Things that will always remind me of our honeymoon in the U.S. West Coast:
- freshly-baked cheddar-crusted bagels from Safeway
- satellite radio (I still find myself glancing at the car stereo for track info sometimes)
- scrambled eggs, which I had all the time because I don't know of any other way to request eggs!
- Diet Mountain Dew and Root Beer in enormous bottles (2-3 litres) that fit just perfectly into our rental car's cup holder (as does a ball of yarn, btw)
- Baby Ruth chocolate bars, the closest thing to an Australian Picnic bar I've come in a long time
- Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" which came out while we were travelling
- Green apple flavoured Tic Tacs
- Adult Swim, the only TV station we watched on our trip. After 8 hours of driving, we sometimes just sat in the motel room and watched it in morbid fascination.
- At a Target in Santa Rosa I was informed that I was not allowed to buy a bottle of wine since I did not possess an American passport. Seriously. Asking to speak to the manager took care of that very quickly though...
- At Old Navy in San Francisco (of all places) the person serving me insisted on getting my husband to sign for my credit card purchase. I told her it was my card, but she kept asking for my husband (standing a few metres behind me) to step up and sign for it. I had to be very stern about it being my card before she "let it go".
- I was and continue to be freaked out by the fact that some places require no PIN code or signature to use a card, you just swipe it through and you're done. O_o
My favourite things were hanging onto the San Francisco cable car while going up the steep hills (a roller-coaster for adults) and snorkelling with tropical fish in Hanauma Bay in Hawai'i. I don't look back fondly on getting bitten by a parrot fish in the latter case, although Tristan thought it was hilarious - the fish went for a mole on my side, thinking it was a mollusc I guess!
Do you believe in serendipity?
While we were driving in Oregon on our way to Eugene, Tristan got a sudden hankering for coffee. Normally we didn't really make impromptu stops, but he really felt like a cuppa so we decided to stop at the next town, which was Canyonville. I searched for cafés on the GPS navigator and was delighted when "Canyonville Fiber Café" came up. Unfortunately, when we got there, it turned out that it was a typo - it was "Canyonville Cyber Café".
Forlorn, we turned around the corner and saw a sign advertising coffee in front of a shop with no name sign, figuring it looked as good option as any. We stepped in and were faced with shelves and shelves of hand-spun (and commercial) yarn and the sweet smell of pie.
We'd quite accidentally stumbled upon the only yarn shop in this small town, one that had only opened the week before in fact (hence no signs). The owner explained that she spins most of the yarn on offer and also bakes the pies. I told her I had given spinning a go but was quite rubbish at it, and she taught me to spin on a spindle (I had only used a wheel before). While I was spinning silk, Tristan had his cup of coffee. I left with two skeins of hand-spun yarn. Plus we bought an apple pie to take to our hosts that night, and it turned out delicious! I guess we found the Canyonville Fiber Café after all.
Like I mentioned, the shop had no name signs when we were there, but it's quite easy to find; I believe it was on the corner of SE Main St and SE 4th, next to an antique shop. The brand name is Weaver Creek Ranch. Both yarn and pies come warmly recommended.
As for the two travel projects I mentioned in my previous post, neither one is quite finished yet unfortunately, but I'll show you what I've got.
Of the Endpaper Mitts, I have finished one. I love it - it's beautiful. The reason I started the mitts was that we were scheduled to have an "engagement" photo shoot in Portland, OR during our travels, and I had this vision of wearing the mitts and having my wedding ring peek out from underneath. Sadly, our entire stay in otherwise lovely Portland was very, very rainy, and the photo shoot was cancelled. Therefore the time pressure motivation also went out the window. Again, nothing wrong with the project itself.
I did, however, start and finish a project on the road! While in Reno, NV, preparing to leave for Yosemite National Park, I realised I had not packed a hat. How stupid is that, huh? Luckily I had scheduled a stop at Jimmy Beans Wool in Reno to spend the rest of the gift voucher Tristan gave me for my birthday. Needless to say, I had a blast! I ended up buying a skein of Malabrigo Rios (100% superwash merino wool, in 611 Ravelry Red, of course) and two sets of dpns and made a Felicity hat by Wanett Clyde (Ravelry link) in one sitting. I bound it off just as we were entering Yosemite at dusk.Initially, I was not that thrilled with the finished product. It's a very simple design and it showed. However, I must say it started to grow on me immediately - not only was it warm and stayed on very well, it matched my brand new Columbia hiking jacket beautifully!
I'm still pondering whether to frog the hat and make it into something else, but we'll see. This was my first experience with Mmmmmalabrigo, and like so many before me, I was hooked from the start. Soft and squishy goodness. Thankfully my LYS has recently started stocking some Malabrigo yarns, but only the Sock and Lace varieties (oh, and Rasta). No Worsted or Rios.
In 2010 I knitted just short of 9 km of yarn. This year my goal is to reach 10k. In both knitting and running. Although I suspect the first will be easier to achieve...
