Home Again

After a very long day-and-a-half of travel, I got back home at noon on Saturday, and I've been trying to catch up every since. There always seems to be too much to do after two weeks away from home. So here's a few pictures from the trip.

First was four days in the Seattle area visiting S1, Tod.

One thing I wanted to take back from this trip was Debbie Macomber's pattern book based on her novel "A Good Yarn". She lives about 20 miles from S1's home and I was sure the local yarn shops would have it. Well, no luck. One shop was closed, and two others didn't have the booklet I had my heart set on, so I'll have to get it from her website. However, I did buy yarn, as you can see.

This is recycled sari silk - it's rather heavy and stiff, but I loved the colors. It might be good for a small purse.

This is Ritratto, a mohair/synthetic blend, also with gorgeous colors. It's lightweight, maybe for a lacy small scarf or neckpiece. Then a trip down the coast to Los Angeles, to visit D2 Diane and cutie GD5 Maisie.

This is Maisie holding up the cotton sundress I'm knitting for her. I've almost finished it now, just a couple more inches to add to the top, plus the straps. Would you believe the only day it rained was the Sunday morning we had planned to go to the Ventura Flea Market. But we found plenty of antique shops in Ventura anyway. This is the beautiful mission of San Buenaventura, and below is the altar. You can also see parts of the side altars and the lovely painted beams. It's still very much in use as a local church.

The third part of the trip was an Elderhostel tour with a group of 28 others. I've always had a good time on these trips - this was my seventh. We've gone to England twice and Canada twice, plus two US trips. This one featured a boat ride to Anacapa Island, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of California.Here's one of the dolphins who swam alongside our boat for a while. The tour also took us to the Hearst Castle at San Simeon. I've got lots of pictures but it's impossible to choose one that shows everything, so I'll show just one - my favorite place. This is the inside pool, completely surrounded with blue tiles, including the ceiling and the sides and floor of the pool. Marble statues accompany the swimmers. My mind is still boggled by the beauty of this watery room.

And from the sublime to the ridiculous, these are male elephant seals on the beach at Piedras Blancas. There were hundreds of them, males, females and newborns, sunning/mating/fighting/nursing just 10 feet from the walkway at the edge of the parking lot. They have no enemies on shore, so are absolutely fearless and simply ignore all the people watching them.

The cobblestone sweater for Hubster is on hold until I finish the purple sundress.

I almost forgot to show a picture of the airplane knitting I did on this trip. It's the Rowan Kidsilk Haze which I bought in Edinburgh. It's a very simple pattern, 2 knit rows, 1 purl row and 1 pattern row, repeated.

It's good to go away, but it's better to come home.