Category: Travel

We’re still in lovely Scotland, but finally have a reliable enough internet connection to attempt a blog post. We’ve been having a fabulous time, and I thought I’d give a little update.

Where to even start with the photos? We have hundreds of photos already between our two cameras, and I haven’t even started sorting through mine. First, where have we been, and more importantly, has there been any wool?

We started the trip by flying into London. Heathrow is a madhouse, not helped by the fact that they had high winds and had cut the number of planes that could land by almost half the usual number. It was a bit of a rocky start, but we finally made it to our first destination, Manchester. We have friends there that we met on a cruise a number of years ago. They have been to see us a couple of times, but this was our first visit to their home. They were quite gracious, as we expected, and showed us around Manchester city one day, and around the countryside our second day.

Here’s one Manchester photo that I culled out of the herd of photos.

After our brief stay there, we took the train to Edinburgh, giving me a little down time to knit. I have finally finished that Electric Blue Baby Thing, though I still have some ends to weave in, so I guess technically it’s not finished. I won’t show a photo until it gets home to its final destination, but I’m glad it’s done done done. Now I can knit something else for a change!

Anyway, back to Edinburgh. Here’s a photo from our first evening there.

That gives you a little bit of an idea of what we liked best about Edinburgh. It’s undoubtedly a lovely city, but we decided to spend only 2 nights and 1 full day there, so didn’t have time to see anything but the most touristy sites. After all, how can you go to Edinburgh without seeing the Castle, Holyroodhouse Palace, or walking the Royal Mile? The latter was mostly a long string of what I fondly call rubber-tomahawk shops, and at the Castle, they wouldn’t even let me try on the Scottish Crown. Oh well.

Given that we were far more interested in the vast Scottish countryside than its biggest cities, we rented a car and headed north to Nairn, on the coast of the Moray Firth east of Inverness. This is a lovely little seaside resort, and we stayed at a wonderful small guesthouse right in town. There was a yarn shop in town, though I didn’t get there since it opens quite late in the morning and we headed out early to be tourists before that. Here are a few photos.

That’s Cawdor Castle, still a private residence for the Dowager Countess Cawdor, though she kindly clears out in the summer so tourists can see the place.

The castle grounds has a wool shop, with some wooly things for sale, but no yarn. I struck up a conversation with the woman behind the desk, who is a life long knitter, though she had just purchased her first sock yarn to try socks. One thing led to another, I gave her a link to my blog since she needed a sock pattern, and John surreptitiously snapped a photo.

You meet the nicest knitters while traveling!

Last but not least, I’ll leave you with a sunset photo that John snapped on the beach at Nairn.

Pretty, eh? I’d show more photos, but this is a very slow internet connection. I’ll get to the rest of the shots at some point, and John will put them all together in one big photo show when we get home.

We’re now on the Isle of Skye, and we’re here for one more night, then head to the Glencoe area, then Glasgow, then home. I finally found wool yesterday and today, I’ll show photos of that next time! I’m off to drink whisky!

Last week I had a few days off in a row, so we took off exploring. We’ve lived in Washington for over a decade, and we’ve actually seen embarrassingly little of it. We booked a bed & breakfast over in Walla Walla, and took off driving. We saw some great scenery along the way, finding out that our adopted state has a multitude of ecosystems, from northwest rainforest to high Cascade mountains, to desert, and then wine country. Ah, yes, the wine country.

We took a bazillion photos, ate a lot of great food, and drank some really terrific wine. We also came home with a bunch of cases of wine in the back of the car to stock up the wine cellar. Instead of posting the photos here, I’m including a link to a Picasa photo slide show that John put together. Please go check it out, there are even some knitting photos in there!

And now for the “yarn for sale” part. I’ve gone through my stash and weeded out some stuff that even I will admit I am never going to get around to knitting up into anything. It’s all good stuff, and you don’t need to worry, there’s still plenty of it around here. There is a pretty wide variety, including some sweater-lots of yarn. I dithered around about how to sell it, and finally decided to put it all on Ravelry. Go here to my stash page to check it out, and send me a message on Ravelry or by email if you’re interested. If you want the whole mess, I might be convinced to make a special deal.

That’s it for today. I’m off to do a little knitting before I have to go back to work tomorrow!

No rain, no clouds, it’s actually warm here. I can already tell that we will love San Diego and want to come back. We got here late yesterday, then had a nice dinner last night at an Iranian restaurant in the Gaslamp district.

Here I am at the airport.

No, that’s not that blasted unfinished brown sock. It’s on my Blackthorn needles, which I’m not sure I’d try to get on an airplane. I did put this away after we got here though, I’m going to seriously try to finish the brown pair this week.

Today we paid for one of those city trolley tour things. It was a relatively cheap way to get transportation all over the city for a day. We rode all the way around the city tour, but spent most of the day at Balboa Park. You could spend a whole vacation just there. There are great trails, nice gardens, and lots of cool museums. We ended up doing the space and flight museum, which was fun. I met a fellow knitter there.

That’s Amelia Earhart, with her airplane. I didn’t know that they had found her.

What, you didn’t know she was a knitter?? Look closely at her left hand. Click to make it bigger….

A sock knitter, no less. Funny, she’s knitting socks in the same yarn that I am.

We also saw one of the Blackbird Stealth jets at the museum.

It amuses me to no end that the jet is made out of the same stuff as my knitting needles.

Here’s proof that there are sunshine and flowers in southern California.

And some pretty scenery.

Tomorrow we have tickets for a Padres game. They won their home opener today, so hopefully it will be a good game tomorrow. We have the morning to goof off, but haven’t quite decided what we’ll do yet. My conference starts the following day, so we’re going to try to pack in as much tomorrow as we can!

No photos today, since I’m supposed to leave for the airport in 2 hours and have neither showered nor packed (what? Plan ahead? I’m supposed to do that??). We’re heading to sunny San Diego for the week. The American College of Physicians has their annual internal medicine meeting there this year, and since I haven’t been to one in a while, I decided to go. It’s usually a really good medical conference, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s in a sunny spot in early April. It IS turning to spring here in Washington, but that still means rain, rain, clouds, 40 degrees, and more rain. And wind, let’s not forget that. So it will be nice to be somewhere warmer. And sun. Please, God, just a little sunshine.

I am planning to just take sock projects with me. I have two socks on the needles, one of which is in danger of immolation if it’s not finished by the end of the month, and the sweater is just too damned bulky to fit in a suitcase at this point. I haven’t researched yarn stores in SD yet, but I’m sure there are some. We’ll be staying in the Gaslight district, anybody have any suggestions for fibery things near there?*

OK, I’m off to pack. I’m taking Ernie** with me, so there might be blog posts if I have anything of note to report. Have a great week!

*Shhhhh…John thinks I just wander into these places by accident. Don’t spill that I research the yarn stuff before we go on vacation.

**Ernie is the Mac Air, he’s a great travel computer.

From Vallarta, that is. We head back home on a flight this evening, so this morning we have the sad duty of packing up to leave. We’ll be back though. John ran into a guy from the US at the pool that’s been coming here every year for 20 years. I can definitely see why. Though Mexican tourism has gotten hit really hard by all the bad press surrounding gangs and violence, Vallarta seems protected from that. The only downside we found here were the guys selling timeshares. They’re pretty easy to spot, and they generally leave you alone if you say “no, gracias” and keep walking. I’d give the vacation 5 stars.

Here are a last few photos. Yesterday we just hung out here. We went for a long walk on the beach, had lunch at the restaurant by the pool, then just goofed off by the pool all day. The day before yesterday, we went back into town. There’s a bus system here that goes more or less from one end of town to the other. As best I can tell, the buses have no detectable shock absorber system, but they only cost 6 pesos per person (about 50 cents). Here we are at the bus stop trying to find the right change.

Here’s the entrance to the restaurant where we had lunch, Barcelona Tapas. That row of windows at the very top is the restaurant.

And that’s the view from the restaurant.

Those are the three very nice guys who were responsible for our lunch.

Still having a bad vacation, as you can see.

Last but certainly not least, our last sunset last night. I’m off to pack!

Today was just another crappy day in PV! Today we took the city bus downtown to browse around a bit. We walked along the oceanfront boardwalk, the Malecon, and then downtown a bit. I’m not posting all the photos that we took, since John will do a Picasa photo show at some point. Here were a few highlights.

Sand sculptures. This one tickled Sweet Pea to no end.

There are numerous bronze sculptures along the way. Some of them are also chairs.

I don’t know who these guys were supposed to be, but they seemed friendly.

Now this guy knows how to get a girl’s attention. That’s Neptune, trying to win over Nereid with sock yarn. Whatta guy!

And a yarn store, sort of.

More margaritas, this time with mango!

A loom in a shop! Really, the yarn and weaving were completely accidental!

Enough for now. It’s past time for sunset and a cocktail. Tomorrow we go whale watching!

I already don’t want to go home. We got here yesterday afternoon, and I’ve fallen in love with the place. I’m not so in love with all the hucksters selling time shares on every corner, but now that we know how to recognize them, we’re good. The trick is to not engage with them. Smile, say “ola” if you must, but don’t break your stride. Trust me, they can outtalk you. They can even outtalk John, which is saying something.

Now for the fun part, the photos.

Here’s taking off and landing.

First margaritas:

First sunset:

Full moon over the marina:

John’s first mojito:

Knitting beside the pool! Big Pink, now with White!

Feet in the Pacific:

Baby turtles! In season, they hatch these and release them into the ocean at sunset every day. We’re about at the end of turtle hatching season, but they let thirty of them go tonight. Only about 10% make it. We named this one Toto, and we’re pretty sure he’s enjoying a swim right now.

More turtle photos:

Run for it, Toto!

And another crappy sunset.

We’re off to dinner, then a walk on the beach with that full moon. Hasta manana!

Well, actually the North Coast. People tend to forget that our country does have a northern coastline, and it’s out here in western Washington. John’s sister Ena and her friend Sherry were visiting this past week from Georgia, and we took a short trip out to the Olympics for a few days. We stayed in a cabin on Lake Crescent and just had a fabulous time. Here’s where we stayed, and here’s a photo of Lake Crescent.

Here are a few more photos.

That’s from Hurricane Ridge, in Olympic National Park.

That was taken yesterday morning, from the deck of our cabin. We had a whole week of gloriously sunny weather while they were here. The fog on the lake was gone by mid morning, and though it was in the 50’s, it was gorgeous outside.

Yesterday we took a drive out to Cape Flattery, which is the northwestern-most point of the continental US. That photo is part of the coastline along the way.

That’s you-know-who, ready for a hike.

That’s part of the boardwalk out to the point.

Sock on vacation. Proof that knitting still happens around here.

My traveling companions.

And last but not least, a fish in hiking shoes. Don’t ask.

I did get a little knitting done, though the inside activities mostly seemed to involve cooking, eating, and drinking. Maybe next time I’ll have some knitting photos to show!

Oh dear. Here I am again, apologizing for an unintended blog vacation. Wait, I have an excuse! The last bit of summer got a bit busy around here. We did a week’s vacation with John’s kids and the grandkids and all the dogs, to the Washington coast (that would be the Left Coast for any of you from the Atlantic-side Washington). It was a grand time. I actually took the week as an “education” week, meaning that I had to spend part of each day reading medical stuff, but that worked OK, surprisingly. We’d rented a huge house just up the sand from the beach, and each of the 3 families had their own floor for bedroom space. The little ones are getting old enough that they aren’t up at the crack of dawn, and they tended to spend the whole day outside, so I did actually get some reading done. Here’s the link to all the photos, if you really want to see all the “good big fun” that we had.

Part 2 of the excuse is a bit of a slog at work. We’ve had several docs out off and on during the summer for a variety of reasons, so it’s gotten a bit busy and hectic at work. That plus the belated arrival of summer around here meant that I haven’t spent much time knitting or playing around on the computer. We get such a seemingly short summer here that we tend to spend most of it outside.

To start off the fall season, John and I took a couple days this week and went up to Mt. Rainier National Park. We’ve been up there to drive around and to hike a bit in the past, but I’ve never stayed overnight in the lodge at Paradise before. Tuesday I got off work, got home and finished packing, and we made the drive up the mountain to the lodge. We had a beautiful day for hiking yesterday. It rained most of the day today, but it was still beautiful for the drive back home, and I get to go to work tomorrow. I’m sure John will get a photoshow done at some point, but here are a few:

That’s Paradise Inn. It’s one of the original National Park lodges, built in 1916 and renovated completely a few years ago. The main lodge accommodations have rooms with shared bathrooms and showers down the hall, which is funky but adds to the historic feel. The great lobby of the lodge is spectacular, including an ancient piano which has been restored. They have a pianist who plays during the dinner hour, adding to the charm of the place.

Here’s John as we set out on our hike up the mountain yesterday. We live in the shadow of Mt. Rainier, and it’s one of those landscape features that sometimes you take for granted. I had to be reminded on this trip that “the mountain” is actually in the same county I live in. Cool!

We saw a surprising number of wildflowers still in bloom. There were lupine, paintbrush, and an awful lot of something that I thought was valerian, but another hiker told me was lovage.

We saw this little fellow early on in the hike. He (or she, I didn’t get close enough to look!) meandered along the path, but after a bit, gave a huff at us and lumbered away. That’s a black bear, by the way, and if you keep your distance and don’t get between them and their children, or corner them, they mostly leave people alone. There are no grizzly bears in the park.

More flowers.

More fauna. These are marmots, or whistle pigs. These are all over the park, and are completely unafraid of humans. They will whistle loudly if alarmed, thereby getting the nickname. This one was clearly a girl with hot flashes. After we took a few photos, she got up and ambled over to a nearby snow patch.

She just flattened out on the snow and stayed there. I wonder if that would work for me?

There’s the famous mountain that we hiked toward. At the lower half of that photo is the Nisqually Glacier.

And there’s the Nisqually River, which of course starts from that glacier. The river ends up in Puget Sound, right in our back yard. If that mountain blows a la Helen, this is one of the major lahar paths, so we’d be in some serious trouble.

There was of course the requisite sock photo. This proves that I indeed still knit. In fact, I sat down at the Glacier Vista point and knit a round, to the amusement of all of the other hikers passing by.

We met two young women with 2 toddlers, climbing up the hill, while we were on our way back down the mountain. Part of this trail is paved at the lower end, but as you climb up, it gets gravelly, then rocky, then with a bunch of very steep rock steps on the upper third. They had ditched the baby carriage about a third of the way up the trail and just went on, lugging the toddlers by hand. About twenty minutes after we saw them, we ran across the carriage down the hill.

More flowers!

More whistle pigs! Click to embiggen!

That’s it. There are lots more photos, but that pretty much does it. Oh, John did get a photo of me spinning away on my spindle in the grand lobby of the Inn last night, but it’s on his camera. When I get my hands on it, I might remember to post it as well.

I’m still knitting the same damn things. Maybe now that the weather’s cooler, I’ll make some progress and show photos!