On the way, we spent the first night at Sand Hollow, close to St. George, Utah.
The next night was spent at Valley of Fire, close to Las Vegas.
We went for a hike there with the pups. On the left is DH's brother, and his dog, Onslow.
They have petroglyphs there, depicting scenes from everyday life, including people walking their dogs. Here's a petroglyph of a person wearing bifocals and knitting fingerless mitts for Mitts of Steal.*
From there we went on to Death Valley. DH went on hikes with some friends of ours, and I took the pups on long walks. They aren't allowed on the trails in Death Valley, but we found some nice walks to do. It would be dangerous for them to be off leash because of rattlesnakes and coyotes. We saw some interesting landmarks, though. Here are Rocky and Sunny in front of a monument for Old Harmony Borax Works.
The only wildlife we saw was roadrunners...several of them. One ran parallel to us, but on the opposite side of the highway. It had something in its mouth. I worried when it appeared to be getting ready to cross the highway. It stopped on the edge of the road, and I was sure it would run out and be squashed by oncoming traffic. It looked left, though, and waited for the line of cars to pass. Then it ran halfway across, looked right, and, finding the road clear, finished its run to the other side. Just like in the cartoons. As it passed near me, I saw that it had some kind of little rodent, for its babies, I assume.
During our return trip, I took part in the Spin-in on the Knit Picks Knitting Community. I wanted to participate, even though we would be on the road during that time. Each participant planned spinning activities from Friday at noon (our local time) until Monday at noon. We could spin any fiber we wanted using any kind of spindle or wheel.
You can read more about the Spin-in here.
I had brought my scale along to weigh my fiber before starting.
I had packed my wheel, "Stanzi," my KP Turkish drop spindle and plenty of fiber. I started the Spin-in in the truck with my drop spindle, although it was difficult in the back seat of the pickup. This was easier:
It was taken in our fifth wheel in Mesquite, NV, where we stopped the last night. Here you can see my WooLee Winder flyer fly!
Here's what I got done during the Spin-in:
Corriedale spun: 25 g, or .882 oz (drop spindle)
Gaywool spun: 146 g, or 5.15 oz (wheel). This is from the fiber shown on the scale above.
On the knitting front, I finished up the last of five more pairs of fingerless mitts for Mitts of Steal* during our trip and collected two more from a friend who had already given me a pair. Eight pairs in all are now awaiting distribution (plus the two others I had sent earlier, one from me and one from another friend).
Finally, I finished putting the Floral Bouquet blocks together and added the borders.:
Saturday I had my last quilt class for the winter. I will save photos of that quilt for another post.
In the meantime, the pups are happy to be able to go off leash again! Here they are on a dead-end street where we can let them run. There are only three houses on this long street, two of them summer homes and the other one has cat people, so they drive carefully. Soon hiking season will start!
*Mitts of Steal is an organization that makes fingerless mitts (knitted or crocheted) for dialysis patients, who often suffer from a condition called Steal Syndrome, very cold hands during treatment. Learn more here: http://community.knitpicks.com/group/mittenKAL/forum/topics/mitts-for-charity-pics
Or here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18289718
Note: This blog post was produced entirely on the iPad. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for or cleaned.
No comments:
Post a Comment