Coal Train Passing

I am an anti-coal-train lady. Bellingham is one of the places on the west coast where developers want to build a huge terminal for shipping coal to China. Personally I think this is a very bad idea for a number of reasons. First of all, coal is a very dirty fuel brought out of the earth through the suffering of the men who mine it. Yes, I know it is also their livelihood. But at what cost? And sending it to China to be burned and have the pollution come streaming across the wind right back to us in Bellingham. Nope. Not interested in having our very clean air messed with thank you. And then there is the dust that falls from the trains as they pass and that accumulates in the area where the terminal is. The Lummi Indians who fish there have already made a formal complaint to the Army Corps of Engineers about how that terminal will damage their tribal fishing grounds. And then there is the news that China is cutting back on its use of coal (thank Heavens) so how viable would this huge terminal really be anyhow? So I am an anti-coal-train lady and not ashamed to admit it.

This is the disappearing end of a long coal train moving north through Bellingham. We already have them. I think they are heading up to Vancouver. We'll have a whole lot more of them if the terminal is built. I was at the end of a trip to various places doing errands. As I headed home I saw this sky so I took a side trip. I thought they were moving a big ship that has been in Bellingham a long time so I waited there for awhile. But it seemed not. As I was heading home from that stop I found myself in a triangle of land with a road and train tracks on either end of it. So I waited and got my cloud photo after all, with a train in it to be the subject of my story today. 

As you might guess, each day I'm feeling a bit better. Today I feel really close to being human. And I actually have a voice that sounds just a bit like the real me. This cold was a doozy but is getting better at last. What a relief.