Naturally Optimistic

This weekend went too fast, as usual, but what can ya do... On Friday I found out that not only does Dahlia have a cold, but she also has an ear infection in both ears! Ugh! She's now on her first dose of antibiotics. Hmph. I think she's starting to feel better, although yesterday she was CRABBY. So.....who knows. Hopefully it'll continue to get better. We went for a hike in Hartley which was nice. I hadn't hiked that section of the Superior Hiking Trail for quite a while! Saturday we biked down to watch the marathoners come in. It takes about 5 minutes for us to get to London Road where we watched most of the half-marathoners come in, the wheelchairs and the elite runners. It was HOT out. I felt really bad for those runners. It hasn't been hot here YET and that was the day. They considered canceling the race because of the temps & humidity...but they temps leveled off and the humidity dropped. The half-marathoners took the brunt of it. It was cool to see the el...

On my way from visiting the world's cutest niece & nephews to my father-in-law's cabin yesterday, a lovely 3-hour-drive on mostly 2 lane highways, my right rear tire blew out! Well, more like cracked and disintegrated...which was unnerving enough. I had recently (within an hour) put air in the tire (to the correct PSI) and was taking it easy just to make sure when suddenly the car pulled to the right and I thought, Hmmmm, that doesn't feel right. I better check that tire. I pulled over on the shoulder (luckily I was on a 4 lane divided highway at this point somewhere in Wisconsin) and sure enough - my tire was smoking & crumbling (!) right there on the roadside. I called Steve who was at the cabin already and barely had a signal and told him what happened. While on the phone a mini-van pulled up behind me with a family in it. They had seen my tire go, gone past me, turned around and returned to help me! The mom & daughter helped me unload my car (filled with a b...