I’ve tried several time today to take a decent picture of my progress on the Snake River Socks, but I’ve been unable to get decent light all day. Even at work, where I sit next to a window, the gloomy rain, rain, rain has turned my pictures to gray blobs. So you will have to take my word for it that I am up the ankles and on the home stretch. I’m very pleased with the heel. I ripped it out a couple of times before I came up with something that I like. You’ll have to take my word for it that it looks great.

I hate winter. Actually I just hate the gloom. If we could have a bright rain falling from blue skies, I wouldn’t mind at all.

Note that I don’t mind not having snow.

#1 Son, Bro, Sis-in-law, Neice Z and I all went out for dinner last night and then to Christmas With The Trail Band. It’s a holiday tradition for us. The Trail Band, founded by Marv & Rindy Ross (once of Quarterflash) are marvelous musicians and their show always includes wonderful guest performers. I love listening to selections from The Nutcracker performed on glockenspiel and hammered dulcimer (with help from others). One of my favorites this year was an arrangement of Baby, It’s Cold Outside featuring recorder and reed contrabass (think tuba only with keys and a much, much, much lower register). The alphorns were pretty cool, too. One of the performers, Cal Scott, told a story about riding the train during Christmas time.

It reminded me of my own riding the train story, which I offer to you, gentle reader, in lieu of knitting pictures.

I don’t remember what time of year it was. I was very young – maybe 4 or 5 at most. We were traveling by train to the magical world of Disneyland. We were my Mama and Dad, Bro, my cousin Margaret, and myself. Margaret is older than I and must have been about 15 or 16 then. She was along to help with the kids (that would be Bro and I). By train it was an overnight trip, so Mama and Dad had booked accomodations in a Pullman car. There was a really cool pull-down berth, as I recall. And a table the folded out from the wall. I was quite fascinated with it.

These were the days when dining cars were formal, and children of such tender age as Bro and I were not allowed. To this day I’m not sure whether that surprised my parents, or they had counted on it. At any rate, they left us in the compartment with Margaret while they dined in style, and then they brought our dinners back to us on trays.

The little table was unfolded and our dinner layed out, and I knew that I had gone to heaven because dinner included fruit salad. The canned type. And right on top was a whole half of a big maraschino cherry. Canned fruit salad was absolutely my favorite thing in the whole, wide world. I usually had to fight Bro for the cherry — but there was my very own. Right there on top! And not a little piece, either, but a whole half!

I lifted up my spoon to dig in…

The train went around a bend…

All of our dishes slid off the little folding table and on to the floor with a crash and a splash.

And that was the end of my fruit salad.

My parents called for the Porter and the mess was quickly cleaned up. But by the time they went back to the dining car, service was closed. They were gone a long time, or it seemed like a long time, because it took awhile to find someone who was willing to make a couple of sandwiches for hungry kids. We did eventually eat, but there was no more fruit salad to be had anywhere on the train. I was unconsolable. Even the adventure of getting to sleep in the really cool pull-down berth did not assuage my sadness. I mean… I didn’t even get to eat the cherry!

I remember nothing of Disneyland or of the journey back. But I remember watching my fruit salad slide off the table just like it was yesterday.

I do like to journey by train even today. But I hang on to my food now with a tenacity that probably surprises my fellow passengers.

But no thanks to TSA. Security measures at the Victoria Clipper terminal were fairly insane. In stark contrast to the security measures at the Amtrak station, which were totally non-existent. See the whole story of my homeward journey towards the bottom.

The first picture is of the moon rising over Victoria Monday night. I sat and watched it for a long time. It was soooo big and sooo bright. Just amazing. Be sure to click on the picture to see the biggy size version.

I walked around a lot on Tuesday. I was tired when I left for vacation. But when I woke up Tuesday morning, already I felt energized. A little overcast weather wasn’t going to stop me! I was rarin’ to go. I signed up for a Victoria Harbor Water Taxi tour up the gorge to the reversing waterfall. The gorge is a fjord off the harbor, and the fall reverses when the tide changes. The water taxis are the cutest little boats! I understand that they do a little dance thing around the Harbor on Sundays — I heard it compared to the hippo ballet in Fantasia, only on water. I was sorry not to be there on Sunday to see it.

Did I mention that there was yarn in Victoria? Well… OK… maybe just a little bit of it. And maybe I found some at Beehive Wool Shop. This is a simply amazing little local yarn shop that has been serving Victoria for (get this) 100 years. Isn’t that amazing? And they had lots of yarn! The store is simply packed, all the way up to the rafters. This picture shows only about 1/2 of the store.

Somehow, some yarn managed to find its way into the shopping basket that the helpful clerk handed me as I wandered around. Go figure.

It’s mostly sock yarn. But the Sea Silk at the very bottom of the bottom picture I’m saving for a special something. Sea Silk is made from silk (duh) and… get this… seaweed. It has amazing drape and sheen. I can’t wait to knit with this stuff. I wish I could have afforded more of it.

This yarn, along with the yarn for Clapotis #2 which I had every intention of working on but didn’t quite get to, cushioned my taboo electronics during the long sea voyage. Everything arrived in working order. Yarn is good for many things! 😉

Lest you think that no knitting was accomplished, however, let me tell you that I carried around a couple of balls of yarn and some needles in my purse and I knit whenever I was waiting — in line, to be served, in the train, in the Clipper. It’s STR in a colorway called “County Clare” that’s a mix of blue, greens and gray. I’m knitting socks (natch) in a diagonal yo pattern. I’m almost up to the gusset increases. Which isn’t bad, I think.

This picture is of the Inner Harbor on Wednesday morning. Wednesday was the best day, weather wise. Tuesday was overcast, and there was a little tiny bit of drizzle late in the day. On Thursday when I left it was raining. But Wednesday was glorious.

Wednesday was supposed to be my spa day, because it was forecast to be the rain day. But how can you stay inside when the weather is like this? Fortunately my spa appointment wasn’t until 3:45, so I had lots of time to walk around and enjoy Victoria.

I decided to take a little horse-and-buggy tour of the city, which I’d never be able to get away with if #1 Son were with me! We went through the park and some of the old neighborhoods of Victoria and a sedate walk. Lots of people took pictures of us. I waved. It’s funny to think that I will end up in lots of people’s vacation scrapbooks.

After the spa appointment, I went back to my room. I heard a marching band outside, and went out on my balcony to find this. That’s right, gentle reader, even from 10 stories up and a block away, I could spot men in kilts! Oh, yeah!

It was raining when I woke up Thursday morning. I fancied that the city was sorry to see me go. But it was time to head for home.

On the clipper, we were each allowed only one small bag, like a purse, as carry-on. Everything else had to be checked. As did all electronic equipment — cell phones, laptops, PDAs, cameras. But liquids were OK. I had a visible bottle of water in an exterior pocket of my purse, and nobody cared. I wasn’t asked about toothpaste or eye drops or anything like that. Those were all fine. My ID was checked three times at different stages of the boarding process. (Why would I go through Immigration on one ID but board on a different ID? Inquiring minds want to know.)

There were a few people waiting to go through Immigration who “forgot” to check their cell phones. Darn it, they said smugly. Oh well. They weren’t quite so smug when their cell phones, etc., were confiscated at the xray machine and tossed in a bag to be sent with the rest of the baggage. I was happy I’d played fair because the nice check-in person had put a fragile sticker on my small bag after I put all of my electronics in there. The bag contained nothing but yarn, anyway, so I was fairly certain that my stuff would make it through OK. I felt very naked without camera, cell phone and Palm (aka “my brain”).

One of my fellow passengers questioned my knitting needles being allowed. I promised not to stab her with them, for which I was awarded a very startled look.

Since everybody had to check absolutely everything, the Clipper was about 2 hours late. I was OK. It just cut my wait time in the Seattle train station down to a reasonable 30 minutes or so and there was no mad dash to the train station as there had been on my outbound trip. I do feel for those who were leaving the Clipper terminal only to face the madness of the airport. That can’t have been fun!

At the train station, a big sign read Due to construction we are unable to check any luggage. Yeppers, ya had to carry it all on with you. Nobody looked at my ID ever. Nobody looked at my ticket until after the train had left the station with me aboard it. It was a refreshing change. But I did sort of wonder why we expect terrorists to take ferries, and therefore suspect all passengers of having nefarious intentions. But not trains or train riders.

#1 Son was supposed to pick me up from the train station, but he had called to let me know that his band was playing a show and he wouldn’t be able to come. But he did park my car at the train station, so I could drive home instead of taking Max or a cab. And he thought up that solution all by himself! I though it was pretty clever.

Until I started wandering around parking lots trying to find my car. It’s a fairly distinctive car and should be easy to spot. Should be. I finally called him and asked where, exactly, had he parked it? Oh, he said it wasn’t exactly at the train station. It was probably closer to the Greyhound depot. I should try over there.

Sigh.

I was glad to be home in my own bed with my cats around me.

You can see more pictures from Victoria by clicking here or from the Galleries page.

Or, I should say, cars, trains and boats.

I asked #1 Son to give me a ride to the train station yesterday morning. Like many teenagers, he’s chronically late, so I planned for an early start. Counting backwards on my fingers and figuring in rush-hour traffic, I thought that leaving at 7:30 should get me to the station with plenty of time to spare before the train left at 8:45. It seemed like a good plan. I like a little bit of leeway and don’t mind waiting. I had yarn and needles in my purse.

At 7:20, we were both ready to go. All I needed to do was feed the cats. Let me just feed the cats and then we’ll go, I said. I can feed the cats in 90 seconds flat. Feeding accomplished, I turned and saw #1 Son — eating a bowl of cereal and drinking a cup of coffee, both poured since the cat feeding started.

Son feeding was not in the schedule at that time. It should have already been accomplished.

Let’s go, please I said. Note the polite delivery.

I’ll admit that it didn’t take him very long to eat. We headed out to his car, where he loaded my bag into an already crammed back end (it’s a station wagon).

Just a sec He said. I want to grab a couple of things. I waited. He came back with a few things he’d pilfered from the house and put them in the back seat. Just one more load he said.

I looked at the clock. I cast on a pair of socks and started knitting.

He came back with an item that in no way would fit into the car given the number of items already in residence. Not a chance. He started juggling things around trying to get it to fit. I didn’t fit. I knit faster.

Maybe you could come back for that later, I said. We’re running a little late.

He wasn’t too happy about that. But he put the thing in the garage and got in the car. We started off. I knit.

He got on the freeway.

It’s rush hour, I said helpfully. Maybe a different route would be faster?

You’ll be fine. You worry too much.

The clock spun towards 8:15. I knit. 8:20. Increase row. 8:25. Knit. Knit. Knit. 8:30.

I started sweating. Just a little.

I don’t think we’re going to make it.

You’ll be fine. You worry too much.

We pulled up in front of the station at (I’m not kidding, here) 8:44. #1 Son grabbed my bag while I ran into the station yelling Seattle train! Seattle train!

I had my reservation, but not my ticket. The man at the ticket counter radioed the train one more! and frantically got my ticket ready. sign here… and here… now RUN!

I grabbed my bag from #1 Son, yelled kiss kiss, I love you! over my shoulder, and RAN!

Down here, down here! The conductor yelled. He opened a door for me, put out the little step, and told me to just sit at a table (it was the dining car) and he’d sort me out later. (But will there be a sorting hat? I wanted to ask.)

No sooner had I sat down than the train left the station. Whew.

And this, of course, almost guaranteed that the Victoria Clipper would be running late. It was 2-1/2 hours late. I don’t ever remember that happening before. But, I’m pleased to report that, after standing (standing) in line for 2-1/2 hours, my feet didn’t hurt. So the new shoes I got for this trip were worth the price!

I was supposed to have a “view room.” The room I was booked into had a view… of the roof. I called the front desk and asked if there was a room available on a higher floor. There was. It’s all the way at the top, and I can see everything forever.

And, as I sat on my balcony sipping tea and watching the lights on the inner harbor, the reason for the day’s close calls and weird connections became abundantly clear as I watched an enormous full moon rise over Victoria.

The socks I started in the car? I frogged them out on the train. It was pretty obvious that I wasn’t paying much attention to what I was doing!

And now I’m off to do a little sight seeing and shopping.

Thanks for the good wishes ya’ll left in the comments. There will be pictures when I get back, but I don’t have any way to download them from my camera right now.

The Mudstone socks were finished today just in time to catch the last of the late afternoon light. They are visiting the honeysuckle growing on what I like to call the “ugly fence.”

Frank Lloyd Wright once said something like… a doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only plant vines. I’m not responsible for the ugly fence. My former neighbors were. I have no idea why they felt compelled to build a fence that doesn’t match any other fence in the neighborhood. But I liked them. They were nice people. I planted vines.

So, the Mudstone socks are finished. I’m OK with how they came out. They’re not my favorite pair of socks. But I like the colors and they fit very well. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do at the top. After futzing around for awhile, I finally just did a 1×1 rib using the Mudslide color, topped with a crochet bind-off.

Here is the shadow knitting revealed in all its hard-to-read glory. Use your imagination just a little here, please. Tilt your head slightly to the right. Starting from just above the heel and going up the right side, it says SOCK. Now tilt your head slightly to the left. Starting at the top and going down the left side, it says SOCK. See it? Do you? Click on the pic for the biggy version.

Yeah… not that successful, eh? When they’re on, I can’t read it at all. Oh well.

Shall we call it purl as you go? 🙄

There won’t be much bloggage for the next few days.

Remember how desserts is stressed spelled backwards? Yeah, well… I’ve been hitting the desserts pretty hard lately.

So I’m heading off for a much needed and long over due little jaunt away from town. I’m heading up north to the fair city of Victoria, BC. If you have never had the chance to visit Victoria, it’s a charming city where almost everywhere is within walking distance or a short bus hop. The weather is lovely and the people are friendly and I always have a wonderful time there. Also, there is Lush and Roger’s Chocolates, and I hear there might even be a yarn store! 😉

Victoria also has the advantage of not being terribly far away from home, and at the end of a ride on my two favorite forms of transportation: trains and boats. I could drive to Victoria. But why do that when I can take a train and a catamaran?

If I can find an internet cafe in Victoria, I’ll check in with y’all. If not, I won’t be gone very long. Just a short out-of-town break.

#1 Son isn’t going with me. He has to work. And it’s good that he has a job. But I’m sorry he can’t go.

The blueberry cheesecake tartlet is courtesy of the bakery where #1 Son is employed. I really felt like I should have presented it in a somewhat more arty fashion, rather than just tossing it down on the table. But in the end I just took a picture and then ate it. Yeah… it was that good.

I like to think of this as the longest, scariest bridge in the whole wide world.

This is the Astoria-Megler bridge. It carries Hwy 101 a little over 4 miles across the mouth of the Columbia River from Astoria, Oregon to Washington. Above is the main span which is 1,232 feet long and is the longest continuous three-span through-truss in the world. Or that’s what the guide-book says. I have no idea what that means. I just know it’s tall and long and scary.

On the Oregon side, the approach to the bridge is a 360-degree twist that rises from just above the river to the level of the main span some 200 feet above. At the end of the main span, the bridge drops to near river level again for most of the length. Click on the pic to see the biggie version. If you follow the bridge in the picture over towards the vanishing point at the Washington side, you will see a second smaller and lower span at that end. From the Washington side, Hwy 101 flows on just above the river and it doesn’t seem nearly as scary from that side. Until you get out in the middle of the river and see the main span rising ahead.

I drove the Astoria-Megler Bridge twice this weekend. My friend’s beach house is in Longbeach on the Washington side. Going through Astoria is my favorite way to get there. Other than the bridge, that is. The bridge is scary.

I had a wonderful time knitting. The house is about 3 blocks from the beach, on a quiet back street. There’s nothing behind it but dunes and scrub pines and a couple of buildings — one of which, I later found out, is a kite museum.

I arrived about 7:00 PM on Friday, and set right in to knitting. I knit until midnight. I woke up at 6:30 AM Saturday, made a pot of coffee, and decided I wanted a brisk walk to the beach while the coffee brewed. I set off along the path behind the house, and within the first block was swarmed by a hoard of mosquitoes, each intent on sucking me dry. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and beat a hasty retreat back to the house. Coffee mug in hand, I went back to knitting. Other than a couple of short breaks for meals, I knit until nearly midnight.

In all that time, I knit on only one project: The dreaded green sweater that grows only in tiny, tiny increment. I mean… really. I’m a fairly speedy knitting. Not the fastest in the world, or anything, but not the slowest. I’m getting 4 rows to the inch on the darn thing. I swear it grows less than 1/32 of an inch each row. I swear.

I took other unfinished projects with me, but I never touched any of them. I knit only on the green sweater. I got most of the way to the shoulders. Not all the way — most of the way. In about 20 hours of knitting, more or less. (OK. there were a couple of meals in there, and maybe a nap.)

I woke up at 5:30 AM Sunday morning, made coffee, watched the Trojan cooling tower implosion on TV and read a book. I couldn’t face the green sweater again. I think I needed a knitting break, strange as it may seem.

I spent the morning picking up the house, doing a little laundry, finishing a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book I found, and just goofing around. I left about 11:00 and drove to the beach, thus thwarting the swarms of vampiric mosquitoes.

This picnic table and its surrounding platform was down on the beach with no explanation. Is it meant to be there? Did it, as it appears, float in on the high tide during a winter storm? It’s turned the wrong way for the short walls to offer any shelter from the prevailing wind (off the water). And I think it would be tough to keep a picnic on the table without it rolling off.

Anybody who knows anything about this, please comment because I really would love to know more about it. In lieu of real information, it’s fun to speculate. Perhaps we could raft it over to the Lost survivors, eh?

After leaving Longbeach, I drove down 101 and on to the bridge. I was at the tail end of a long line of slow-moving traffic. Three large SUVs came up behind me like bats out of hell, and then passed me on the bridge and cut back in in front of me. I have no idea why. It was a majorly stupid thing to do. Nobody was going any faster than the person at the head of the long line of traffic, and that was about 30 cars in front of me. Perhaps they just couldn’t stand to be last. But it was stupid.

They were very big SUVs. Very big. Driven by men. And my theory has always been that the size of the SUV is inversely proportionate to the size of the other equipment the driver might be packing. (yeah… inversely. That means… the bigger the truck, the smaller the dick.) They would have been real hot shots if they’d lost control and driven off the bridge, eh? I dropped back and gave them plenty of room.

Along Hwy 30, I passed Trojan before I realized it. It’s so strange not to see the cooling tower rising above the river. I’m glad to have it gone. But it’s strange.

Since arriving home, I knit 1/2 a row on the Tipsy Knitter socks and then just put the knitting away. My fingers hurt and I’m really tired. Sleep sounds better than knitting right now.

The title word means stew or hodgepodge, which is what today’s post will probably be!

Some knitting done yesterday: Another repeat added to the Tipsy Knitter socks. Two rows knit on the green sweater before I fell asleep.

sereknitty72 asks:

Love the yarn you’re using for your Tipsy Knitter socks! It is beautiful! Pray tell, what kind?

Thanks! That would be Socks That Rock in the colorway called Red Rock Canyon.

I love STR, too. It’s my favorite sock yarn. I have three skeins still in my stash: Beryl, Carbon and Lapis. It makes it hard to use any of the other sock yarn in the stash. My hand just seems to naturally grab out one of those lovely STR colorways every time I start a new pair.

But the other yarn in my stash is also lovely and deserves to be knit.

Must. Be. Strong.

sereknitty72 adds:

Aren’t you loving this weather? I think I must hit the coast again….

The weather is wonderful! Today I saw mama and papa goose with their little goslings out for a stroll by the pond. I need to get down to the coast, too.

Maybe when #1 Son gets back. Or maybe when he leaves again?

And speaking of which… For those of you who are keeping track, last night #1 Son called me from Tok, Alaska — a happening little place of 1400 or so residents. #1 Son said that it was really cold but the roads were clear and they were going to camp out because it didn’t look like there were any places open where they could stay. They should be in Anchorage tonight, if all goes as planned.

They play Anchorage on Thursday, Soldotna on Friday and Fairbanks on Saturday. (I’m not sure they realize how far it is from Soldotna to Fairbanks.)

But the really amazing (to me) thing about the call last night was that he made it from his cell phone.

That’s right. At a crossroads in the middle of nowhere (sorry, Tok, but you know what I mean) with a population of 1400. My son gets cell phone service. And here’s the real kicker: He wasn’t roaming!

The world is becoming a very, very small place.