not having a car.  When I get to my floor, there are actually people there!  Not a lot, but at least a handful in each quadrant of the floor.  I say hello at least 3x on the way to my office and even stop to chat for a minute with 1 person.  It’s a banner day!

When lunch comes, Pat picks me up and drops me at the restaurant where I’m meeting my friend.  My friend has a tight schedule, so I get there early and order for both of us so that she arrives about the same time the food comes out.  This works well–we’re not as anxious about getting our food and eating it fast enough to get her back in time for her next appointment so we can talk more leisurely.  Fortunately for me, she doesn’t need her car the rest of the afternoon, so I’m able to make arrangements to drop her at her office and take her car back to my office when we’re done.  Then, I drive back to her office after work, where Pat will pick me up.  That saves Pat from one round-trip at least.  But, I feel bad having to borrow someone’s car.  Especially since I get caught up in a crisis at the end of the day at work that prevents me from leaving the office until later than I needed to leave.  As a result, I don’t have time to put gas in her car before returning it.  I console myself that the needle hasn’t moved and that I’ve only driven about a 1/2 a gallon’s worth, but I still feel bad.

When Pat picks me up later, I am running late from my appointment, having gotten there late.  We are leaving to return to Chattanooga straight from the office, but now we will get a late start.  Plus, I have a couple things I need to drop off to someone in Grandview, so we have to take a slightly indirect route out of town.  We make the drop and then decide to get dinner before getting on the road.  We stop at Donatos and order subs to go.  However, they’re very busy and there’s a long wait for the food.  Since I’m still trying to wrap up the work situation, I go out to the car and get online for a while.  I get a start on the slides I need for a meeting tomorrow and then I decide to change into more comfortable attire.

Since we have a van with tinted windows, I’m able to do this without anyone noticing by sitting on the floor in the back.  Taking off my work shoes feels so good!  I think my feet are growing now that they’ve been set free in hiking sandals most days–shoving them back into heels feels like foot binding.  Now, taking off my heels has the opposite effect–my feet feel like they are exploding into their preferred size like compressed sponges dipped in water.

We finally get our food and head down the road.  Pat is tired, so I will drive the first stretch.  It’s after 7:00PM.  We accept that we will not make it home tonight. As I merge onto the highway, I’m stuck behind a slower vehicle in front of me.  There is a young guy in an SUV behind me who starts to get over and block me in.  This is one of my pet peeves.  I can understand that we all have moments when we lose patience, but if you’re going to block someone in, make it the person who’s causing the problem, not the innocent victim behind them.  I can’t say I snap.  I really feel totally calm about it.  I just don’t feel like being blocked in.  So, I move over in front of him.  Yes, he has to either swerve or slow down to avoid hitting me.  Yes, it’s a risky move on my part.  But, I just don’t feel up to taking any crap from this guy.

Then, a second merge approaches.  There we are, dejavu all over again.  And what do I do?  You guessed it, I cut him off again.  Only this time, he’s not content to just back off (accompanied by his horn and hand gestures).  Instead, he swerves into the shoulder and continues driving too close to me, holding down his horn.  Now this is what we call an “escalating situation.”

That is the problem with being a jerk–you trigger competitive jerkiness in others which turns into a game of chicken as to which one of you is going to back down first.  The problem is that once you’ve committed yourself to being a jerk, it’s hard to back down.  Fortunately for everyone on the road tonight, I take a deep breath and recognize that I’ve pushed too far and it’s time to back down.  Unfortunately for everyone on the road tonight, he is less forgiving.  He starts cutting in and out of traffic so that he can get in front of me and slam on his brakes.  I take another deep breath and let it go.  I remind myself that he probably doesn’t even know why I cut him off and thinks I’m the only jerk in this scenario.

As luck would have it, he continues out of town along with us.  I laugh to myself thinking, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if it turns out he’s our next door neighbor?”  He periodically appears in my rearview mirror gesturing at me and then next to me and then in front of me, still angry.  But, as the traffic makes such maneuvers more difficult, he either calms down or gives up.  Thankfully, he disappears near Grove City (aka, “Grove’tucky), which explains it all.  I make a mental note to not cut people off just because I think they’re rude in the future–I admit, it’s not the first time I’ve made this mental note.  At least it kept me wide awake for the first part of my drive.

We cross our fingers as we approach Cincinnati–tonight is not the night to have an hour delay trying to get out of Ohio.  Traffic flows smoothly into town and slows only briefly on the other side of the river as we get into highway construction.  I am starting to nod.  It’s only about 9:30PM, but I’m so mesmerized by the rhythm of the road that I can barely keep my eyes open.  We find a place to pull off to get gas, use the restroom, and switch drivers.  Now I am wide awake again, which is a good thing because I need to finish some slides for a call tomorrow morning.  I work on the deck for the next 2 hours while Pat drives.

Pat gets us to Lexington, KY, but then we are done.  It’s close enough to Chattanooga that we’ll make it back tomorrow morning, so we look for a motel.  However, Pat has stuff in the van that makes him want to stay in a motel where we can park outside the window.  Usually, the choices are limited and these types of motels are not so nice.  The one we find tonight is no exception.  But, we see no signs of bed bugs, so we throw down and tuck in for the night after setting the alarm for an early rise.

The Deserted Office, Desserts, and Death

Posted by dkrashb on

Today is Wednesday.  No workout this morning.  No face-to-face meetings scheduled.  But my calendar is full of conference calls.  When Pat drops me off at the office, I go upstairs to discover an empty floor.  Those who were there the day before are all either off, working from home, or traveling today.  There is no one to say hello to, no one to catch up with, not even anyone to ignore.  I find this oddly distracting.  Given that I even have calls through lunch, I find myself wondering why I bothered to come in at all.  I do not rate a window office, so I sit in my empty office with no view and miss my home office with a fantastic view.

An interesting thing I have learned about myself in the age of ADD:  I need low-level distractions in order to focus.  It’s as if I need to give the “Squirrel!” part of my brain something to do so that it stops nagging at the rest of my brain when I’m trying to concentrate.  Background noise at the office helps.  Just knowing there are people outside my door helps.  When I work at home, I have an easier time remaining focused on an intense task when my husband is home doing something on his own than if I’m home alone.  I’ve found that listening to music helps in the absence of other distractions, but that’s not possible when on conference calls.  Within an hour, I am coming out of my skin.

I don’t know what exactly it is that I experience when there is not enough going on at once–is it anxiety, boredom, hyper-activeness?  I’m not sure.  All I know is that I begin to work on one thing, I think of something else and open that, then I think of something else and open that.  All while I’m on a conference call.  Before I know it, I have about 40 documents open, 8 instant message conversations going, I’m halfway through answering 9 emails, and I’m in a complete state of confusion as to whether I’ve actually accomplished anything or not.

Complicating this state of task-hopping (let’s face it, there’s no such thing as multi-tasking) is the memory factor.  Another thing I’ve learned about the scattered mind combined with a faulty memory is: when I start to do something, it often creates a memory of having done it.  Whatever the function is in my brain that checks of to-do items, starting a task can trigger that little check.  Once the item is mentally checked, I forget all about it.  So, the more task-hopping I do, the more items I’m at risk of believing I’ve completed when in fact, they are only partially done.  To combat this, before I close things, I carefully look at each window I’ve opened, figure out why I’ve opened it, and then determine if that item is complete or not.  When I have a day like today with back-to-back conference calls where I’m able to just listen for my name during the first one (giving me the opportunity to open a lot), but the rest of them I have to listen and participate (preventing me from finishing anything I opened during the first call), I will often get to the end of the day and not have time to do a graceful shutdown, so-to-speak.  Then, I put my laptop to sleep and hope it will wake up later and that I will remember where I was with all the stuff that’s still open.  Of course, the more stuff I leave open, the more likely my laptop will hang and require a reboot, which essentially reboots my memory right along with the laptop.

It’s the end of the day, we have dinner plans with friends we haven’t seen in two months, and, as predicted, I have too many things open and must put my laptop to sleep and clean up later.  Given that our friends are expecting a baby in about 2 weeks, I imagine we will not be out late and I will have time for this tonight.  But, I hate going to dinner with things hanging unfinished both on my laptop and in my mind.

After a day of isolation, getting together with friends is even more welcome.  Our friends include a little one who arrives in his mother’s arms half asleep.  I try to remember what it feels like to have to jerk yourself out of sleep, rouse yourself and be social.  He’s only 4–too young to have learned that skill set yet.  He wants to be held by his mother, tiny and nearly 9 months pregnant.  She holds him and I wonder how that’s possible.

Our small friend does come to life during dinner.  He makes it through his meal with the promise of ice cream dancing in his head.  There is a Graeter’s next door.  Even though we still have Graeter’s in the freezer at our hosts’ house, I am just as excited about going next door after dinner as the 4-year old.

Outside, there is an event for a dog rescue.  One woman has a tiny Chihuahua on a leash.  He poops toothpaste-consistency yellow poop on the patio without his owner noticing.  I think back to our Mastiffs and how I used to tell my friends that with Mastiff poop, you worry more about tripping over it than stepping in it.  The Chihuahua’s poop is about 1/40th the size, just like the dog.

I watch as first one dog steps in the soft pile, then another.  I tell a volunteer and she gets out a bag, but before she can clean it up, the Chihuahua owner steps on it, completely covering the mess with her Ugg boot.  Amazingly, when she takes another step, it’s as if the entire pile has desinegrated and been absorbed into her sole and the patio pavers, leaving only discoloration behind.  The volunteer looks at me and says, “Was it her dog who pooped?” I answer in the affirmative and she winks and says, “Retribution!”

After enjoying a scoop of pumpkin pie ice cream, watching the dogs, and watching our small friend attempt to play “Cone Hole” (Graeter’s humor–an ice cream place’s name for “Corn Hole”), we say our good-byes and head on home.  It’s barely 8:00PM.

When we arrive at our hosts’ house, we eat some more ice cream and talk about the news of Steve Jobs’ death.  Oddly, I feel more likely to buy an iPhone 4S because Steve Jobs died.  There is no logic to this and I cannot explain it.  We ponder what the impact will be on Apple and whether they can continue his legacy when he was so heavily involved in the details.

I find myself wondering what his personal life was like, if he was happy, if the legacy of Apple was worth whatever he sacrificed.  I wonder what was most important to him and if he believed, in the end, that he lived his life according to his values and his priorities or if he struggled with regrets over the things he didn’t do.  Then, I begin to wonder if building something like Apple is more or less important or valuable than building a family or anything else that someone dedicates their life to.  But, this is too deep for contemplation right before bed, so I let the thought drift away as we say our goodnights and head upstairs.

Columbus, Again

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s Monday morning.  Pat drops me off at the office and I walk in feeling like I never left.  There are some differences.  First, the receptionist is not at the desk in the lobby of my building.  Instead, a sign sits on the desk with instructions for visitors.  I wonder where the receptionists went–they were all such helpful, friendly people who would even jump in to help with projects from time to time.  I hope they all found other jobs.

The next difference is the experience of walking into my office.  In reality, there is no difference from the last time I was here, but in my memory, I have returned to what my office looked like before I moved.  When I open the door and turn on the light, the desk is completely bare except my phone.  No headset, no monitor, no keyboard, no papers scattered around the desk.  Nothing hangs on the walls.  Even the whiteboards are wiped clean.  Now, I suddenly feel like a visitor.  The only remnants that show I once worked here are a few books that I no longer need and don’t want to take with me.

I look at the books for a moment and wonder what to do with them.  They are the kind of reference books that no longer make sense in a digital age–for example, a dictionary.  I can’t remember the last time I physically picked up a printed dictionary to look up a word.  With the Oxford English Dictionary available electronically, who would ever buy one in print?  But, I have a love of books that probably stems from having been read to a lot as a child.  I’ve never thrown a book away.  I’ve always found it a new home, although I suppose it’s new owner might have been less emotionally attached to its bindings and pages than I was and managed to dump it in the recycling bin–or even the trash.  No one wants out-of-date reference books.  Not even used book stores will take them at no charge.  The library is fussy about the donations it will accept.  And I am surrounded by marketing people who probably aren’t interested in the topics of my books anyway.  The recycling bin is not even an option here.  I decide to leave them where they are for now and return to getting my laptop setup and online.

After a busy morning, I manage to sneak out for lunch with a couple of my favorite colleagues.  I’m not sure if they are actually colleagues anymore or friends–we don’t actually work together on the same projects anymore, but we still all work for the same company.  I’m not sure what that makes us, but I enjoy catching up with them.  Although, they swap stories of their children going to homecoming dances, which freaks me out a bit since I always think of their children as being too young for High School.  I think we are actually having lunch more frequently now that I have moved to Chattanooga than we did before I left.  It’s an interesting phenomena that suddenly it’s a priority to make time for lunch because I am only here for a limited number of days.  This seems to affect them, too, as we have often had trouble finding a time on our calendars that works for us and have then ended up rescheduling more than once.  I suppose it’s the same phenomena that makes me want to go, do, see everything in the Chattanooga area while we’re there, but kept me from feeling motivated to try out Columbus in the same way.  The psychology of a limited resource, I guess.

Regardless of what makes it possible for us to get together for lunch, we have a good time.  Even in complaining about some of the struggles each of us has experienced in our jobs, we have a good time.  It’s interesting how different it is to complain to people who know what you’re talking about than it is to complain to someone who looks at you blankly and nods as you spew out an incomprehensible collection of acronyms and names that are meaningless to anyone outside work.  Plus, these are just really good people and I enjoy being around them even if we’re not saying much of anything.

The afternoon gets a bit crazy and before I know it, I’m getting pinged by another group of colleagues whom I’m meeting for happy hour.  Ordinarily none of us would schedule a happy hour on a Monday evening, but feeling bad that I blew them off the last trip up, I wanted to get a happy hour in and it’s the only day that will work for me.  I’m flattered that they all manage to drag themselves out on a Monday night.  None of us is actually ready to leave the office at the allotted time, but we do manage to get out the door within a half an hour of the planned departure.

We meet at Gallo’s on Bethel Road, which has a great collection of beers to choose from, but tends to be noisy.  Fortunately for us, it’s a slow night and relatively quiet–at least until we get there.  Between my colleagues and two former colleagues who join us, we laugh so hard that people stare.  We are ridiculous, I’m sure, like a group of juveniles finding everything hysterical and each piling onto any joke.  It’s like we’ve been on our best behavior for so long that we’re just running off at the mouth now that we’ve let our guard down.  Later, Pat arrives to pick me up.  We order food since it’s already late for dinner.  We all laugh and talk some more.  But, we call at an early evening and head out shortly after everyone is done eating.  As I walk out to the car, I am smiling to myself.  It’s been too long since I cut loose with a group of people that know enough about each other to create the kind of “group joke” that everyone participates in.

On the way home, I think about the fun side of work.  The interaction with the people I work with that allows us to build trust and really work well together.  It’s interesting that the people who I can joke and laugh with (even in more polite ways) are the people I work with the best.  I trust people who laugh at my jokes.  I wonder what it is about shared humor that creates this sense of kinship?  I also wonder if it’s an accurate measure–have I been betrayed by people who get my sense of humor less often than by those who don’t?  Hmm.  Now I’m curious, my avid reader(s):  What makes you trust people?  When you think of people who get your sense of humor, do you trust them all?  And have you found this to be a good barometer for whom to trust?

Seeing Eagles and Shooting Soccer

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s our second day visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew in Indianapolis.  We are at a lull in the day where each of us has found our own way to entertain ourselves.  I am working on photos.  Paul is doing something related to work.  Megan has gone for a run.  Scott is off somewhere.  We have a few hours before we will reconvene to go to the next soccer game.  Pat is the only one devoid of entertainment.  He wants to do something fun and he wants someone to do it with.

I ponder this for a while.  While Pat used to do things on his own quite often, they typically involved having a workshop and building something.  It’s not the kind of interest that you take with you when visiting others or even relocating temporarily.  His tools are being used by a friend instead of in storage, but they remain in Columbus.  It dawns on my why he wants to go back to Columbus so frequently.

In the meantime, my brother gets up and finds some sort of game for the two of them to go outside and play.  It looks like Jai Lai, which I would have never heard of except that we had a restaurant in Columbus when I was a child named “The Jai Lai,” so we all learned what it was.  Since Paul has taken care of entertaining Pat, I return to my photos.  Sorting through the shots from yesterdays soccer game is a challenge.  I actually had many decent shots (given that my goal was to shoot my nephew), but they mostly look the same.  I missed the crucial moment many, many times.  For example, when my nephew scored, I couldn’t get my lens turned fast enough and ended up with shots of the grass.  I have a new respect for sports photographers.  But now, I have hundreds of similar shots that really should be discarded because they are dull.

Pat suddenly returns to the room I’m working in all excited.  He tells me that he and Paul have seen an eagle diving into their neighbor’s yard and that I should come outside.  While I’m somewhat skeptical that they saw a Bald Eagle diving out of the sky in the middle of their suburban neighborhood, there have been eagles nesting by their neighborhood lake, so this is not as far fetched as it would have been even 5 years ago.  The only part that is at all surprising to me is that a Bald Eagle would choose to hunt rodents when there is a lake full of fish just a block away.  I make a mental note to google Bald Eagle eating habits later.

When I step outside, I am surprised by the bright sunshine.  While the weather was improving yesterday, it’s downright perfect now.  I suddenly regret that we didn’t decide to go for a short hike before the soccer game.  Instead, we walk the streets of my brother’s neighborhood looking for an eagle eating something.  We never spot that eagle.  Pat doesn’t take nearly as much interest in birds as I do, but he is interested in birds of prey.  So, when he tells me the bird they saw was much bigger than a Red-tailed Hawk, I tend to believe him.  But, now it’s getting close to time to leave, so we return to the house to get ready to go.

When we get to the soccer fields, I haul out my big lens again on it’s monopod.  As Pat and I settle in at the sidelines, a father sits next to us and says, “Are you with the Indianapolis Star?”  He points at my camera.  I assume that the Star is the local paper.  I laugh but before I can say anything, Pat jokes that we’re from the Chattanoogan some-name-he-made-up and that this game is getting big coverage.  The guy laughs mightily at that–this is a co-ed recreational soccer league–and says, oh, yeah, big, big game!

As I practice zeroing in on my nephew as he plays goalie (making my job much easier) the first half of the game, I periodically pause and look around.  It’s an interesting shift when I am thinking only about shooting a subject and I’m looking through a telephoto at that subject, and then I suddenly look outside the lens and allow the full scene to enter my consciousness.  It’s a good analogy for tunnel vision, I guess, which is, of course, an analogy for narrow thinking.

I think about one of my least favorite corporate expressions that’s being overused these days:  “Laser Focused.”  Remaining “laser focused” allows me to shoot my nephew without getting distracted by the pretty leaves across the field, the crooked lines drawn on the field, or even the ball.  But failing to look around causes me to miss all of those things, including who’s actually winning the game.  I experiment with looking for other things to shoot when the ball is at the other end of the field.  This creates an interesting tension between keeping an eye on the ball so that I know when my nephew is likely to be back in action and peering down that telephoto lens at some other subject, when I’m most likely to miss what’s going on in the game.

Then, Pat points out a big bird circling over the woods across the field.  I had seen it and dismissed it as a vulture because of its size.  Now, as I look again, I realize that it is not a vulture, but I can’t tell what it is.  It’s too far away and I don’t have my binoculars with me.  We watch it circling and then it suddenly tucks it’s wings into a shape you would expect to see on a military fighter plane and dives towards the earth at break-neck speed.  Pat sees a white head and is convinced we’ve seen another Bald Eagle.  I’m less convinced.  I didn’t see a white head (although it could have been a juvenile) and I’m still not confident that eagles commonly hunt on land.  I make a second note to google eagle eating habits.  However, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a hawk that big or one that dove like that.

I hope that it was a Bald Eagle.  I remember the first time I saw one in the wild.  It was 1992 and I was on a trip to the East coast of Maine.  At that time, I’m not sure if there were any places closer to Columbus, OH where you could see a Bald Eagle in the wild than the East Coast of Maine?  DDT destroyed the population.  It’s unbelievable to me that I was able to drive 15 minutes from our home in Columbus to a metro park to watch a nesting pair of Bald Eagles for the past two years and that my brother has a pair nesting in his neighborhood.  It’s one of those stories of hope that makes me think it’s possible to correct the damage that we’ve done and restore some sort of balance to the ecosystems we depend on.

But returning to the game, I get to practice panning (a lot) when my nephew plays defense in the second half.  Turns out, panning it pretty difficult when you’re following a subject that is unpredictable.  I also get to use an autofocus setting that I don’t use often–it keeps refocusing as your subject moves.  It’s a little tricky to get used to, but a couple of my shots come out reasonably clear (out of about 100).  I definitely need more practice!  It’s funny that I’ve been trying to learn this hobby for about 7 years now, but I’ve been so sporadic that it’s like I have to start over each bout of shooting–I even have to get the manual for my camera out and relearn what’s what periodically.  Oh well, at least it’s a hobby that’s likely to last a lifetime.

After watching my nephew’s team win their second game of the end-of-the-season tournament, we all head home.  We pack up the van and we take two cars to dinner.  We eat at an Indian restaurant that’s on the way out of town for us and not far for everyone else.  Pat and I will drive to Columbus straight from dinner.  I am dubious about eating Indian–I like Indian, but it doesn’t always like me–but I order something mild.  As we say our goodbyes, I am suddenly sorry to be leaving.  For a moment, I ponder what it would be like to have a close-knit family that lives within a couple blocks of one another and walks in and out on a daily basis.  Then, we get into the van and go on our way.

Getting Older

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I have spent 6 days back in Chattanooga.  Pat spent 2.  He returned from his trip up to Columbus Thursday night and had one day in town.  Today, we will drive to Indianapolis.  My nephew is turning 18 on Tuesday.  We will spend the weekend there and then go on to Columbus Sunday night where I will work and visit as many friends as possible.

It’s funny how other people’s children become a measure of time for me.  Even my own nephews, whose birthdays I keep track of, progress through time at a rate that constantly shocks me.  Their birthdays somehow shifted from being a fun opportunity to delight and surprise a child to a reminder that I’m aging.  I’m not sure if this is more because of the delusion I suffer from that I am not actually getting older or if it’s because they stopped getting so excited about their birthdays when they entered the realm of double-digit birthdays.  Whatever the cause, it surprises me to realize that their birthdays have ended up being about me.

We load up in the car and head out.  We have a ton of gear for this trip.  We pack more for this road trip than we packed for two weeks in Germany.  But, I am taking a slew of electronics and work clothes as well as play clothes.  And, to the fill the suitcase even more, the temperature in Columbus is in the 50’s and it’s raining.  Funny how much more space sweaters occupy than T-shirts.

The drive to Indy is about 35 miles shorter than the drive to Columbus, so we are actually only adding about 150 miles to a trip to Columbus by going to Indy first.  We head up through Nashville and Louisville to get there.  As we approach Louisville, we decide to stop to get something to eat.  I find a restaurant that doesn’t sound like a chain and we pull off the freeway.  Unfortunately, there is a massive street fair going on at the stop we choose.  Traffic is backed up and there is no where to park.  We can’t get to the restaurant we’d selected and we decide to head on back to the highway just to get out of the congestion.

On the way back to the highway, we pass our second-choice restaurant, a fish fry place.  It has ample parking, so we pull in, get out, and walk in.  The place is tiny.  There are 2 ice cream parlor tables sitting just inside the door that block part of the area available to stand in line at the counter.  About 8 people can fit inside the door standing in line if they like each other.  There are 4 ahead of us now.  To the left, there is an old TV mounted up near the ceiling, pictures all over the walls that make me think of an older person’s living room, and 3 tables with 2 small chairs each.  One table is open, so we stand in line.

When it’s our turn to order, we ask if they have restrooms since this was an ulterior motive for stopping.  They have none.  This shocks us–in Ohio, it’s not legal to have a restaurant with sit down tables and no bathroom.  Pat pleads, telling the woman that we’ve been driving for hours and had no idea the street fair was going on.  But she is afraid of setting a precedent with so many people from the street fair stopping in looking for a restroom.  I contemplate suggesting that if she make the restroom available to customers only, she might sell more food, but decide that she is firm about the bathroom and that it’s not worth the argument.  Since we are both able to wait, we decide to go ahead and eat while we’re here and find a restroom after.

The food is probably fantastic if it’s something you were raised on.  For us, it’s just greasy and flavorless.  There is no good reason for having stopped here at all; the only result is that our bellies are full, we feel slightly sick, we still have to pee, and our arteries are probably more clogged.  Oh well.  We head on down the road and stop at the first rest stop.

When we arrive in Indy, our first order of business is to attend a soccer game.  My nephew plays in a recreational league and my brother coaches his team.  We all head out to the soccer fields together, me with my camera, big lens, and monopod in the hope of getting some good action shots.  I’m not really that much of a fan of shooting sporting events in general, but when it’s one of my nephews, I take a sudden interest.  I guess it’s pretty obvious that I’m not a sports photographer when you look at my shots–they’re all of my nephew rather than following the ball.  I get some practice panning and play with various shutter speeds to see what kinds of effects I get, and, my brother’s/nephew’s team wins, so it’s good all the way around.

That night, we decide to walk to the Mellow Mushroom for dinner.  It’s too cold to sit outside, so we pile into a large booth.  Pat and I decide to share a pizza, but the pizza doesn’t come and doesn’t come.  Finally, the waitress brings our pizza about the time everyone else is almost finished with their dinners.  She apologizes and explains that another server took our pizza for their table, which caused the delay.  We are famished by this time.  We eat our pizza loaded with greasy cheese and greasy pepperoni with a relish that belies the amount of “greasy” we’ve already had today.  I end up ordering a beer to wash it down.  I was trying not to because my brother is buying and I don’t want to run up his tab, but I learn that Pat and Paul bought Corona and that Mello Mushroom has Oberon on tap.  So, not looking forward to Corona, I order an Oberon to enjoy with my pizza.

When we return home, we celebrate with “homemade” chocolate cake and ice cream.  In a rare demonstration of  . . . not sure what . . . Scott practices waltzing with his mother around the kitchen.  Maybe all the sugar in the cake and ice cream got to him?  After dancing enough to demonstrate the waltz to the rest of us, we all retire downstairs to watch “The Event.”  I fall asleep about 10 minutes in and we all go off to bed after the episode is over.

Tour to Karlsruhe

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This is our last morning to eat breakfast at the wellness hotel. But when we all convene in the lobby at 8AM, we discover that the restaurant is already full of people. This surprises us because, all week, we’ve been operating on the belief that the restaurant doesn’t open until 8AM. Since we have a reserved table, it’s not a concern. We walk to our table and discover that there are 3 people sitting at it in spite of the neat little sign with Dieter’s last name on it identifying the table as reserved. As a non-morning person, I am thrown into a mental spin that prevents me from coming to any conclusion as to what to do. It seems like such a trivial problem, yet there is no where else to sit. Fortunately, the Germans take over and find the server who sets up the table we sat at the night before and gets us all back on course again. Ironically, by the time the new table is set, the people at our table have already gone.

This morning, the conversation is all about our plan for the day. We are riding to Karlsruhe with Dieter, Gisela, and Pat’s parents. Pat spent the early years of his life in a village just outside Karlsruhe. We will stay two nights in a hotel there, allowing time to get together with Pat’s aunts, uncles, and cousin who sill live in the area. Pat’s parents have reserved a room for us at the same hotel they’ve been staying at, which is in walking distance of several friends and relatives.

After the others come to a conclusion in German about our itinerary for the day, Dieter summarizes for me and Jim in English: We will take the scenic route to the Bodensee. We will stop in 3-4 villages along the way and have lunch in one of them. We will then take the scenic route to Karlsruhe through the Black Forest, stopping in another village there. We will arrive at our hotel around 5PM. After checking in and freshening up, we will walk over to Dieter and Gisela’s for sandwiches. We have a plan.

The scenic route to the Bodensee provides lots of view of the Alps, many of which are covered in snow at the top even though it is still quite early. Fortunately for us, today promises to be a bright and sunny day with warmer temperatures–a welcome change from the cold and rainy weather we’ve had since Berlin.

Our first stop is Lindau. We find a parking place immediately, but it is on the far side of the bridge to a small island we want to visit. With the weather being so nice, the extra walk is welcome and we make our way across the bridge into the main town area, and down to the shore. On the way across the bridge, I spot a duck with 3 young following closely behind. They are diving ducks. For a while, I try to get a shot, but they keep disappearing under the water as soon as I set my lens on them. Since half of our group has continued walking and is now getting quite far ahead, I am forced to give up on shooting wildlife. Given that I left my telephoto in the car, it is just as well.

We make a quick pass around the outskirts of the island, walking along the shore at the docks, pausing to look at the view and take a few quick shots. Then, we head back towards the car with only one quick stop for postcards. Dieter is nervous about the time and looks at his watch frequently. I imagine he feels pressure to try to get all of our planned stops into the allocated time for our trip without being late getting us home.

Our next stop is Meersburg. Here, the parking situation is worse. We spend a good 15 minutes circling around looking for a place. Finally, we make a wider circle and find a spot that is several blocks further away. We walk down steep cobblestone streets to enter the village. The tudor style buildings lining the streets look like they might have been constructed about the same time the earth was formed, although they are well maintained and in perfect condition. Everything about this village seems like it must be historically significant somehow in that each building seems so well cared for that it must be an heirloom.

We find a cafe with outdoor seating facing the lake. Almost all of us order one preparation of Bodensee fish or another. I am pleased with my fish, although I honestly can’t say that it’s significantly better than any other well-prepared mild, white fish I’ve ever had. It is tasty, though. I am amazed by the plain, boiled potatoes. I didn’t know that it was possible for plain, boiled potatoes to have so much flavor!

As we eat, we watch a group of young swans, still in gray down, gliding towards us on the water. When they are close to the docks, they start tipping over with their heads down, eating off the bottom of the water. Their size makes them look far funnier than any duck I’ve seen doing this. I don’t know if this is normal behavior for swans of if these were raised by ducks like the Ugly Duckling.

We are now far behind schedule. We stop only one more time along the Bodensee, skipping over at least one planned village. When we do stop, we do a brisk walk through the town and then head back to the car. Now we must skip stopping in the Black Forest as well–it is getting quite late. However, we still take the scenic route and the beautiful views of ancient villages tucked among the trees keep us entertained.

After a brief stop at the hotel to check in and get cleaned up, we meet up with Pat’s parents and then walk over to Dieter and Gisela’s house for dinner. It’s a relatively short walk, but it feels good to get out and stretch our legs after spending so much time in the car. When we get to Dieter and Gisela’s, Gisela has waved a magic wand and produced a massive spread of meats, bread, and accompaniments for sandwiches. Pat calls her Martha Stewart and I concur. I want to try everything. The Black Forest ham is particularly special. I haven’t had any on this trip, not even when we were in the black forest for 4 days.

After gorging on good German meats and sharing a bottle of Riesling, we thank our hosts one last time before walking home. The temperature has dropped and we walk as quickly as our full stomachs will allow. When we get back to the hotel, we walk through a lobby full of business people chatting one another up. We seem to be the only tourist at this hotel–it shares a parking lot with a large Siemens location.

The room lacks certain amenities (like coffee in the room), but it’s clean and comfortable and we are soon sound asleep.