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This morning we are on the road to return home. It's been an absolutely fabulous vacation with lots of sun and great time with our friends. We did a lot of relaxing and sunbathing on our last few days  Laura and I did head out on one little adventure to visit San Xavier Del Bac Mission, south of Tucson. It is on the Tohono O'odham reservation, as is Kitt Peak Observatory. I believe that it's the oldest mission in Arizona and dates back to 1692. It's an active church and, while it gets a lot of tourist traffic, it's not really set up to be a tourist destination. There's no flyer with confirmation or docents. Of course, there's a very nice gift shop!  It was well worth the 40 minute drive. The artwork and craftsmanship is amazing. The Wikipedia article about it is very informative and Google had tons of great images.  This little Roadrunner has gotten very accustomed to all the visitors dropping crumbs. I didn't have to use the zoom at all. I think I could have almost petted it. Speaking of wildlife, yesterday morning Chris saw 3 coyotes and a bobcat on the path behind the condo. Very cool.  On the crochet front, I've started my new crochet project. It's a poncho that is supposed to be made with bulky weight yarn. I really wanted a lighter weight version so I'm giving this a try. I give it about a 50/50 chance of working out. I started this Monday night when everyone else had a wonderful evening at Kitt Peak Observatory. I didn't go because of the altitude but it gave me a few uninterrupted quiet hours to get this started. I really love this pattern and the stitch is fun. If it doesn't work with this yarn I will get some bulky yarn and make one to the pattern. I'll tell you more about the pattern in another post. I won't work on this again until I get home.  You can sort of start to see the pattern starting to develop. I probably need to do at least 20 more rows before I know if it's going to work. Meanwhile, I have 2 projects ready to go in the car for the ride home.
We will take 4 days driving home and will arrive late Tuesday. That means that I'll be watching my Eagles in the Super Bowl from a hotel along the way, probably in or near Texarkana.  Last night while everyone else was at the Kitt Peak Observatory I vacuumed enough of the floor to be able to take a few crochet projects. I have finished the two shawls I was working on and I'm happy to report that this is the end of that yarn for shawls. There's a little left over that will go in a scrapghan at some point. The pattern is this one. I've made it so many times now that I don't think I need the pattern anymore. It's such a good one for donation shawls. I already have yarn picked for the next one.  Here's the second one. I do like how the yarn makes each one look a little different.  I brought along a couple of Caron Cotton Cakes from my stash and started a shawl like the brown one I made last month. This will probably hold me to be one of my car projects for the ride home.
On the critter front we have seen a coyote, lots of quail, javelina, roadrunners and several varieties of hummingbirds. At the Arizona-Sedona Desert Museum we also saw mountain goats and a grey wolf. Everyone else checked out the reptile exhibit. In vacation news the weather is hot and glorious. Yesterday ot got up to 84 and it's supposed to be a couple of degrees warmer today. We've had a couple of good days sunning and reading by the pool. Sunday night we went to a concert at the Hotel Congress in downtown Tucson. It was fun to see downtown Tucson but, I have to admit, it was some of the most boring music I've ever heard. But it was a lovely night to sit outside with friends. Yesterday I skipped the morning walk because my ankle/foot is acting up a little. Today I'll tape it and do a walk, not a hike. Last night everyone but me went to the Kitt Peak Observatory. I passed because I have well documented altitude problems at anything above about 5500'. the observatory is at 6900'. Instead I stayed back and relaxed, made myself some fake bread, read, watched a movie and did some crochet. It was lovely.  Since I last posted about the trip we have done more hiking, I finished the two crochet shawls and we visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The hikes were in Saguaro East National Park and Ventana Canyon. In the park we hiked the Cactus Forest Trail to the Lime Falls. The Ventana Canyon Trail is right out the back door of the condo. I didn't take any photos of the Desert Museum yesterday because I decided to just enjoy the day. The days are really warming up so after a morning walk today, we plan to spent the day poolside before going to a local concert this evening. But the highlight of the past few days was a Haws Walk at Sky Island Falconry. I got the idea to look for a falconry experience from the Nate Romanowski character in the Joe Pickett books. I was reading one around December and that sent me on a search to find Sky Island. Everyone had a blast and our guide was actually named Nate! The Harris's Hawk with us is named Nix.  Most of the time was spent watching her hunt and following her through the desert trying to flush jackrabbits for her. But at the end we all got to hold her several times. It was so much fun to get to see her up close and personal. At one point during the hunt she landed on the head of one of our friends. If only we could have gotten cameras out fast enough to get a photo! The bird is very gentle and Laura didn't even get a scratch.  The day ended with a beautiful sunset.
As I said in the beginning, I did finish the two shawls but I keep forgetting to take photos in daylight. I will try to get those taken today. I took a few days off from crochet to give my hands a rest but I might start a different shawl today.  Tuesday evening, while we were waiting for Ian and Laura to arrive, I saw a shadow out the kitchen window. I had finally gotten a glimpse of the javelina! We were told that they were wild in the neighborhood but this is the first one I've seen. I've been told over and over that they aren't pigs. To me they look like a wild boar but people around here are adamant that these are unique creatures. As long as I don't have to get up close and personal with one, they can be whatever they want to be. But glad to have checked another Tucson box. The weather was chilly yesterday, about 50F for a high and then it rained in the afternoon.  All three of the new guests arrived on time and without incident. We gathered around 8:30 yesterday morning for another hike in the Sabino Canyon recreation Area. Ian is healing from a calf muscle tear so this hike didn't have as much elevation as the Monday hike, although it was still about 5 miles. This is a saguaro blooming out a new arm bud.  This saguaro is one of the one of the most mature ones that I've seen.  In the back of that last photo is this beautiful rock dam. They didn't get much rain this part year so it's dry right now. But in the afternoon we actually got a good bit of rain so maybe there's a little water in the stream today.  In the afternoon, and on a whim, Laura and I decided to visit the Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures. What we expected was a dusty little storefront museum with a few miniatures, no other visitors and a bored docent keeping a close eye on us. You know the type: a little place with someone's beloved small collection and no money to properly keep it up. What we found was a legitimate, big and popular museum in a custom built building and a parking lot full of cars. It was astounding and absolutely overwhelming. I took a few photos to share but you should click on the link and read about the history of the museum and the founder. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of miniatures in this museum that were mostly collected (and made) by one woman. The items date as early as the 1700's.  The doll houses date from the late 1700's to contemporary times. This one was called The Yellow Rose of Texas, The Wedding Day. The gallery below had a photo of each section. This had to have taken years to build. This is the work of a Waterford crystal master cutter. When he retired he decided to make miniatures of the pieces that he used to cut in the factory.  There is a massive display of Department 56 Christmas Village pieces, including a display set into the floor! In the commercial realm there was also collections of kewpie dolls and a Halloween set similar to Department 56.  I had seen the pencil lead carvings from Salavat Fidai online before but it was very cool to see 3 of them in person along with videos of him making each one.  There was even a special exhibit of ships made by Gregory Baumgartner. They are 4 models of a collection of 11 model ships he made of the Union Navy ships that were destroyed at the Gosport Navy Yard. These models are all about to be acquired by the US Navy for exhibition in museums around the country. They are beautifully made and there are great photos and videos on the webpage.
We went there expecting to spend about 30 minutes but stayed 2 hours and we could go again and see different things. You can't absorb it in one visit. If you like miniatures and are ever in Tucson, don't miss this museum. The weather starts to improve and warm up today. We will head to the Saguaro National Park East so Ian and Laura can see more of the area. Starting tomorrow we should be able to spend some time at the pool. We also have our falconry adventure tomorrow.  On Monday we went on our first hike with our friends, Bill and Laurie. This hike was in sabino Canyon National Forest. The trail isn't marked on maps, it's just one that they know about. I learned that unmarked/unmaintained trails are called "social trails". This view looks back toward Tucson.  I think we walked about 4 miles with a healthy elevation gain. It was quite enough for me since I hadn't really exercised for most of the month of January. I had spent 12 days sitting in vehicles on the twoo road trips and 10 days in the recliner with a cold so I was a little out of shape! I was asleep Monday night by 10. That's really early for me.  Bill pointed out an old mine entrance but I was fascinated with the Saguaro perched right on the edge of the entrance. You can see two of the roots exposed. A Saguaro with this many arms is supposedly well over 100 years old.  There are a few things in bloom around here. This is an ocotillo plant with bright pink flowers on the tips of the stems.  This is a cholla and I don't have to tell you what those flowers look like.  Yesterday was rather chilly and we didn't do any hiking. Instead we went to the grocery store to prepare for our friends to arrive last night. Chris went with Bill to pick up another friend at the airport and we enjoyed and afternoon of storytelling in Bill and Laurie's patio.
I also made some progress on the two wheelchair shawls. The one in the right is one whole cake of yarn. I only need to add three rows from the new cake and it will be done. The rest of the new cake will finish off the other one. These will be wrapped up pretty soon. Today we plan to go back to sabino Canyon to take the new arrivals on a short introductory hike. It's going to be chilly again so we will probably be pretty lethargic today. The weather warms up later this week and I see pool time in my furture.  We've made it to Tucson and have settled in our little condo. When you first rent a place you are never sure if it's really going yo be like the photos, but this place is great and is all that it was advertised to be. It's going to be a comfortable place to spend the next 2 weeks. This is the view from our screened porch. There's a great hiking trail that starts just behind that fence and goes way up that canyon.  We love this hike because we can do as much of it as we want and the views are great all the way up. Yesterday morning we started our vacation with a hike up the canyon. It's the first time that I've really exercised since January with the 2 cross-country trips and 10 sick days in between.  It's not a terribly steep trail so we did about 45 minutes out and 45 back. That was a good start to the trip.  We don't usually see many flowers in the desert but these were a nice surprise.
The afternoon was spent watching the Eagles beat the Commanders and I can't wait for the Super Bowl in 2 weeks! I don't have a crochet update today but will in a couple of days. We're heading our for a hike this morning and might spend the afternoon by the pool with a good book. We left Hot Springs Wednesday morning and settled in for the longest day of driving to get to Midland, TX. I think it was about 9 hours. Through Arkansas I got a good look at the rice and forestry industries. As I researched, I learned that Arkansas is most known for poultry but I didn't see any of that in the parts where we were. We were lucky to make it around Dallas without any slowdowns. I actually visited Midland/Odessa in the 1980's when I was working for KPMG. I was sent there to do an IT audit. It was at a severe down period in the oil industry and I had never seen such a depressing place. Today it's booming! There are oil and gas workers everywhere and the economy is strong. There's also a big investment in that area in solar and wind. It was kind of depressing to see so many windmills not working. I'd say only about 30% were actually working. Anyway, it was all interesting.  While looking around for interesting things, I discovered that Odessa has a replica of Stonehenge. We just had to check it out before leaving town. It's at the University of Texas Permian Basin and was built in 6 weeks in 2004. I wouldn't make a special trip but if you are near Odessa you should go to see it. After that visit we were off to White Sands National Park. We drove I20 and I10 through El Paso and then north to Alamogordo. We got to go through a border crossing station and saw part of the border wall near El Paso. El Paso looks like a very interesting city and I think it would be fun to explore if we are ever back in this corner of the country.  White Sands National Park is amazing. If you have never done so, look it up in Google maps to see the satellite view of this wonder. The size is hard to describe. It reminds me of the vastness of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. The white sand is gypsum and it's as far as you can see. The park is only part of the total sand area. Much of it is a government missile testing range. Chris' Dad actually worked here some when he worked on missile development after he retired from the Navy. When you visit the park you have to check the testing schedule because occasionally a road to the park might be closed. It's not something that happens very often but it does occasionally happen. Here are a few more photos.  Of course you can't go anywhere anymore without running into some girls ( always girls) doing photo sessions for social media. These three were out there at least a half hour just posing for photos. It seems like a colossal waste of time but to each her own.  On the crochet front I'm making steady progress on all of my projects. Here's the wheelchair blanket so far. I've worked on it for 2 days.  This is the shawl that I started. I finished up the partial cake and set it aside for now. I have 2 more cakes and I know I can get finish this one and get one more made with the remaining cakes.  I decided to start the second shawl and to see how far I get with one whole cake. Then I'll know how much of the last cake to allocate to each. So, I'm making progress all around.
Today we finally head to Tucson where we can sleep in the same bed for 2 whole weeks and cook some meals in a real kitchen!  Our second stop on the way to Tucson was Hot Springs, AR yesterday. It was an opportunity to check another National Park off our list. To be honest, we would have never made a special trip to come here but it was a great stop over after 7 hours of driving. We got in a good hike to help recover from 2 days of sitting in the car. Hot Springs is the second smallest National Park after the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. It has a very interesting history and a big part of the "park" is the row of mostly former spas along the main road. One of the spas has been converted into the visitor center so you can tour the building to see how these spas were set up over 100 years ago. The tile and stained glass work is beautiful. I think that now there are 2 spas that you can visit and use. We didn't do that.  Instead, we hiked up to the observation tower to get a view of the surrounding area. I bet these views are spectacular in the Fall.  We found a super cute hotel to stay at that's only about a couple of miles from the park. We are making our hotel reservations as we travel. Being that it's the middle of January, there isn't any problem finding hotels on short notice.  Today, in the car, I worked on the next wheelchair blanket.
Tomorrow we have about 9 hours to drive and are going to get to Odessa or Abilene, Texas. We aren't stopping for anything fun, we're just making progress tomorrow so I'll post again in a couple of days. After Texas, we will stop at White Sands National Park to notch another park off the list before we arrive in Tucson on Saturday.  I don't think there's a better place on the planet to spend a travel night. A night listening to some great music is a perfect way to unwind after 9 hours in the car. We made it to Nashville about 4 pm, ate dinner in our hotel room and headed to Broadway to listen to some music. As everyone in the US knows, it's freezing right now.  Our 5 block walk was fast and really cold but it was warm in The Second Fiddle. Being a Tuesday night in January, there weren't a lot of customers so both bands had fun and we felt like we were having a private concert.  The other excitement from the trips was our first visit to a Buc-ees. What a huge place! It's like a really clean Wal-Mart for travelers. There had to be 100 gas pumps and bathrooms cleaner than mine. Now I get the excitement about Buc-ees.  Finally, I made great progress on a shawl while Chris was driving. The lighting in the hotel room is horrible but you get the idea. I think that today I'll switch to the moss stitch blanket while we travel to Hot Springs for our second stop.
It's been a minute or two! I returned from the great road trip adventure last Monday but I haven't been able to do much since them. I came home with a massive head cold and spent this last week in the recliner. I'm on the mend now and the cold didn't damper the fun of the trip. Today's post is all about the trip.  We left Richmond early on the morning of the 30th and our ride was Anne's party van. We took this photo at the last stop in Denver.  We had the best travel companion, Ouiser. Hours of riding had to be miserable for her but she was a trooper. It was funny on the first night when, during the night, she jumped in bed with me. I thought she was being sweet. It turned out she was looking for protection because she had a little accident in the other room. She didn't sleep with me again the rest of the trip and we were all happy about it.  Our first stop was Knoxville, TN. Neither of us had ever been to Dollywood and we decided to start here to see the Christmas decorations. The decorations were amazing. I could have taken a hundred different photos. These are just a few of my favorites. The park is so well run and very clean. I'm not a big theme-park person but I'd go to this one again.  After Knoxville, it was a short drive to Nashville to spend New Year's Eve in party city. We had a drink and listened to some music in a bar on Broadway before heading to the Ryman. The Ryman has to be one of the coolest theaters in the US. There's so much music history there. Several years ago, Chris and I saw Vince Gill and Amy Grant there at Christmas about 5 years ago.  There can't be a cooler show at the Ryman than Old Crow Medicine Show on New Year's Eve. I haven't seen a more energetic show since Earth, Wind and Fire. It was an absolute blast. The next day we were off to Mammoth Cave National Park after a 45 minute search for the perfect chicken sandwich. We did two tours at Mammoth Cave, the Frozen Niagra and Mammoth Passage. I would love to come here again. Aside from over 400 miles of mapped caves, there are miles of above ground hiking trails too. I expect this area is absolutely beautiful in Spring and Summer. If you ever get a chance to visit this park, do it. But plan ahead, the tours fill up fast. You can get on a notification list for openings and they do add tours throughout the day. Of course, you can't go in the caves without a tour.  January 2 started the long driving part of our trip. We spent the evening of the 2nd just west of St. Louis and headed to Lincoln, NE on the 3rd. The stop in Lincoln was to visit the International Quilt Museum. Unfortunately, our timing couldn't have been worse. They were preparing 3 galleries for new exhibits. But we did get to see this very cool exhibit of quilted sculptures by Susan Else from Santa Cruz, CA.  After Lincoln, it was an 8 hour drive to Denver and the weather was like this most of the way. On this adventure I did get to do some of the driving and this day/evening was the most stressful. But the van performed great. We had to stop a few times to scrape the windshield and lights but it was never slippery at all. It's convenient to have a van with a microwave. We could heat water to pour on the wiper blades and lights. This photo was taken in Kearney, NE to send to my husband. Chris has hunted near Kearney for 30 years.  Most of Nebraska and Colorado looks just like this. There's a lot of space in those states!  This was my favorite sight. We arrived in Denver about 8pm and we were ready for a night where we could sleep in.  On Sunday, we headed to Empower Stadium to watch the Broncos play the Chiefs backups.
It was freezing cold but a beautiful day. It was a fun ending to a great trip. On Monday, Anne and Ouiser left for the mountain and a winter of skiing.  I packed my two little remaining bags and came home Monday night. I packed for the trip in a way that I could throw out almost everything I packed. Occasionally I like to use travel to purge my wardrobe and it worked great on this trip. It's a really good way to travel to a quilt show. You can replace your clothes with fabric for the trip home.
Now we start getting ready for our drive to Tucson next week. I need to get the farm quilt bound before I go which means that I need to get a piece of fabric dyed for the binding first. I'm glad I'm feeling better. |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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