A 36º Sunrise

7:42

7:43

7:56

 It's 7:30 and I have been up for over an hour, listening to Only A Game.  Lots of light off to the southeast, as the sun begins to light the early morning darkness.  We should have a dry day after three or four days of rain, good for getting our yard in shape, leaves mulched before our road trip.  I was just thinking I had not yet heard a duck hunter but, alas, shotgun blasts just filled the sky.  I assume the hunters are hidden among the reeds, where I like to kayak each morning looking for birds.  Well, I have just been out kayaking in 36º and both my hands and feet are frozen.  Still, it was great to be on the lake, avoiding the duck hunters in the reeds, looking for a solitary heron.  Unforunately, he flew away before I even saw him.

Kayak Morning

Yesterday was another mostly gray day until late, late afternoon.  Neither one of us stirred from the house, other than getting outside for a walk or a paddle.  We thought about it but put it aside, knowing we had things to do getting the house and ourselves ready for our trip.  Despite our having over an inch of rain on Thursday night, I went for my morning constitutional, a walk through the Victoria/Woodlawn woods.  The colors and beauty of the woods surprised me as I had thought the colors of fall were gone.  It takes me about 30 minutes if I take my time and is a good way to start my morning. 

A Path Through Victoria

A Creek Runs Through It

When I got home,  we worked on what to pack for our trip, a difficult decision, because the weather will vary from the 80's most likely in Florida to the 20's in Kansas City and our way home.  We know that both of us overpack so we are working hard to take just what we need.  And we go through this agony every time we hit the road.  I had another bowl of soup for lunch with a slice of bread and parmesan cheese and watched something on the tube but I don't remember what, perhaps the first half hour of a movie with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez.  I had seen it before so I did not mind not sticking with it.

Our afternoon was spent doing little, then something, then nothing again, reading or watching TV or taking a nap.  Finally, we got sick of it and I went out to kayak and Evie decided to make some oatmeal raisin cookies for our trip.  My paddle was a mistake because of the winds and waves which threatened to soak me at times and I had to struggle to paddle home against the wind.  At least I had freshly baked cookies when I came home and I made a pot of Turkish tea as well, a swell way to end the afternoon. 

5:30 PM

Moon Rise

Around 5:30 when we were having our wine, the sky started to clear up and get some color so we found ourselves taking more photos because of the contrast we the previous days of gray.  And at 6:38 precisely, because I looked, the full moon rose over Long Point, shocking us with its size and brightness.  Where did it come from so quickly?  Clearly, we had not seen it or the sun in three or four days. 

 Beautiful Moonrise

 We had dinner at 7:00, chicken enchiladas and a great salad and watched a film we had been putting off but had wanted to see called ALL THE WAY.  It's an HBO film of LBJ's life from the death of JFK to his reelection in 1964.  It stars Brian Cranston as LBJ and he is amazing as we forgot that he was acting, his mannerisms and face were so LBJ-like.  It was a realistic look at the cantankerous, power hungry, and complicated President whose greatness, despite Vietnam, creating the Great Society, the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, and Medicaid. 

By the way, I just read that LBJ first used the words 'Great Society in a speech'  on May 7th, 1964 at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio when I was a junior. To quote him:

"And with your courage and with your compassion and your desire, we will build a Great Society. It is a society where no child will go unfed, and no youngster will go unschooled."

I remember his visit well.  Amazing what he had to do to accomplish all this as the country was polarized between those who sided with civil rights for African Americans and those who wanted things to stay the same.  It cost the Democratic Party the South but was the right thing to do.