Yarns from the Lake

RV Trip Part 1 – Yellowstone

In August we went on a two week Yellowstone and Tetons RV vacation with friends. We had a great time, and it would not be surprising if we do another group trip. With that said, this trip was not my idea. Wayne and his friends came up with the plan to meet at Yellowstone. I like Yellowstone. I have already been to Yellowstone two times. I would have picked a different destination I have not already visited. Wayne came up with the itinerary, made all the arrangements, and researched possible activities. I was so busy over the summer that I did not think about it until it was time to pack for the trip.

We bought our 5^thwheel trailer four years ago, with the idea that we would be able to use it for snowbirding, as well as for other vacations. It turns out that this is the first time we have used it, other than at a 55+ resort in Arizona during the winter.

As the time got closer to departure day, I looked forward to getting away after a very full summer. Packing was easy using my very detailed spreadsheet of what is stored in the RV, and what I need to assemble. It was stressful due to regrouping after hosting a big family get together at our house and the cabin, and preparing for two different groups of people to use our house while we were gone. I was also working hard to finish a weaving project in order to post about it before we left.

We got the truck and RV loaded and prepared as much as possible the night before, including connecting the 5th Wheel Trailer to the hitch in the bed of our Ford 150 pickup truck.

Wednesday, 8/13/2025

We pulled out of our driveway around 7:30 am. It was easy driving from western Minnesota, going west on Interstate 90 across North Dakota and Montana. In four trips towing the RV to Arizona and back, Wayne has done all the driving. This time I gave him a break for about two hours, my first time driving while towing the RV. All I did was drive onto the freeway, and later off the freeway. It was not hard, as you can hardly tell the 5^th wheel trailer is there, other than that you cannot see anything out the rear view mirror. The giant side mirrors make up for that.

Of course I had a knitting project to work on during the trip. I am attempting to make knitted and felted slippers. Eventually there will be a blog post, assuming they work out. Or maybe even if they don’t.

We had planned on sleeping in the RV for one night while en route, using the bed and toilet without unhooking the trailer from the truck or opening the slides, and without any utilities. When we are on the way to Arizona it is too cold, so we have never done this before. As we were making our way across Montana it was in the upper 90’s Fahrenheit, and at one point the car thermometer registered at 100 degrees. It would not cool off fast enough or far enough to make it habitable inside the RV overnight, so instead we booked a hotel room near Columbus, Montana, west of Billings.

Thursday, 8/14/2025

Cell phone service was very limited as we drove across Montana. We had trouble touching base with our friends, and Wayne had to give up on a phone call with his cousin that kept dropping.

We stopped at a Safeway store in Bozeman for groceries, knowing that prices would be higher in the town of West Yellowstone near our campground. When walking past the butcher counter, an employee noticed the Arizona sweatshirt I was wearing. He wanted to chat about where we were from and our connection to Arizona, being he had lived there for a time. His sister lives near where we snowbird in Gold Canyon. He gave us some bags of ice, so we did not have to buy any. We had an extra cooler in the truck, but also bought a styrofoam cooler to hold more cold food.

About an hour from our destination, we stopped at a pullout along a stream and ate sandwiches I had brought from home.

By mid afternoon on Thursday, August 14, we arrived at Baker’s Hole, a National Forest campground about three miles from West Yellowstone. One of the other couples, Steve and Sally, had arrived a few days earlier and already scoped out the area. The third couple staying in the same campground, Harvey and Glenda, arrived by early evening. Our campsites were all next to or across from each other.

The campground was how I envision camping, with spacious campsites and many pine trees. The sites have angled spaces which is nice for backing the RV into place. My only complaint is that it was located quite close to the highway, and there was a steady stream of traffic noise all the time, except during the night. There was also a small airport nearby. The other first world problem is that there was no wifi and the cell service was very bad. It was OK to be off line for most of the trip, but frustrating to not be able to check the weather forecast in the morning.

Setting up the RV is a slow process for us, but we did not have any problems. That does not always happen. The campsite had electric hookup, but no water or sewer. This was new for us. There was a place to fill our RV water tank at the entrance, but no way to add more water to the tank in an efficient way. We were filling up jugs of water for drinking and cooking, rather than using the water out of the faucet from the tank. Also, we were only using the toilet at night and only for peeing. There was an outhouse nearby that we used during daylight hours, but no campground shower facility. Showers in the RV had to be very short to conserve water.

Steve and Sally invited us to dinner at their campsite, across from ours. It was nice not to have to figure out dinner after just getting set up. I contributed green beans from our garden that had traveled from Minnesota and needed to be eaten.

Friday, August 15

Steve and Sally invited the whole group to their place for “Cowboy Breakfast” the next morning. They have an ALiner pop up camper which is smaller than what the other couples have, but very cozy and efficient, and can be towed by their Subaru. They have a very complete setup for outdoor cooking. The forth couple in our group, Loren and Linda, drove over to join us for breakfast from where they were staying in a private campground about 20 miles away.

After breakfast and some planning we all headed out for a day of sightseeing inside Yellowstone National Park, with two couples in our truck and two couples in Loren and Linda’s truck. Sometimes there are long lines to get into the park, but we breezed through the entrance with our senior passes and starting out later in the morning.

Most people have at least heard of Yellowstone National Park. For the record, it is located mostly in Montana and is known for the wildlife, and for the variety and number of geothermal features including geysers, mud pots, and colorful steaming thermal pools. The highest elevation lake in North America is located in Yellowstone. There are rivers, waterfalls, and canyons. It sits on the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest super volcano on the continent, now considered dormant. It is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and a must see amazing place. I took a photo of the map below that I saw displayed somewhere in the park.

The first stop of the day was Midway Geyser Basin, an area with pools of steaming water and brilliant colors. The Grand Prismatic Spring is huge and blue and steaming, surrounded by green and orange and gold. It was impossible not to take too many photos from various vantage points along the boardwalk path.

Next on the agenda was the Old Faithful, where there is a complex of buildings including lodging and a visitor center. And good cell service. At the visitor center we watched an educational movie about the park, and then went over to watch the eruption of the Old Faithful geyser at the expected time. Old Faithful is not the highest geyser in the park, but it is more regular and predictable.

It was hot outside, so in order to get out of the sun, we had beverages (and in my case an ice cream cone) followed by Happy Hour inside the Old Faithful Inn. Old Faithful Inn is the earliest classic log cabin style national park lodge, build in 1904. After we got home, my phone knew that I was googling information on Yellowstone, and in my feed was the link for a story about the Old Faithful Inn on CBS Eye on America. There is some good video and detail about the building for those interested. I found a photo online of the original facade of the Old Faithful Inn.

Wayne in front of a vintage style Yellowstone van at Old Faithful Inn

I forgot to bring something I needed for my knitting project. While we had cell service in the Old Faithful area, I googled for a local yarn shop in West Yellowstone. West Yellowstone Fabric & Yarn came up, but it is online only. They were advertising some yarn with colors inspired by scenes in the park, hand dyed by Jeanne from Destination Yarn in Ohio. I would have bought a skein of the “Grand Prismatic” colorway, but it was out of stock.

We considered eating an early dinner at the Old Faithful Inn, but the food options were limited. Instead we headed for the Slippery Otter Pub in West Yellowstone. Steve and Sally had eaten dinner there the night before and recommended it.

On the way out of the park, there was a back up near the exit. It turned out to be due to people slowing down and/or pulling over to look at wildlife on both sides of the road. There was a herd of elk on one side of the road, and possibly a grizzly bear on the other side. One person in our car may have seen the bear across a stream, up a bank and foraging in some bushes. I did not see it.

Saturday, August 16

Each couple was on their own for the day. We purposely had a slow morning. I caught up on some cabin LLC bookkeeping that was behind by two months, and typed up notes from the trip so far. After lunch in the RV we drove to the Artist Paint Pots area of the park. The weather report had been for 10 degrees cooler than the day before, but instead it was about 87 degrees Fahrenheit with threat of thunderstorms. A little hot for a lot of walking around. The Artist Paint Pots is another area with a long boardwalk for viewing dozens of springs, geysers, vents and mud pots.

After that we drove to the Mammoth Hot Springs and Terraces. This area has more cool geological formations, plus an entire village with the park headquarters and housing for park employees, guest lodging, a Visitor Center, a gas station, a restaurant, and a military fort from the 1800’s. The Army was stationed here when the park was new to stop poaching by hunters and vandalization from tourists.

There was an easy walking loop for viewing the “lower terraces” composed of travertine with water flowing downhill, looking a bit like the inside of a cave. There was a longer path uphill to see the more, but due to the heat, we went on a loop drive in the car to see the “upper terraces”, instead of walking.

We did not want to move the car to another parking space closer to the Mammoth Hot Springs Village, so ended up walking what seemed like a long way in the heat. We peeked in some of the buildings, and then went inside the Visitor Center. At the gift shop there was a rack of park inspired socks, including a pair with “Grand Prismatic” graphics. I have to say if I could have bought some of that hand dyed Grand Prismatic inspired yarn and cranked a pair of socks on my sock machine, they would be nicer. We saw Loren and Linda in the visitor center. Later we heard that Harvey and Glenda were there too, shortly after we left. Normally there are elk wandering all over in Mammoth Hot Springs. We saw droppings but not a single elk. We wondered if they were staying hidden in the shade somewhere due to the unusual heat.

Loren and Linda with us at Mammoth Hot Springs Visitor Center

Heading out of the park there was a backup of traffic again. This happened at the same spot every time we drove in or out of the park. We saw a lone bison by the side of the road, and possibly some elk, I cannot remember any more.

We had planned on eating dinner at our campsite, and then having a group campfire. Around the same time we stopped for groceries in West Yellowstone, we heard from Steve and Sally that the transmission on their Subaru went out just as they were entering West Yellowstone, after their day in the park. It was also starting to rain. There were text messages flying to figure out how to assist them, and changing up plans for dinner. We could not get a hold of Loren and Linda at first because they were still inside the park with no cell service. We took our groceries back to the RV and waited for updates. As Harvey and Glenda were arriving in West Yellowstone after coming out of the park, they happened upon Steve and Sally, and were able to give them a ride back to camp. We agreed to meet for dinner out instead of cooking, at the Slippery Otter again. Loren and Linda finally got all the messages, but they still had to buy groceries and it was getting late, so they did their own thing for dinner.

While we were eating dinner, Wayne had to tell his story of being stuck in Grants, New Mexico when we were on the way home from Arizona at the end of March, and how that was worse than Steve’s transmission going out with all of us together and able to help them. Steve was not convinced he should be happy about his situation, although they were grateful they did not break down inside the park with no cell service to call for help. Being Saturday evening he could not reach anyone at his insurance company, or any repair places or a Subaru dealer. He joked about junking the car and trading it in for a Ford F150 (what the other three couples all have), which Sally did not think was funny.

The group bonfire was cancelled due to rain, and everyone was exhausted by the end of the day.

Sunday, August 17

Wayne planned breakfast at our campsite for the entire group of eight people, including eggs, sausages, and pancakes with our family made maple syrup. He forgot that we have a small stove and one frying pan in the RV. I started to think about how we could cook the sausages first and put them in the small oven to keep warm, then cook the eggs and put them in the oven, and lastly cook the pancakes. Then I remembered that Steve and Sally have a big outdoor griddle. They were very willing to move that over to our campsite. Wayne cooked the sausages and pancakes outside on the griddle, while I cooked eggs inside the RV on the stove. It worked well and everyone enjoyed the meal.

After breakfast we re-grouped to prepare for a day of sightseeing with two couples each in two trucks. As Wayne pulled out of our camp site, the left front tire was making very bad noises. He pulled over into an empty site and flagged down the other carload. At that point everyone got out of the trucks and the four guys all tried to figure out what was wrong, including jacking up the truck and taking the tire off and putting it back on. It was determined that our truck needed service and we could not use it. At this point two of the four vehicles were broken down. Harvey’s truck was available, but his F150 has a smaller back seat. We shuffled around so that there were five people in Loren’s truck and three people in Harvey’s truck and headed out again.

The destinations for Sunday were the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, followed by the Hayden Valley and Mud Volcano area.

There was an informative ranger talk at the Grand Canyon where we learned some of the history of Yellowstone National Park. The land has been inhabited by humans for around 11,000 years. In the 1700’s Fur Traders came through the area. There were several expeditions by Europeans in the 1800’s. The most important one was the 1871 Hayden Expedition that included a photographer and some artists. A book was made using photos and art from the trip that was used to communicate to Congress and other big whigs how unique and beautiful the place is, and the importance of preserving it. In 1872 President Ulysses S. Grant signed into the law the establishment of the first National Park in the world.

After gawking at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, we found someone to take a group photo with the lower falls in the background.

Next we drove through the Hayden Valley, an area where it is common to see animals. We saw many bison, including a few mother bison nursing babies. Some of the bison were making grunting noises, which we later found out happens during mating season.

The Mud Volcano area was the last sight seeing spot for the day. More thermal features are here that look like bubbling witches brews of mud.

For Sunday dinner Loren and Linda invited us to have spaghetti dinner at their camp site at Red Rock camp ground, about 20 miles south. Their camp site was more open with beautiful mountain views, and full hookups. Loren and Linda have a 5^th wheel trailer very similar to ours. Or rather ours is similar to theirs. We saw theirs, liked it a lot, and bought a similar model. After dinner we had a camp fire with s’mores. Loren drove some of us back to our camp ground since Harvey could not fit six adults in his truck.

An evening at Loren and Linda’s camp site

Wayne and Steve both fretted about repairs to the vehicles, but were not able to get any information since everything was closed on Sunday. Steve considered many scenarios depending on how long it would take to fix his car, including what to do with their trailer if the repair took longer than their reservation at the campground.

Monday, August 18

Loren and Linda checked out of their campsite and went south to the Tetons, so we would not see them again on this trip.

No sightseeing happened on Monday due to the problems with vehicles, and because everyone was wiped out from all the activity that had happened so far. Wayne drove our truck (it was OK to go a short distance) with Steve into West Yellowstone first thing in the morning. Wayne had found an auto service place that could look at it. Steve was able to get a ride with the tow truck taking his car two hours to Bozeman where there is a Subaru dealer. He was able to get a loaner car to drive himself back to West Yellowstone, and to use until there their car was fixed or there was another plan.

Sally and I got a ride into town with Harvey to look at some shops and get a few groceries, and where we met up with Wayne. Steve arrived back from Bozemen with the loaner car and met up with Sally. Other than that it was a welcome quiet day of hanging around the camp site. I typed up more trip notes and worked on my knitting project.

We hosted a group dinner at our camp site with brats and burgers cooked on our small portable grill, vegetable stir fry, baked beans, and fruit. Harvey and Glenda brought their can cozies.

I checked in with my sister who had used the cabin and our house with friends over the weekend. They had a good time, but forgot that I had suggested they pick produce out of our garden. If no one picks anything before we get home, we will find some state fair record size zucchini.

Tuesday, August 19

Steve and Sally hosted another big breakfast at their place with sausage, and biscuits with gravy or Huckleberry jam. Normally I do not have a big breakfast, but it worked out well so that we could bring snacks in the car for lunch. I had some time to work on a shoelace weaving project, using a different band weaving technique than the pair I made before with tablet weaving before we left the camp site.

We were down to six people instead of eight for another day of sight seeing, since Loren and Linda had moved on. Wayne and I rode with Steve and Sally in their loaner car, while Harvey and Glenda drove their truck. They agenda for the day was West Thumb Geyser Basin and Yellowstone Lake. I discovered the compass app on my phone that includes elevation. On the two hour drive through the park, I took a screen shop documenting that we reached 8,530 feet.

The West Geyser Basin area has a boardwalk around more thermal pools, and a view of Yellowstone Lake. It was unusually hot outside again. Steve had a gadget that he could wave at the thermal pools and get a temperature reading. Some were around 120 degrees Fahrenheit, others were as high as 195 degrees.

We made a couple of stops on the way back, including a snack break with a different view of Yellowstone Lake.

Some of us saw the bear at the same place where there was a traffic backup every single day on the way out of the park. I saw it this time, but did not try to take a photo. It would look like a brown blob. Following is a better photo of a bear than what I could get from inside the car with my phone.

Harvey and Glenda were in West Yellowstone at a brew pub, Yellowstone Beer Company, when we exited the park. Steve and Sally and Wayne and I joined them there for happy hour, followed by dinner. Several of the people in the group had a locally inspired entree, Bison Jambalaya, which they said was very delicious.

We got word that our truck was fixed already, so were able to pick it up after dinner.

Wednesday, August 20

Everyone did their own thing again. I blew a fuse in the RV blow drying my hair while an electric space heater was running. Oops. Steve and Sally drove their loaner car to Bozeman to look at new cars. We drove to Big Sky to get together with a former coworker of Wayne’s who has a house there. He and his wife were originally from New York, but he was offered a job in St. Paul, Minnesota. Minnesota being flyover country, they thought he would take the job for a year or two, and then move back to the east coast. Now, 25 years later, they still make the Minneapolis area their primary home. We met them at a restaurant for breakfast in Big Sky, and then they gave us a tour of the area. This included the ski resort which was active with mountain bikers, a place where they like to go hiking, an exclusive golf course, and a new housing development for people who have more money than they know what to do with. It was all very beautiful and we enjoyed catching up with them.

After regrouping back at the RV, we drove into Yellowstone for the afternoon. We were headed back to the Old Faithful area, stopping on the way for Firehole Canyon Drive and Firehole Falls, Fountain Paint Pots, and Black Sand Basin. Firehole Canyon is very scenic drive, and the thermal pools and areas at Fountain Paint Pots and Black Sand were amazing.

We had a picnic dinner at the Old Faithful area, and then walked to the Old Faithful Upper Geyser Basin boardwalk to see more geysers. We did not see much geyser activity and Wayne’s knee was bothering him, so we gave up on that and drove back to camp.

I had been eyeing the Haagen Daz ice cream shop in West Yellowstone, my all time favorite brand of ice cream. We had driven by multiple times. I convinced Wayne that it was a good time to stop for a cone on our way back to the RV.

Steve and Sally returned to the campground in their brand new Subaru Outback Wilderness with a trailer hitch, in time for a campfire at our place.

Thursday, August 21

Steve and Sally left for home with their new car towing their ALiner trailer, as per their original schedule. We caught up on some housekeeping tasks at our trailer for the morning.

We spent our last afternoon at Yellowstone with Harvey and Glenda, visiting the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone and the Norris Geyser Basin inside the park.

The Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center is a private non-profit wildlife park and educational center in the town of West Yellowstone. In addition to bears and wolves, they have information and displays on eagles and birds of prey, and an aquarium with otters and fish. We watched a bear being very silly.

Our final activity in the park was walking around “the hottest, most acidic, and most dynamic” (according to a sign) Norris Geyser Basin.

Our RV fresh water tank registered as empty, so Wayne turned the hot water heater off. No more showers. Water was still coming out of the faucets, but we we were not sure how long that would continue. We had jugs of fresh water for dishes, drinking, and flushing the toilet if needed. We had not done any laundry since leaving home. Harvey and Glenda were going to be away from home longer than us, so they did laundry at a laundromat in West Yellowstone. I washed out a couple pairs of underwear by hand. In lieu of hand washing anything, Wayne bought a couple of new tee shirts in town. Maybe he turned his underwear inside out? I do not know.

Friday, August 22

It took all morning to prepare for leaving Baker’s Hole campground and towing the RV to another campground near Grand Teton National Park. This was different than packing up the RV after a winter in Arizona. I left food in the refrigerater, and most of the dishes and food in the cupboards, moving only heavy or loose items into boxes on the floor. Baker’s Hole campground does not have a dump station, but we were able to empty out the black and gray tanks at Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone.

There are several possible routes to get from the west side of Yellowstone south to Grand Teton National Park. They all involve driving through mountainous areas with curvy roads. Wayne decided that the least scary way was going through Yellowstone, rather than around on the east or west side, so for one last time we enjoyed the beautiful scenery in the park. The following art was on the wall in the Yellowstone Inn, I neglected to get the name of the artist. I am not sure if it is supposed to be a specific spot in the park, or more of a composite of several areas. I thought it was pretty and gives a good overall sense of the place.

Snapshot of a painting on the wall at the Old Faithful Inn

One thing that was always in the back of my mind is the fact that Yellowstone is sitting on a dormant super volcano. I saw the following display that shows how for the ash from various volcano eruptions was spread. The Yellowstone eruption spread ash all the way to where we live in Western Minnesota.

It is not expected to erupt again anytime in our lifetime, but eventually when it does go off, it will not be pretty. With that in mind, we made our way out of the park and on to the next leg of our vacation. Our time in the Grand Teton National Park and the journey home will be featured in another post.

Note: Some of photos were from Wayne, or possibly one of our friends who shared them with me.

Structo Artcraft Towels

Over a year ago I was gifted a vintage Structo Artcraft four shaft table loom. At the time I was excited to have it, as the size is in between my small rigid heddle loom and my wider floor loom. I practiced using the table loom by weaving off the warp yarn that came on it. I wrote about getting the loom, learning some history on the brand, and my first attempt at weaving on it here.

Lately I have been considering whether or not to keep the Structo Artcraft loom. It takes up quite a bit of room, and anything I would weave on it can be made on my floor loom. However I wanted to weave an actual project on the loom before making a final decision.

Last fall I ordered some gift items from graphic artist Cindy Lindgren, a close friend of my sister-in-law. Cindy sells products with art related to specific states, Paul Bunyon, Vikings, hiking, and other fun themes. Her website can be found here, and she has some products for sale at retail locations, including MSP airport. I have a poster in my laundry room with her design of Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox having smores.

A dish towel I ordered from Cindy’s shop has art showing Norwegian Vikings holding kitchen utensils. The same art is available on other items.

I thought it would be fun to weave a set of towels on the Structo Artcraft loom using colors coordinating with the Viking theme towel. They could be given as a fun gift set. At first I thought I might have to buy yarn for this project, but after digging through my weaving yarn I already had the right colors on hand.

I was a little worried about having a mixture of fibers for the warp yarn, including 100% linen, 8/4 cotton, and Duet Cotton/Linen blend. The linen yarn is a bit thicker, the Duet is thinner. Mixing up the types of yarn could cause problems.

After looking at some ideas online, I decided to go for a plaid look in plain weave. No fancy pattern, just the pretty colors. The linen yarn was on the thicker side of the range for the 15 ends per inch reed that came with the loom. Figuring out the details involved making sure there was some 100% cotton yarn between the blocks of linen and cotton/linen blend yarn, not having too much linen yarn as a proportion of the total, and making sure the arrangement of colors looked pleasing.

I wound on half of the warp yarn in one warp chain, then realized that there was not as much of the green cotton and red duet yarn as I thought there was. I changed the pattern of colors a bit for the second half.

Two warp chains of yarn measured for towel weaving project

After measuring the warp yarn ends, I got them ready to begin threading them through the reed slots, also knows as “sleying the reed”.

Some people consider “sleying the reed” a necessary evil, but I enjoy it.

I was proud of myself for getting all 300 yarn ends threaded into the reed in one day.

The loom is sitting on an old wooden tea cart with wheels, so I turned it around for the next step of threading each end through a heddle from the back. Then I realized that I did not have enough heddles on the loom. Oh No! I had never counted them.

Not having enough heddles meant that I would either have to get more, or reduce the number of yarn ends. I was not excited about spending money on this loom, but it was not a bad idea to have a complete set of heddles for myself or another future weaver. There were options for buying a partial set or a complete set, in metal or texsolv (a durable polyester cord). I have never used texsolve heddles, but decided to try them. I ordered a complete new set, rather than ending up with a mixture of metal and texsolv heddles.

The project was on hold while I waited for delivery of the order. Meanwhile, we had our son and daughter-in-law for the weekend, with their two year old, Blair, and two month old, Nora. We cleaned the house and childproofed for small visitors. Within an hour of their arrival, the house was chaos with toys and stuff everywhere, LOL. It was super hot out with high temperatures in 90’s Fahrenheit and heat index over 100 degrees. We spent time at the family cabin beach in the earlier part of the day before it got too hot. Blair got to see a turtle swimming in the lake, and Wayne caught a fish for her off the end of the dock. There is a video of Wayne with the fish that Blair has since requested to watch dozens of times.

Blair got a boat ride in Wayne’s small fishing boat, and the next day we all went on a pontoon boat ride. It was a great weekend and we looked forward to their next visit.

After we had gotten the house back in order, my texsolv heddles arrived in the mail. They seemed to be too short, even though had I measured very carefully. It is hard to tell from this photo of the original metal heddles next to the new texsolv heddles.

Old metal heddles next to the new texsolv heddles

I considered moving the project to my floor loom. It was not too late for that. However I decided to first bring one of the harnesses (frame that the heddles are hanging on) with the original metal heddles to show Torri, my experienced weaver mentor in Fergus Falls. After taking the twist ties off and actually putting one bundle of heddles on the harness, we realized they did in fact fit. Back at home I spent the evening getting the harnesses off the loom, removing the old metal heddles, and putting the new texsolv heddles on the harnesses.

New texsolv heddles on all four harnesses

The new heddles fit snugly. They do not rattle and clank against each other like the metal version. They do not slide as easily as the metal heddles. I am not sure if that is normal, or if they are fitting tighter than they are supposed to. This is a vintage loom no longer in production, so possibly the standard sizes available are not exactly right.

Threading the yarn ends through the heddles was a slow process for me. The ergonomics were not ideal. When sitting on a stool, I could not see the yarn ends coming out of the reed. Standing, I could see but had to lean over. I made sure to take breaks.

Threading the yarn ends through the heddles from the back

After project was completely warped, I wove a couple of rows and worked the hem stitch at the beginning of the first towel.

After weaving for only a few inches, something became horribly wrong with the tension and I did not know what to do. I had talked to Torri about coming over sometime to see this loom, as well as my circular sock machine. It was Sunday, so her shop was closed. Luckily for me she was available and willing to stop by my house after she left an event she was attending.

Torri figured out what was wrong immediately. In the photo below you can see a wood dowel with the yarn ends tied on to it, and a white band zig zagging between that and a metal bar below that is not visible. The “zag” at the right end of the dowel had fallen off, so the dowel was not under tension at that end. DUH, I felt so dumb for not noticing that myself, but I was relieved the problem was easy to fix. She made a couple of other adjustments on the back.

After the weaving was back in shape, Torri enjoyed watching me make a sock on my sock machine, mostly without any mistakes. I sent a jug of our family made maple syrup home with her as a thank you. I was able to continue weaving rows on the towel after she left.

Throughout the weaving project I had tension issues. I am going to blame it on the vintage loom, but there could have been some user error too. As I wove and wound the fabric on to the front beam, it was crooked. If I tried to fix it, then the warp yarns were too loose on one side. I could make small adjustments by beating the rows a bit tighter on that side.

One thing that bugged me, but may not have been an actual problem, was that sometimes when I raised harnesses two and four as in the next photo, they were crooked. I kept on going without trying to figure it out.

Another thing that probably was contributing to my problems is visible in the photo below. On the back beam you can see the metal bar that is connected to the wood dowel by the zig zagging white band at the beginning of the warp. It is off center and not laying flat.

In the following photo you can see how the weaving is crooked, by comparing where the rows line up with the wood on each side.

Another thing that was happening was that when beating a row, it did not beat evenly. If I beat with the reed a second time it would even out.

When I had finished weaving both towels and removed them from the loom, I found some floats, where one of the weft yarns missed some of the warp yarns.

A float where a green weft row missed going under some of the warp yarns

I had to fix the floats by manually weaving a second piece of yarn over the same section. Following is a photo showing where I fixed a different float.

Following are photos of the two towels off the loom. They looked better than I expected given the crooked weaving and other tension problems. For the first towel I wove the weft rows matching the pattern of the warp yarns.

For the second towel, I wove four inches each of the seven different yarns.

I knew that using different types of yarn in both the warp and weft would affect the look of the fabric and result in different take-up and shrinkage. The thicker linen yarn caused those sections to bow out a bit. The fabric seemed very stiff. I had been worried that using the 15 ends per inch reed would make the fabric too dense, but visually it seemed right.

After fixing the floats, weaving in ends, and running the towels through the washing machine and dryer, they did not feel too stiff. They felt nice and substantial. They were also uneven. The towels are not exact rectangles, no surprise. The different thicknesses and textures of the yarns made it interesting and camouflaged some of the imperfections.

One thing I like about making towels is that even if they are not symmetrical and have imperfections, they are still functional. They do coordinate nicely with the Cindy Lindgren towels.

I love the way each of the colors interacts with the other colors as they intersect. I would never have thought of putting olive green and turquoise green together, but I like that combination a lot.

I wanted to finish this weaving project and publish a blog about it before we are out of town for two weeks. We are getting ready to leave for a trip to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons with our 5th Wheel Trailer. Some people warp enough yarn for 4 or 6 or more towels. Given I am always nervous about tension problems, I prefer to measure a shorter warp. In this case, I was glad I only had enough for two towels, and with the challenges I had, I am glad to be done.

I was frustrated with some of the problems I had, that I am going to blame more on the loom than my skill level. I should clarify that this loom is actually in pretty good shape for being 50 plus years old, but I do like having good equipment. This brand of vintage loom is not made any more, and thus parts are not available for restoring it to perfect condition. I do not really need it. If I did want to have a table loom, I would rather buy a new one or a newer used model that is still in production.

I was considering selling the loom, but I have a better offer. Torri has two flatbed knitting machines still in the boxes that she has never used, and does not expect to use. She is going to trade me the Structo Artcraft table loom for the two flatbed knitting machines. I don’t really have time to go down yet another rabbit hole, but I am interested is seeing how flatbed knitting machines work and what I could make with them. Like the circular sock machine, they can knit something up a lot faster than hand knitting. And it turns out that the School of Sweet Georgia just came out with a class on flatbed knitting machines. I watched part of it already. The instructor is Barb Barone, of Yarniversity by River City Yarns. Barb is very patient and calming to listen to. She is the “Bob Ross” of knitting instructors.

Meanwhile I am assembling a couple of projects to bring on the Yellowstone trip, that are portable for working while on the road and when we get there. I am attempting to make some knitted and felted slippers (that I thought would be done a month ago), and I am bringing a narrow four inch wide loom to practice band weaving. After my crazy schedule so far this summer, I am looking forward to getting away for a couple of weeks.

Skies and Views

I love retirement. I love not having to get up early, drinking my morning mocha, and having time to work on my fiber projects. I also like spending time with family. Summer is busy with a bit of travel, houseguests, and groups of people using our extended family cabin near our home.

I currently have about four different fiber projects going on simultaneously. They are all taking longer than expected due to user error, equipment problems, trying to do too many things, and most importantly, not having time due to my routine being disrupted by family reunions, being away from home, and houseguests. When our son visited with his wife, two year old, and 3 month old, there was no possibility of working on projects or blog posts. It was all hands on deck. I am not complaining, but rather explaining why I am way behind on blogging.

The blog posts about my current projects that I thought would have been published by now are not even close to being ready. I have to remind myself it is OK, there is no schedule or deadline. In the meantime I have a post that I put together years ago that I had saved for this purpose.

Someone asked me if I take for granted the beautiful views from our house. No, I do not. My mom designed this house and had it placed at an angle relative to the lot lines so it would face due west. It is up high and back from the lake, and also has views of farm fields and woods to the east. The are many large windows. I love the spot in the kitchen where you can see outside in all four directions at once.

We regularly have amazing sunsets. The afternoon sun from the west also results in having to close the blinds in the living room to avoid fading the furniture and heating up the house in the summer. Often there are interesting cloud views during the day from every direction.

One time when we had guests visiting we were watching a sunset without any clouds. The guests all exclaimed about how pretty it was, but I was thinking it was boring compared to many sunset and sky views I have seen and photographed.

I took all the following photos with my phone over several years, except for one my husband took. They are from various locations including the front and back of the house, the cabin property nearby, the lake public access, or on a walk in the neighborhood. All seasons and times of day are represented. They are not in any particular order. Enjoy.

Ice fishing village from the public access

The following Aurora Borealis photo was taken by my husband in October 2021 from our front yard. That was the first time I have seen the Northern Lights. I took photos at the same time, but this one is better. The view was very far from a normal night sky, but the camera was doing something with the colors. The photos looked more dramatic than what I actually saw with my eyes and that bugged me. The orange at the bottom of the photo is from a light in our neighbors yard down a hill from our property.

Northern Lights viewed from our front yard

At the cabin after a storm had passed by

Team Color Socks

I attempted to dye Minnesota Vikings football purple and gold yarn for socks. I ended up with something nice (see blog post here), but not that. Plan B was to make team color socks using two different colors of commercial sock yarn from Knit Picks. Two 50 gram balls are needed for one pair of socks.

I cranked some sample tubes on my circular sock machine (CSM) to practice changing yarns, using leftover yarn from other pairs of socks. For the first one I overlapped the two yarns for about four stitches. The plain green yarn was a bit thinner, and I did not notice until I was done with this sample that I had dropped a stitch near the beginning.

First sample changing yarns by overlapping the ends

I remembered later that there is a better method of doing yarn changes called “faux Russian join”. SweetGeorgia Yarns has a good video showing Felicia Lo making “scrappy socks” on her sock machine using this process. I cranked out two samples using faux Russian join that turned out well, and with the right number of rows for Gnome parts. There are many tails on the inside, but they are already knitted in and can be trimmed off. The following photos shows the outside and inside of a knitted tube with yarn changes.

Before starting a purple and gold striped sock I did some math to figure out how many rows of each color to crank. There needed to be approximately the same amount of each color used. With 80 leg rows and 70 foot rows for the sock to fit my husband, it worked out perfectly to have stripes consisting of 10 rows per color, with a yellow hem at the top of the leg, and purple heels and toes.

The following photo is a close up of a yarn change using the faux Russian join method.

Changing yarns using the Faux Russian Join method

I was a little worried that I might run out of purple yarn before the end of the second sock, but that did not happen.

I made a couple of minor mistakes that were not a problem, both at the first color change. I overlapped the colors, forgetting to do the faux Russian join. I also forgot to put the heel spring back on (an extra yarn guide used to increase tension for heels, or the entire sock), so the tension is looser for that one band of color at the top of the leg. That is OK as Wayne’s leg is thicker there. When I got to the second sock, I left the heel spring off on purpose for that first band of color so the socks would match and fit the same way.

When I showed the socks to Wayne, he was impressed, but also apparently had a different pattern of colors in mind with more purple and less gold. That might not have been possible with equal amounts of each color. This photo was taken later after the hand finishing was done.

When I came up with the equal width stripes look, I must have had the following in the back of my mind, which I have seen with college colors. I guess Wayne is not likely to wear these LOL.

Later that same day, I got an email from Knit Picks with a one day only free shipping promotion. How did they know I needed more purple and gold yarn? I would not be surprised if my phone was listening to us talk about it. After discussing with Wayne who else would get team color socks, and that they should have a larger proportion of the main color, I went online to place an order. Not only was there free shipping, but the sock yarn was marked down. I ordered enough for several more pairs of Minnesota Viking color socks, and one pair of Green Bay Packers green and gold socks for my daughter-in-law. They are a mixed team family which makes for some friendly rivalry during football season.

My son had asked me to make him plain black shorty socks. My response was for him to just buy those, but since this Knit Picks yarn was such a good deal, I added some black yarn to the order.

I made a Gnome using my yarn change samples. This one has only two sections, without the “shirt” piece in the middle. I used some actual washed wool from my stash for the beard, instead of fake fur. I hand stitched the beard on rather than gluing it on. I like the way it turned out.

A gnome made out of changing yarn practice samples

We went on a road trip while I was waiting for the Knit Picks yarn order to arrive. Doing the hand work to kitchener stitch the toes shut and weave in ends on the purple and gold striped pair of socks was a good project for the car. When we got back home my Knit Picks order had arrived.

Yarn from Knit Picks for more team color socks

In preparation for cranking another pair of purple and gold socks, I made a drawing and discussed with Wayne the ideal number of rows for each color. He found a Vikings jersey to use as a guide and we came up with a plan.

Cranking socks requires very careful attention in order to avoid making mistakes which are hard to fix. Changing yarns while making a sock requires another level of concentration. I had to pay attention to the number of rows cranked of each color (thank goodness for the automatic row counter), stop at the right place to make the yarn change, and remember to re-engage the heel spring each time in order to maintain the right tension.

While making the heel on the first sock with the new color pattern, I dropped a stitch. A latch must have gotten bumped closed, even though I was trying very hard to make sure that did not happen. Some people can fix that without too much trouble, but I am not there yet. I tried to fix it by undoing several rows of knitting (not easy), until I got back to a point where I could continue going forward again. It was not exactly right, but I did not want to spend any more time on it and it was close enough. Wayne would only be wearing these socks while watching a game, he would not care.

On the second sock, I cranked the leg part and the heel perfectly, but I forgot to reengage the heel spring for the foot section. I was distracted because I was pretty sure I was going to run out of purple yarn before I finished that section. If it has been only a couple of rows, I would have just left it and put the heel spring on for the rest of the foot. But this was almost the entire foot that would look and fit differently than the other sock of the pair.

Probably the fastest solution would have been to start the sock over again from the beginning. Instead I picked up the stitches all the way around with a needle and thread right at the beginning of the foot, and then unraveled the foot rows I had cranked back to that row. I hung the picked up stitches on to the needles on the sock machine. I had to figure out how to make this plan work by raising needles out of work to get the yarn carrier in the right place to begin knitting. It was all very putzy but it worked. It would have been easier to start the sock over again, but I learned some things the way I did it.

I did not run out of purple yarn after all. There was exactly enough, with only a few extra inches left. That means I could have cranked the first sock with more purple. When I was getting ready to graft the toe shut, I found that a stitch had dropped when I was adding the waste yarn at the end of making the toe. I put a stitch marker in the last stitch before the drop in order to keep it from unraveling even more. Fortunately this situation is easy to fix with a crochet hook.

Wayne was very pleased with the second pair of Vikings color socks that more closely coordinated with his team jersey.

I have yarn for two more pairs of Minnesota Vikings purple and gold socks, and one pair of Green Bay Packers green and gold socks. I could earn a bunch of money making and selling team color socks, but honestly I am probably not going do that. There are so many other things I want to do.

Hand Dyed Sock Blanks

Ever since I got my circular sock machine, my husband has been encouraging me to make team color socks. He wants Minnesota Vikings football colors, but thinks there is a market for this in general. I agree it is a good idea. I have browsed at a lot of sock yarn since last fall, and bought many skeins at discounted prices, but I had not seen any in Vikings purple and gold. Or not on sale LOL. Also, stripes with two different colors is a more advanced technique on the sock machine that I was not ready for.

When I was at the sock machine Crank-In at Rocking Horse Farm in April, I noticed they were offering a Dyeing Sock Blanks class at the end of May. “Sock Blanks” are sock yarn that has been knitted into a flat fabric ready for dyeing. After dyeing it is unraveled and knitted into socks. Sock Blanks are available in plain white for dyeing on your own, or already dyed by someone else. I signed up for the class, realizing that I could dye a sock blank with purple and gold for Vikings color socks.

Rocking Horse Farm is near St. Cloud, Minnesota, about half way between Minneapolis and our home in west central Minnesota. We had been in the Twin Cities for a few days, but headed for home on the day of the class. Wayne dropped me off at Rocking Horse Farm and headed for a golf course while I attended the two hour class.

Following is a display of sample dyed sock blanks in the retail space at the Knitshop at Rocking Horse Farm.

Display of sock blanks at Rocking Horse Farm

The sock blanks for the class had been knitted on a flatbed knitting machine on site with two strands of sock yarn held together, so that when the yarn is unraveled for making socks, you have two strands of yarn exactly the same. The dark colors in the photo below are waste yarn knitted on at the end.

While getting an overview of the process, we soaked our sock blanks in water for about half an hour. I paid extra to dye two sock blanks, so I could make a pair of socks for my son as well as my husband.

Sock blanks soaking in water before dyeing

The dyeing activity took place outside in back of the shop. We lucked out and had a beautiful day. After squeezing out as much water as possible from the sock blank, we laid it out flat on top of a piece of plastic wrap. There were bottles of dye in various colors, but no Vikings purple. Arghh. They did have maroon dye, so I decided to make University of Minnesota Gopher colors Maroon and Gold socks instead.

You could apply the dye onto the sock blank however you wanted. I was going for stripes, but was not exactly sure how the stripes would come out on the knitted sock.

It is possible to use food dye, which is safe to get on your hands and tools, and something people probably have at home. For the class we used a different kind of dye that was mixed with a little vinegar to make it colorfast. We wore gloves while working, squirting the dye from the bottle onto the fabric, or brushing it on with a foam paintbrush.

There was not enough maroon dye to finish my first sock blank. I had to use blue for the rest. I should have had a gold stripe in between the end of the maroon and the beginning of the blue. I think I was flustered due to realizing my plan was not going to work out.

For the second sock blank I made stripes of green, blue, and yellow with some plain between the colors. It was tricky to get enough dye to go all the way through, but not too much. We used our hands to pat down the fabric to make sure the dye was applied evenly through the fabric to the bottom. If the dye was only on the top and not all the way through, the two strands of yarn that had been knitted together would not end up the same.

When all the colors had been applied, a second layer of plastic wrap was laid on top of the sock blank, and then it was folded in thirds to fit in a microwave oven.

If you are using food safe dye, you can use the microwave oven in your kitchen. Rocking Horse Farm has a couple of dedicated microwaves used only for dyeing and not for food.

To set the dye, the plastic wrapped sock blank was microwaved for three minutes, turned over, and then microwaved for another two minutes. It was very hot and needed to be removed from the microwave with a spatula before laying out and unwrapping to cool off. The next photo of one of my sock blanks after getting “cooked” in the microwave looks exactly the same as the pre-cooked photo. The colors look very dark and one of the stripes even looks like it could pass for Vikings purple.

Second sock blank after removing from the Microwave Oven

The sock blanks went through rinses in three different buckets of water, one of them with a little vinegar to help set the dye. Some of the dye rinsed out in the clean water, and some bled a little onto the white spaces.

After rinsing, the sock blanks were hung up to dry on a laundry drying rack. Two people in the class dyed a hank of yarn rather than a sock blank.

I was happy with my completed sock blanks, even though they were not what I had been hoping for. I have found that generally dyeing is unpredictable, and when I have dyed yarn in the past the results have usually been different than I was expecting.

Rocking Horse Farm sells flatbed knitting machines, as well as hand knitting, weaving and spinning equipment, supplies and yarn. They had a used flatbed knitting machine on clearance for $95.00, much less than a new one. Sooooo tempting, but I hardly have time to use all the equipment I already own.

A few days later, after I was back at home and the sock blanks were dry, it was time to crank out some socks on my circular sock machine. Before I could knit the socks I had to unravel the sock blank into two matching skeins of yarn. This turned out to be trickier and more time consuming than I anticipated.

The instructor of the class suggested using two ball winders to wind center pull balls from the two yarn ends as they were unraveled from the sock blank. I do not have two ball winders (who does?). Instead, as I unraveled the two ends, I wound one center pull ball on my ball winder, and I wound the second end onto my niddy noddy (tool used for winding skeins of yarn). It was awkward. I had to unravel a length of doubled yarn, then separate the doubled yarn into two separate strands, wind one of the strands on the ball winder, and then wind the other strand onto the niddy noddy.

Unraveling the sock blank into two balls of yarn using my ball winder and niddy noddy

The yarn was super kinky from being knitted and then blocked into a flat fabric before being unraveled. This was less obvious on the yarn in the center pull ball that was stretched out. It was crazy on the skein removed from the niddy noddy.

Crazy kinks on yarn removed from the niddy noddy

I soaked the kinky skein in water and hung it up to dry to re block it without the kinks. It looked a lot better after the washing.

I neglected to photograph the next step of winding the yarn from the skein into a center pull ball. I started with the wrong end the first time, so I had to re-wind it a second time so that both center pull balls started at the same end of the pattern.

Trying to knit a sock on the sock machine from a center pull ball is asking for trouble, since you are likely hit a snag or yarn barf in the middle, regardless of which end you start with. Yarn for the sock machine should be on a cone, so there was another step of using my bobbin winder with an accessory for winding onto a cone. The following photo was taken in the middle of winding one of the balls onto a cone, when all the pretty colors were showing, before the yellow at end of the ball.

In the middle of winding from the center pull ball onto a cone

The two cones with the green and blue and yellow yarn were ready to go in the next photo. I planned to make socks for me with this yarn first, to make sure everything went well before I cranked the other pair for Wayne.

Following is a photo of the pair of socks I cranked from the blue, yellow and green striped sock blank.

The other sock blank became the following two center pull balls, before they also ended up on cones.

While cranking out the second pair of socks for Wayne, I noticed that the yarn was bunching up funny on the sock machine as I was going back and forth working the heel. I am not sure if that was due to the kinkyness of the yarn, or if there was something wrong with the way the yarn was feeding onto the machine. I was able to guide the yarn by hand at these places on the sock to avoid dropping stitches.

Kinky yarn bunching up when going back and forth on the heel

For the second pair of socks, I changed to the 72 needle cylinder for a larger circumference sock to fit Wayne. I started at the maroon end so the cuff would be maroon and gold stripes, and the foot part would be the non Minnesota Gopher colors.

The knitting in the completed socks looked a little uneven at first due to the kinky yarn. After washing and blocking, they looked better. The next photo shows a closeup of one sock before and after blocking.

Amazingly, the colors changed exactly at the middle of the heel.

Wayne’s socks with cuffs in Minnesota Gopher colors

Wayne liked the socks very much, but also found some purple and gold yarn online from Knitpicks. I went ahead and placed an order (cringing at having to pay full price plus shipping haha). After watching a few videos about changing yarns while cranking socks, I am now feeling more confident about attempting striped socks using multiple skeins of yarn.

Purple and Gold yarn from Knitpicks for Minnesota Viking color striped socks

I have a beautiful pre-dyed sock blank in my stash that I bought from Sweet Georgia Yarns. I have been waiting to use this more expensive yarn until I am comfortable that I won’t mess it up. This sock blank is constructed a different way knitted into a wide tube instead of a flat panel.

I found a video from Sweet Georgia Yarns with information on using double sock blanks with two strands of yarn knit together. Felicia at Sweet Georgia Yarns shows how to wind two skeins of yarn at once onto a swift (tool normally used to get a skein of yarn into a ball) as she unravels the double sock blank. I did not see this video until after I finished my project, but in any case my yarn swift does not turn sideways or have a handle like hers.

My Sweet Georgia sock blank is a single long piece of yarn, rather than two strands of yarn knitted together. There is enough yarn for two socks, but one will be tan and turquoise from the first half of the yarn, and the other will be turquoise and purple from the second half of the yarn. People use sock yarn for shawls and cowls, in which case one long strand is perfect. I could buy another single sock blank in the same colorway, and then have enough yarn for one pair of tan and turquoise socks, plus another pair of turquoise and purple socks.

I also have a plain white skein of sock yarn that I bought at Rocking Horse Farm. I may try dyeing that at home using food dye. So many things to think about and to try.

Wayne and I modeled the two pairs of socks made from the sock blanks I dyed at the class. They are not what I had been planning, but turned out well with fun colors.

Seattle Friend’s Trip

I recently returned from a fun vacation to the Seattle area with three high school friends. Sadly, a fourth friend had to cancel at the last minute. Some people have no connections with high school friends, but I have kept up with several for 50 years now. We have also traveled together to Savannah, New Orleans, Quebec City, and Traverse City. This trip was supposed to happen last October, when we were looking forward to visiting Asheville, North Carolina. We knew that fall is hurricane season, but figured that Asheville is pretty far from the coast, so no need to worry about that. The dates we booked turned out to be three weeks after hurricane Helene. At first we thought we might still be able to go, but after a few days knew that was not going to be possible. It was disappointing, but we all got our money back for flights and lodging.

For the rescheduled trip to Seattle, Kris, Marla, Sheri and I stayed in a VRBO on Lake Ballinger, in Edmonds. This area on Puget Sound was inhabited by Suquamish native people before being settled by loggers in the 1870’s and 1880’s. Today it is a suburb on the northern side of Seattle. There were many flowers everywhere, and trees that were different from Minnesota.

A tree at the VRBO that we do not have in Minnesota

There was an inviting firepit with chairs and pretty views in the backyard of the VRBO. It was also right on a busy street, but that was not noticeable from the inside or lakeside of the house.

There was a boat anchored off the dock. We thought we might lounge on it while having happy hour, but that never happened.

I did stage this photo of knitting while on the funny boat. If that scarf looks familiar, it is. I ripped out a Sophie Scarf I knit earlier so I could remake it narrower and come out the same on both ends.

There was a nice view out my bedroom window in the VRBO.

The VRBO had some quirks. The floors were slanting so that you felt like you were on a boat as you headed to the second floor bathroom. Sometimes there was not any hot water for a shower, or maybe the faucets were finnicky. We had to wipe up big dead flies that collected near a big picture window in the dining room. Despite its oddities, the house met our needs.

A couple of the friends did research ahead of time on things to do in Seattle and the surrounding area. A person could be there for weeks and not do everything. I was prepared to just go with the flow.

For our first full day we explored Edmonds, without any plan of what we were going to do. At my request the first stop was a yarn shop. No one else in the group is a knitter, so it was nice of them to oblige me. It turned out to be closed due to it being Memorial Day weekend. Just steps away was Cascadia Art Museum, celebrating art of the Northwest, so we headed over there.

In a prominent place inside the museum was a grand piano donated by Rick Steves, the travel writer. He is from Edmonds and has his business based there.

At the museum we saw advertisements for a community theater play sponsored in part by the senior center, and also by Rick Steves. The play, “Drinking Habits”, is about some nuns at a convent who are secretly making and selling wine. There are mistaken identities, romances, and people going in and out of doors. It sounded fun and there was a showing at 2:00 that afternoon, so we decided to check it out after lunch.

When we got to the theater, we found that there were only three tickets left. After waiting around for a few minutes, someone turned in a ticket and we were able to attend. We are retirement age, but it seemed like we were the youngest people there. One of my friends, Marla, was talking with the woman sitting next to her during intermission. After the play was over, Marla told us that the woman asked her if she had paid for her ticket (she had). It turned out that the reason the seat had become available was that the woman who had originally purchased the ticket had died. It does not sound funny now, but at the time we all started laughing.

After the play was over, we walked around the cute commercial area of Edmonds.

Something I don’t see at home are racks of umbrellas available to use and return as needed, given it rains a lot there. Luckily the weather was beautiful during our visit and we did not need umbrellas.

There was a museum in an old Carnegie library building with more pretty flowers in front, but it was closed.

Local museum in Edmonds in the old Carnegie Library building

There are many towns and things to do on islands and across Puget Sound. We had considered several outings that involved taking a ferry boat, but knew that was a bit of a hassle and involves a lot of waiting around. We decided that whale watching would get us out on the water and it would be fun to see a whale. On day two of the vacation, Sheri dropped the other three of us off at the Port of Edmonds before heading off for a kayaking adventure on her own instead.

We had a few minutes to explore before it was time to board the whale watching boat. As everywhere, there were flowers and nice landscaping.

There were hundreds of boats waiting for someone to take them out for a ride.

We saw a giant sling used to transfer boats into or out of the water.

Big sling to put boats in and out of the water

The whale watching company we used is a family business called Puget Sound Express, which has four boats operating out of two ports. The “Swiftsure” boat was built two years ago specifically for whale watching. It can go very fast and has stadium style viewing areas on the front so everyone can see.

Freshly baked blueberry buckle from a family recipe was available for purchase on the boat.

The captain explained that he did not know ahead of time what direction, or how far we would go, to see whales. However all the whale watching boats communicate and let the others know if and when they find whales.

I took the following photo from the back of the boat as we headed north through Puget Sound, going very fast. Most everyone stayed inside the boat for this part as it was very windy outside.

We were north all the way to the San Juan Islands when we got to some Orca whales, also known as killer whales. I took a screen shot of the map on my phone at the spot where we saw the whales.

Screenshot from my phone GPS where we saw whales

I have been whale watching before and know it is hard to get any good photos. Assuming you see whales, you see a back or maybe a tail if you are lucky, but only for a second before it goes under the water again. Unless you have a really good camera, any photos you do get look like a black blob far away. This time I focused more on watching for a whale, rather than trying to get a photo, but I did get a couple of decent photos.

The naturalist on the boat, Kyla, provided a lot of interesting information about the whales we were seeing, and also had a very good camera. Kyla took quite a few excellent photos that she posted on facebook a couple of days later. You can look at them here. I downloaded (with permission) the following two photos taken on May 26 during our excursion.

Orca Whales photographed by Kyla, the Naturalist on the boat

Kyla told us that humpback whales were practically gone from Puget Sound due to over hunting by the early 1900’s. Since around 1990 they have recovered from one to close to 1000.

A Humpback Whale photographed by Kyla, the Naturalist on the boat

The naturalists know all the individual whales based on their markings. Kyla told us the group of seven Orca whales together we saw were two family groups composed of a mother with her 11 year old daughter and 23 year old son, plus another family of four (she told us the relationships but I did not get it written down fast enough). The humpback whale in the photo is named “Strike”.

I have been to Juneau, Alaska, before. I know it is in the area called “Southeast Alaska”, but I had not paid attention before to the fact that it is really just north up the coast from Seattle and Vancouver. On the map it looks like it should be part of Canada rather than the United States. Before 1867 the land where Juneau is located was Russian territory. The land to the east that is now British Columbia was controlled by Britain. Russia did not want to sell the territory to Britain for political reasons. They sold it to the United States, which caused a border dispute between the United States and Canada that was not resolved until 1903.

On day three of our Seattle adventure we drove a couple of hours south and a little east to Mount Rainier National Park. Interestingly that was not even on our original brainstorming list of things to do, but we were so glad we went. This is one of the earliest national parks to be established, in 1899. There is a road through the southern part of the park with amazing views, scenic overlooks, places where you can do a short or longer hike, see waterfalls, and stop at several visitor centers.

The architecture style of park buildings was copied by other national parks later. Following is a photo of the Longmire Wilderness Information Center near the Nisqually entrance in the southwest corner of the park.

Inside the information center was a 3D map of the mountain. You can see where the road goes through the park starting in the lower left corner.

There was another smaller museum building at the Longmire stop with some history and information about the park, and quite a few taxidermy animals. Outside the museum building was a ginormous tree trunk with markers for certain years of note. At the very center is a marker for the year 1293. Oh my gosh.

Following is a photo of Fay Fuller, the first woman to reach the summit in 1890. Her outfit seems cumbersome, but at the time it was considered very scandalous.

Fay Fuller, the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Rainier

At one of the last towns before entering the park, we had stopped at a convenience store to get provisions for a picnic lunch. The sandwiches were practically the same price as the “sack lunch” they were advertising, so that was a no brainer. We found a place inside the park with picnic tables to eat lunch.

There were many scenic overlooks and places to get out of the car to gawk at the scenery or hike a bit off the trail.

Continuing on the scenic drive, we came to the area called Paradise, where the large Henry M. Jackson visitor center is located. The following photo was taken looking a different direction than Mount Rainier. There are awesome views all around.

The temperature was warm, but there was still a lot of snow at the higher elevations. Mount Rainier is 14,410 feet above sea level. It is an active volcano, which I am glad I did not think about until after I got back home.

A little way east of Paradise is Reflection Lakes. This is a spot where people take cool photos with the mountain reflecting in the lake. The lake was mostly frozen and covered with snow, but there was a section of open water that was enough to get a reflection.

In the next photo I am wearing some socks I cranked out on my sock machine just before the trip.

We intended to drive further to a spot where there is a mile and a half long hike, but gave up on that idea. By the time we finished taking photos at Reflection Lakes it was getting late in the afternoon, we were tired, and it was a long drive back to Edmonds.

On the way back we made two stops at places we had noticed on the way to the park. First was Recycled Spirits of Iron Sculpture Park. Dan Klennert makes amazing large sculptures out of scrap metal and other found objects. We were the only ones there, but possibly it would be crowded in the summer. It does not cost anything to walk around the yard and look at the art, however there is a box for voluntary donations.

Our last stop of the day was dinner at a train car made into a restaurant, Mt. Rainier Railroad Dining Co.

There were also train cars made into hotel rooms at the same property, referred to as The Hobo Inn.

For our last full day in the Seattle area we into the city for some sightseeing. First we went back to the yarn shop in Edmonds that had been closed over Memorial Weekend. It was nice of my friends to take time for this, since none of them are knitters or fiber crafters.

I was looking for sock yarn, not that I need any more right now, but makes a good souvenir. I had seen online that this shop carries Sweet Georgia yarn, but they did not have much of a selection of this brand or any brand of sock yarn. Otherwise this shop had a lot to offer with weaving and spinning and knitting yarn and supplies.

Sweet Georgia yarn at Strands by the Sea

I bought two skeins of yarn, one Sweet Georgia, and one Urth Yarns. The Urth Yarns skein is the right thickness for socks, but it is 100% wool without any nylon. Most sock yarn is wool with 15 or 20% nylon for added durability. I loved the colors so I bought it anyway. There are ways to add a strand of nylon or mohair to the heels and toes to make the socks wear better, I will have to figure that out.

After leaving the yarn shop we drove into the city. The GPS sent us through some neighborhoods before routing us onto the highway. It seemed odd, but we enjoyed seeing residential areas and small commercial centers. Everything we passed was attractive and green. Our first destination was the Chihuly Glass Museum, featuring glass art by Dale Chihuly displayed inside the building, in a glasshouse, and in gardens outside. It was all amazing. You can read about Dale Chihuly’s journey with glass art here.

My knitting project matched some of the glass art

The Space Needle, located right next to the glass museum, is visible from inside the Glasshouse. I am sure you can get great photos from the Space Needle, but we decided not to spend money and limited time on that.

A Chihuly glass sculpture in the Glasshouse, with the Space Needle visible outside

We had parked our rental car in a lot right across the street from the museum. After having lunch a few blocks away, we walked a couple of miles to Pike Place Market. Pike Place Market is a public Farmer’s Market that has been operating continuously since 1907, and is now on the National Register of Historic Places. There are multiple levels of vendor stalls with many different offerings.

Following is a photo of the original Starbucks location on the street across from the Pike Place Market building. If there had not been a long line to enter, we might have gotten a coffee there. Personally I am not a Starbucks person, but it would have been fun to say I had been inside the first one.

Inside the long narrow multi-level market building we saw stalls with fish, fresh flowers and produce, and many other type of vendors. I heard something about fish being thrown, but we did not see that.

After browsing around Pike Place Market, we walked a couple of blocks to the location of the Beneath the Streets underground history tour. I had no idea what this was going to be, but it turned out to be quite interesting. In the 1850’s when Europeans first settled in what is now Seattle, they built homes and businesses on the waterfront. They were constantly getting flooded, and then everything burned down in a fire. Rebuilding happened again with the same flooding problem, but engineers came up with a plan. They built thick fortress like walls 12 feet high around all the streets and then put new streets on top. At first the original bottom layer continued to have businesses. Later all the seedy businesses were located there. Now only a few disconnected underground areas are open, and they are off limits except for the tours.

A section of the underground part of Seattle

On the sidewalk above the underground are some “skylights” for letting light in below.

During the underground tour we learned that Seattle is named after Chief Seattle, a leader among the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples who had a positive relationship with the white settlers. One photograph of him exists, taken in 1864, and there is a statue in one of the squares. His name is pronounced a different way that I cannot say. Seattle is the only major city named after a native chief.

After the tour was over we walked around the Pioneer Square area of Seattle. Everything was lush and green.

It was already dinnertime after the underground tour was over and we had walked around a bit. We got a ride on a free tourist bus back to the location where our car was parked, drove back to Edmonds, and had dinner at a Japanese restaurant.

The next day we took our time in the morning, then had a bite to eat at a coffee shop until we needed to head to the airport for Sheri’s flight. There was enough time for the rest of us to take the train or an uber somewhere before our early evening flight to Minneapolis, but we didn’t find anything nearby that interested us enough to figure out the logistics. One google search I did of things to do near the airport included mainly things inside the airport. We did not mind hanging around there for a couple of hours. The flight home was not very full. We each got seats with no on else in our row. That hardly ever happens.

It was a great trip and I know Wayne would have loved it there. There is so much more to do in the Seattle area than was possible on this vacation, and I also would like to visit Vancouver. I hope that Wayne and I will go back to the Northwest sometime in the next few years.

Syrup Weekend

My mother’s family has a tradition of making maple syrup on a large scale. My grandfather had a big operation in the years following WWII, and up until the 1960’s when my uncles were not able to help any more. In the early 2000’s some of the next generation bought new equipment and built a syrup shed in the woodlot property near the family cabin, using wood from trees that had fallen after a big storm.

At the beginning of this rebirth of family syrup making, people were enthusiastic and eager to participate. Since then it has been harder to get enough helpers at the right time, and usually most of the work is done by a smaller number of people. The exact process and equipment has evolved over the years, and some years have been more successful than others for various factors, including unpredictable weather.

For a number of years plastic tubing was used for collecting and transporting sap to a tank outside the syrup shack. That system has problems including a lot of maintenance in the off season, and the lines freezing overnight stopping the flow of sap. It was decided to go back to buckets for sap collection, and to make syrup every other year instead of annually.

I wrote a blog post in 2021 which can be accessed here, with quite a bit of information about our family maple syrup operation, so I won’t write all the history and details again. I used a few photos here from that earlier post, because they were helpful in showing a complete picture of the process.

This spring, conditions were excellent for syrup production with weeks of temperatures below freezing at night and above freezing during the day. There was one dumping of about 10″ of snow near the end of March, but it melted quickly.

The process began in the middle of March when my cousin and his wife, and some other helpers, tapped the trees and connected plastic tubing from the spile (the spigot thing on the tree) to the bucket sitting on the ground. I was still in Arizona at that time, so missed out on this activity and do not have any photos. Approximately 240 trees were tapped.

There was a big group of syrup helpers the first weekend of April. Wayne had just arrived home after being stuck in Grants, New Mexico, for a week, on the way back from Arizona (see blog post here). My sister and her husband and some friends lodged at our house that weekend, near the cabin and woodlot property. I had made it to the Twin Cities after flying from Albuquerque to Minnesota, but was on call in St. Paul waiting for the birth of our second granddaughter. When we knew the baby was coming on Sunday morning April 6, Wayne drove three hours from our house to St Paul, straight to the hospital to meet Nora. After spending a few days in the Cities, we drove back home together, my first time at home since the end of December when we left for Arizona.

I had about a day and a half to regroup and prepare for more company for the final weekend of syrup making, when the sap would be cooked into syrup and bottled. My sister and her husband came again with the same friends. A friend of mine came to help, who had wanted to experience syrup making two years ago but was not available that time. Sheri turned out to be a rock star syrup helper able to carry two five gallon buckets of sap. I could barely lift one.

The sap gets dumped from the buckets into a container on the back of the truck that has a screen to filter out any debris.

Buckets of sap get dumped into a container with a screen

From there the sap gets pumped into a storage tank on the truck, as seen in the following photo from two years ago. The weather was nice two years ago also.

Sap gets pumped into a storage tank on the back of the truck

When there is as much sap in the tank as the truck can handle, the sap gets pumped into another bigger tank on the outside of the syrup shed.

Transferring sap into a larger tank outside the syrup shed

The sap then goes from the tank outside of the building through a pipe into a “pre-heater” container on the inside, and then into the evaporator. Someone, usually my uncle or cousin, monitors the evaporator. The following photo showing uncle Mark in front of the evaporator is from two years ago.

Watching the temperature dial on the evaporator

There is invariably a certain amount of down time waiting for someone to go get something or fix something, and for the sap to get up to the right temperature. Sheri and Mark are not complaining about sitting around in the next photo. In the background are upside down plastic jugs of syrup that have already been bottled.

When the temperature of the sap reaches 180 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, it is syrup and is released into metal buckets.

After coming out of the evaporator and before being bottled, the syrup goes through three more pieces of equipment getting filtered and pasteurized.

Dumping syrup into the first filtering container

The following bottles are ready to get filled with syrup.

Filling jugs with filtered and pasteurized syrup

The evaporator is fueled by wood. A lot of wood.

Part of the syrup making experience is preparing wood for use in the evaporator. Someone with the appropriate skill level uses a chainsaw in the woods to cut downed trees into manageable sizes to load on the truck and bring back to the shed. Other tasks include operating the wood splitter.

I helped with splitting wood on Saturday afternoon. When a big pile of logs to be split was almost down to nothing, I was ready to move on to another task. But no, another big load of wood was delivered.

Stacking the split wood in the syrup shed is another one of the tasks for the weekend.

The woodlot property does not have a well. Water is hauled to the site and stored in a big tank set up high inside the building, taking advantage of gravity for water to flow through hoses and a faucet into a utility sink inside the building.

A large tank of water hauled to the site from someone’s house

There is no bathroom on site. There is an outhouse which looks cute on the outside.

The inside is not great, but if you have to go it is better than driving a mile back to the house. Someone found a piece of “interesting” wood art that is now displayed inside the outhouse.

An artistic piece of wood inside the outhouse

On Saturday at mid day there was a pancake brunch in the woods. Liz is getting some just made syrup for the pancakes.

The sap flow was so good this year that there was not enough time to cook it all while people were there to finish up the processing. I was told that as many as 200 gallons of sap was dumped out of buckets into the woods.

Dumping excess sap out onto the ground 😦

Some people were extremely sad to see this happen, including my sister who took a bucket of sap home to the Twin Cities in her car. She left a bucket of sap in our garage. “Maple Water” is a thing, that may have some health benefits. It has electrolytes, antioxidants, and minerals. You can drink maple sap straight or use it for making coffee or oatmeal or other things. After boiling it for about five minutes for food safety, I put some of the sap into plastic pitchers store in our basement refrigerator. I had to dump some of it out due to not enough room in the refrigerator. I have used some for tasty oatmeal and cappuccinos.

After all the syrup had been cooked and bottled, the buckets, lids, caps and tubing had to be washed.

The washing task can be pretty miserable if it is windy, cold, snowy, or raining. Any and all of those conditions are common in the spring. Luckily it was pretty warm and dry outside this time for the cleaning crew.

This year a bumper crop of 58 gallons of maple syrup was produced, with workers including Eriksson family members and friends. That is GALLONS of syrup. At a 40 to one ratio of sap to syrup, that is about 2320 gallons of sap.

After all the bottling was done, the inventory got delivered to our house for storage. In addition to doing the family property LLC bookkeeping, I manage the syrup inventory. Following is a photo of only part of the bottled syrup in our basement. The complete inventory was composed of 41 glass quart jars, 129 plastic quart jugs, 101 plastic pint jugs, and 47 half pint plastic jugs.

Some of the syrup is given complimentary to the workers, based on how many hours of labor were contributed. The rest is sold to family members and friends. It is cheaper to buy it at Costco, but it is fun to use the stuff that we made ourselves and know the quality is good.

Paying for the syrup we just made ourselves is similar to buying a sock machine and yarn for cranking out socks. There is more money spent than saved. Syrup making involves a lot of time and effort. However, assuming the weather is not miserable, working together outside with cousins and friends is fun bonding experience.

Granny Squares

March was “National Crochet Month”. I have been there and done that back in the 1970’s, when I crocheted several granny square afghans, and a fancy shawl.

I had an orange theme bedroom during high school. I crocheted myself an afghan at the time to match the decor. I kept it all this time, but it had gotten a couple of moth holes over the years, and was coming apart in other places.

Afghan I crocheted in high school for my bedroom

A few years ago I unraveled the borders and stitches connecting the granny squares, leaving me with a pile of the squares that could be reconnected into another blanket or something else. With so many other projects in my head, I am not sure when or if that will ever happen. Click here for a link to the blog post I wrote about my orange bedroom, with more photos of the afghan.

I crocheted the following green and off-white afghan for my mom when I was in my late teens or early 20’s. It matched their living room at the time, but was stored away after they moved. After my mom passed away and we were sorting and purging things in their house, the afghan turned up again. It now lives at my aunt and uncles lake house.

Afghan I crocheted in my aunt and uncles front hall

I vaguely remember crocheting a blue and white afghan that eventually ended up at my sister’s house. When I mentioned working on a blog post about crochet, she found the afghan in a closet. I remember the colors and the circles, but I do not remember crocheting all those panels of plain white.

Following is a photo of the lacy shawl I crocheted during the 1970’s. I may have worn it once or twice, but it is has been stored away since then.

A problem for “makers” is that we make many things that accumulate and end up in a box, or are lost for years packed away in a closet. I have baskets of handspun yarn, tubs of hand knit items, bags of woven dishtowels and socks cranked on my circular sock machine. I have knitted many shawls and scarves that I love, but never wear. My mom left behind trunks full of vintage wool skirts and dresses she had sewed. That does not stop us from making more things.

Last winter I bought a crochet granny square dishcloth at the gift shop at the 55+ resort where we stay in Gold Canyon, Arizona. I have knitted cotton dishcloths before that worked well. I liked the crochet version, and I wanted to make a few more myself by copying the design. I used the purchased crochet dishcloth this winter in the RV. I did not take a photo when it was new, and it is pretty worn out by now. The 100% cotton yarn does not last forever, and the colors fade in the washing machine.

This spring I finally got around to crocheting a couple of granny square dishcloths. Following is a photo of the worn out dishcloth I bought and have been using, next to some thrift shop cotton yarn for a new one.

Very used crochet dishcloth with thrift shop yarn

The School of Sweet Georgia recently came out with a pattern for making granny squares, so the timing was perfect. Sweet Georgia Yarns also has a series of articles on crocheting, from learning the basics to more advanced techniques, including making granny squares. Next is a photo of the purchased dishcloth along side the one I crocheted from the thrift shop self striping yarn.

The crochet dishcloth is very easy and mindless to make, which is good for working on while watching TV in the evenings. I started another dishcloth with a different colorway of thrift store cotton yarn. Just as I was finished with the main part of the second dishcloth, I saw some instructions on Sweet Georgia Yarn for a Bobble Stitch crochet border for a granny square. I had been debating how to finish off the outside edges, so this was very timely. I went ahead and watched the video with the instructions, and then proceeded to crochet the border on. It looks nice.

I crocheted two more dishcloths. The yarn I used for all four dishcloths was 100% cotton, either Peaches and Creme, or Sugar N Cream. I found some information online saying that these two yarns are exactly the same yarn, but with different packaging.

The plain yellow dishcloth was a little boring, so I decided to add a border using the peach and tan yarn. I neglected to pay attention to the color pattern in the yarn. The peach color was at the beginning, but only lasted for about one inch of the pattern. Then the color changed to the same color of yellow as the rest of the dishcloth. About halfway it changed to white, and stayed white for the rest of the border. So much for a contrasting color border, but it looks a little funky and I like it.

I am set on dishcloths for quite a while now. Time to get on with some other projects.

New Hardwood Floor

When my parents built their retirement home 25 years ago, they put off-white carpeting in the living room and dining area great room, as well as the main floor bedroom. Tile was installed on the floor in the kitchen, front and back hall, laundry room, and bathrooms, because my mom wanted something that would last her entire lifetime. The carpeting looked nice for a long time. It looks okay in the following “before” photos, but up close there were many stains and discolored places where people spilled food and beverages, pets had accidents, people walked on it with dirty shoes, and who knows what else happened.

One time while standing on the tile near the carpeting, my cousin dropped a bottle of red wine. Of course it shattered all over the tile, but amazingly no red wine got on the carpet. On the other hand, there were many little brown spots near the dining room table where people had slopped coffee. Lately when people asked if they should take off their shoes upon entering the house, we said “no, don’t worry about it”.

After living in this house for five years and since our elderly dog passed away, it was time to replace the off-white carpeting on the main floor. We decided to go with real hardwood floor. It is more expensive than other options, but seemed like a good value that will be worth it in the long run.

Following are “before” photos of the living room and dining area. You cannot tell how bad the carpeting looked in these photos.

In order to get ready for the hardwood floor installation, I had to move my floor loom out of the living room, which provided motivation for completing the project that was on it. You can see the loom behind the dining room table in the photo above. I figured out how to collapse the loom so it takes up less space. This can be done while there is a project on it if necessary. Folding up the back was easy, but I had to find some instructions online in order to get the front to fold in.

I have always loved and coveted my mom’s China cabinet. She bought in the early 1960’s at a thrift shop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where we lived when I was an infant. She said that the back on the inside was so dirty she did not know there was a mirror until she got it cleaned up. My mom refinished the China cabinet, and later when they moved to this house she refinished it again. Some of my things have been displayed inside, along with some of my mom’s things.

The fact is that life has moved on, I am at a different place in my life, and expectations for entertaining have changed. In my younger days when I longed to have a nice China cabinet, we never had one. Now that I do have my mom’s China cabinet, it has looked crowded and filled with stuff I rarely use. I do love my China dishes, and occasionally I use the bone China plates, but having a dinner party stresses me out. Most of the stuff in the China cabinet never gets used and I will not miss it when it is time to downsize. Maybe my sister will have a turn with the China cabinet, unless she is also past that stage in her life too when the time comes. For now, it needed to get emptied out in order to get moved for the floor project.

We have a three season porch that was not part of the new flooring project. There is a table in the porch that got pushed against the wall, and then we moved the dining room table into the porch. I hand carried all the items from the China cabinet over to the porch and set them down on one of the tables, without needing to pack anything. It was easy and quick. It looked like a shelf at a thrift shop.

We practically filled the three season porch with furnishings and items from the living room, dining area, and main floor bedroom. It was even more crowded by the time everything was removed from all three areas.

The three season porch filled with stuff from the other rooms

Apparently I have not been very good at cleaning underneath the furniture. Hmmm I don’t think I have ever cleaned under the China cabinet.

In order to save money, Wayne was willing to do the prep work himself. That included removing the old carpeting, removing the carpet pad under that, removing another layer of something under that, and removing all the baseboards and outlet covers.

Wayne doing prep work for the wood floor installation

The space looked so different when completely empty.

Wayne rolled up the pieces of carpet and carpet pad, and loaded them on to the back of our truck for proper disposal at the city landfill, otherwise known as “the dump”.

I was visualizing a giant outdoor yard piled with junk, but instead we drove the truck inside a building. I wonder what is wrong with those chairs. Why are they not at the Goodwill? I get anxiety thinking of all the waste and what will happen to it.

The corner inside the building was piled high with bags of trash, that I assume got dumped there by garbage trucks. I do not know what happens to the trash from here.

Pile of trash at waste disposal location

The wood flooring got delivered to our house with some time to acclimate before getting installed.

The installers used our front porch for sawing to reduce sawdust in the house. It was 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside that day, with 20 to 30 mile per hour winds. At least the porch is covered and protected.

The installation went pretty quickly once the workers got started.

All the flooring was in place in about two days, and we were very pleased with the result.

New wood floor installed, original wall colors

Another trip to a different dump to get rid of more waste looked more like my vision of a dump. It was four degrees with 18 mph winds while Wayne unloaded rolls of carpeting, underlayment and particle board removed from our floors.

Kind of late in the game and in the middle of December, Wayne and I realized that while all the furniture was moved out of the rooms, we should paint the walls. This seemed pretty daunting with everything else on our schedule, including the holidays and getting ready to leave for Arizona. It was too late to get this done before the wood floor installation, but we determined we could and should paint after the floor was installed, but before we put the furniture back in place.

The walls in the living room were slightly off-white. My parents did all the interior painting themselves when the house was new. Most of the other areas in the house are painted a color. I think my mom ran out of energy after doing the other rooms.

It is interesting how interior decorating styles change over the years, just like everything else. When we bought our first house in 1985 it was a fixer-upper with wallpaper on many walls that was very hard to get off. Even a professional we hired had a hard time removing wallpaper in one room. There was brown and red plaid carpeting in the kitchen, and green shag carpeting in the living room.

My mom may have not gotten around to painting the living room walls, but white has been back in style for a few years. When our son and his wife were house hunting in 2023 many houses they looked at were almost 100% white on every surface, including all the walls, and all the kitchen cabinets and counters.

When I went to the Sherwin-Williams store to look at paint swatches, they gave me an entire folder with dozens of variations of off white. I asked them what color people are using for new builds and big remodels. The salesperson came up with a swatch right away with a color called “Accessible Beige”. We said “sure” and were done.

Accessible Beige swatch next to the green fireplace tiles

I like the new wall color. It goes well with the greens, blues, and red accent colors used on the main floor, including the green fireplace tiles that my mom made herself. It does not go with the lemony yellow in the kitchen, that I have never liked anyway. The next photo shows the walls painted with “accessible beige”.

New hardwood floor and “accessible beige” walls

We also needed to buy a couple of area rugs, one for the living room seating area, and one for the bedroom. Some people have a rug under their dining room table, but we decided to skip that for now. Looking at rugs was very intimidating for me. There are 1000’s of options ranging in price from several hundred dollars up to $10,000 for a hand knotted 100% wool rug.

That reminds me of the time when we went on an Eastern Mediterranean cruise that included a stop to see the ancient city of Ephesus. In Bible times that was a seaport, but today you have a take a two hour bus ride from the port of Izmir. Anyway, the shore excursion included a stop at a Turkish rug factory to learn about rug making. We were not shopping for a rug, but Wayne made the mistake of saying we “might” be interested in buying one. We were immediately whisked off with some other people to a different room for the hard sell. There is no way we were going to buy a rug for $8,000 or more when we had not done any research ahead of time, and did not even need a rug. They were pretty sure they could convince us to make a purchase. It was relief when we finally got out of there without buying anything.

Back to today, we did need to buy a couple of rugs. My first thought was to buy a washable rug since we live on a lake, and often have houseguests with dogs and children. Wayne was not convinced. I stressed out looking at many rug options online. It was hard to find rugs that coordinated with the green fireplace tiles, but in the end we were able to find several we both liked, in person at two different Hom Furniture stores in the Twin Cities. One of the rugs had to be ordered and was sent to the Hom store in Fargo, about 50 miles in the opposite direction from the Twin Cities.

We brought four rugs home to see what they looked like on the floor, and then returned two when we went to the “the Cities” (Minneapolis and St. Paul) for Christmas. The photo below shows our final choice for the living room rug, at the time when we were deciding between the options. The colors do not look quite right.

We pulled the painters tape off and rolled up the two keeper rugs at the end of December, the night before before leaving for our three months in Arizona.

When Wayne and I were both finally home after our crazy journey from Arizona back to Minnesota (read about that here), we immediately had houseguests to help with our extended family maple syrup operation. There was a lot going on, but it was good to have some extra people to help move furniture back in place. We have been very mindful when putting the rooms back together, trying for a cleaner look.

Bedroom with new floor, new wall color and new rug

The green sofa in the living room is very old and faded. Wayne cannot get comfortable sitting there when watching TV. We are considering replacing it with something that has a similar style, but with a recliner function on one side. If that happens the coffee table will not work. The plaid easy chair will probably also get replaced with a recliner.

Living room with new floor, wall color, and rug

I have not put the floor loom back where it had been set up in front of the window seat in the living room. I will probably wait until I have a project to work on, which might not be until fall. Currently I am focusing on learning how to use my Circular Sock Machine, and if I have any other time for fiber craft I will use my spinning wheel or make something on my Struto Artcraft Loom. Several side chairs that had been in the living/dining area will stay in the basement or three season porch.

Most of the items from the China cabinet went back in after all, but I left some small out things that looked cluttery.

The paintings and art are not all back up yet, but in general we are very pleased with the new look. The “accessible beige” walls clash with the lemon yellow kitchen walls, so I hope we can repaint in there sooner rather than later. The kitchen sink backsplash needs to be replaced also. We will have to decide where to draw the line in other possible kitchen upgrades. It is a slippery slope.

I feel a little bad about changing the decorating and color scheme from what my mom had, but it is time for us to make the house more our own.

Stuck in Grants, New Mexico

Our three month reservation at a 55+ Resort in Arizona was ending on April 1. We planned on leaving about a week early, because a new granddaughter was due around April 4 back in Minnesota. At the last minute, we decided to get on the road on Tuesday, March 25, in order to get ahead of some wintery weather at home over the weekend. That meant scrambling to get everything packed up for the trip home in one day instead of two days.

People think it is hot in Arizona when we are there in January, February, and March, but that is not usually the case. We have now spent parts of six winters there, at Gold Canyon Golf & RV Resort on the far eastern edge of the Phoenix metro. Until the last week, we could count on one hand the number of days when the temperature got above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. It is perfect for the things we like to do, and it is much better than the snow and cold at home. The last couple of days we were there, the high temperature reached 90. We had to turn the air conditioning on in the RV for the first time.

On Wednesday March 25, the day of departure, it took all morning to do the final preparations for leaving, including winterizing the RV water system, putting the slides in, disconnecting the utilities, loading all our stuff in the truck and RV storage areas, and connecting the truck to the RV. Some people use their RV on the journey back to their home state, staying at RV parks along the way, but we have never done that. It will still get below freezing in Minnesota after we get back home, so Wayne prefers to turn the water off in the RV and stay in budget hotels on the way home. It was 90 degrees at noon when we pulled out of the resort. I saw later that it got up to record highs that day of 96 degrees in Gold Canyon, and 99 degrees in Phoenix proper.

When stopping at a hotel for the night, we do not drive the truck with the RV attached to a restaurant for dinner. We have to find a place to eat within walking distance, or look for a place to eat before we get to the hotel. On Day One of this journey, the timing was right to stop for dinner at Jerry’s Cafe in Gallop, New Mexico. There was an empty area where Wayne could easily park our rig on the side of the street about a block away.

We had been watching the TV series “Dark Winds” that is described as a “psychological thriller” and takes place in the Four Corners area of the American Southwest. Gallup is mentioned a few times. The story is based on the Leaphorn & Chee novels by Tony Hillerman, about Native Tribal Police officers solving crimes. Some of the books that my mom had read are at our house. I liked the TV series and thought the photography was fantastic. Wayne did not like that the bad guys killed off so many people. He thinks that is not, and never was, like anything in real life. I did not like that part of the show either.

After dinner, as we approached our destination for the night of Grants, New Mexico, the truck started making bad noises. We had expected to get up early and get on the road again the next morning, but Wayne had an idea what was wrong and knew that was not going to happen. Luckily there is a Ford dealer in Grants, which has a population of about 9,000. In the morning Wayne called and got an appointment for them to look at the truck. They confirmed what Wayne was thinking, and had to order parts from Denver. We were going to be in Grants, NM, for a few days.

We were not going to get home ahead of the bad weather, and this repair was going to cost $6,000. On the bright side, we were grateful that the truck did not break down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Following was the view behind our hotel. At the base of the hill a train ran regularly. A couple of times we watched a train with four engines, pulling an impossibly long string of double decker container cars.

There was a fence, some parking lots, and a lot of litter nearby. The next photo was also taken behind our hotel, which was just off Interstate 40 along with several other typical road trip hotels and gas stations, a couple of restaurants and a Walmart. The actual town was a couple of miles away.

Although we had reserved a budget hotel room, it was roomy and clean, had a sofa and coffee table, and a desk. Since we had rushed getting ready to leave Arizona, I had not had time to finish and publish a blog post, or work on some family cabin bookkeeping that I meant to do before we left. Now I had all kinds of time for catching up on those things while we hung out in Grants. I also realized that I could work on the taxes, instead of waiting until we got home. And of course I always have several knitting projects I can work on.

I like my mocha in the morning. At home, and living in the RV, I make one myself using a moka pot as shown in the photo below.

A mocha pot for making an approximation of espresso on the stove top

When we are on the road it can be hard to find, or inconvenient to get, a mocha. McDonald’s has good espresso drinks at a reasonable price, but last November they shut down all their espresso machines due to a potential safety risk with the machine. I read that they might be back soon. In any case there was not a McDonalds or any place to get a mocha near our hotel. I found a coffee shop over two miles away in the actual town of Grants, but our truck was at the Ford dealer so we had no transportation.

Normally I would not walk that far just for a coffee, but given we had not gotten any exercise the previous day, and we were just sitting in the hotel room, we decided that a long walk was a good outing.

We had to walk along a busy road and across a bridge that was not designed for pedestrians. It was a little scary on that bridge with traffic whizzing by and a tiny shoulder. A couple of times we stopped and pressed ourselves against the guardrail until a car went by. On the other side of the bridge and the rest of the way there was a sidewalk.

We were on old Route 66 as we walked toward the main part of town and the coffee shop. We passed three abandoned motels that were in various stages of disrepair. Wayne commented that the interstate highway system should pay for getting those properties cleaned up, since building the highway bypassing the town caused the motels to go out of business. We were ready to sit down when we finally got to “1912 Market on 66”. In addition to fancy coffee, they sold some local fresh produce and other products.

I carried two mochas in a cardboard carrier all the way back, to put in the motel refrigerator for the next two mornings. The walk back seemed to go faster. We got 13,000 steps in and I collapsed on the bed when we were back at the hotel.

The car dealer got the parts on Thursday, and thought maybe they could have the truck repaired by the middle of the day on Saturday. If that worked out, we could be back home in Minnesota by Monday, March 31.

We kept busy using our laptops in the hotel room, and going for walks. We figured out how to watch our TV shows on my laptop. We browsed in Walmart and a farm supply store a couple of times. Restaurants in walking distance included Denny’s, Taco Bell, Dairy Queen, Subway, and an Asian Buffet. We frequented them all several times each. A long time ago I could eat a lot at an Asian Buffet. Today I am full after a small amount, so All-You-Can-Eat is not a good deal or a good idea. However they had a by-the-pound take-out option that worked for us. We could get a full plate of food, including plenty of vegetables, for less than $9 each. I had brought apples and carrot sticks in the car from Arizona. We bought pea pods and bananas at Walmart. Our situation could have been so much worse.

On Saturday Wayne got an update from the car dealer. They had an emergency job on Friday and were not able to work on our truck. They were only open until 1:00 on Saturday. They are closed on Sunday. They might be able to get the work done on our truck by Tuesday, April 1. It was not terrible hanging around there, but who knew when the truck would really be ready. I was worried about getting home in time for the upcoming birth of our granddaughter. With Wayne’s blessing, I started researching how I could fly back to Minnesota. Wayne was OK with staying in Grants until the truck was ready, and then driving back home by himself towing the RV.

I was able to figure out the logistics of getting home, and made the reservations on Saturday (March 29) for travelling on Sunday (March 30). I only had a few clothes that were accessible, a small duffle bag and a backpack. Ideally I wanted to bring a few more things with me, but they were in the truck at the auto dealer, and I did not have enough room in the small bag for anything else. I did not sleep well that night, fretting about whether all the parts of this journey were going to go smoothly, or if I was going to be stuck somewhere else all by myself.

I had to get up very early to catch the Greyhound bus at the gas station across the road for a one hour ride to Albuquerque. They had touristy New Mexico stuff for sale there.

Tourist stuff at the gas station in Grants, NM

The bus was about 15 minutes late, so I was concerned about whether it was really going to come and if I was waiting in the right place. It finally came and I got on. There was a diverse mix of passengers on the full bus, some who were riding all the way to St. Louis or farther. It was quiet and many people were sleeping and/or had covered themselves with jackets or blankets. The only seats left were next to someone else, so I found one that looked OK and sat down with my backpack on my lap and duffle at my feet.

My biggest worry was about the next part of the trip, taking the city bus to the airport after arriving in Albuquerque. I knew the bus route number and time, but I was not sure where the city bus stop would be or how to get a ticket. When I arrived in Albuquerque it was pretty deserted, being Sunday morning. It turned out that the city bus stop was very close to the Greyhound station, and the city busses are free. The bus came on time and it took about a half hour to get to the airport. The Albuquerque airport is not very big and I was able to breeze through security and find my gate with time to spare. I even had enough time to get a mocha!

I had a layover in Denver with just enough time to walk down a very long hall on three moving sidewalks to the gate for my second flight. My son picked me up at the airport in Minneapolis, and you can bet I was very relieved when we got to his house.

After I left Grants that morning, Wayne checked out of the hotel. He spent the next couple of nights in the RV in the parking of the hotel, without any electricity, water, or heat. To each his own. The RV looked very sad all alone in the parking lot.

Our RV in the parking lot behind the hotel

I had some productive time in the Twin Cities, going back and forth between my sister’s house and my son’s house. I got a few errands done, met a friend for coffee, and finished knitting two baby hats. There were a couple of possibilities for me to get a ride to our house in west central Minnesota, but another snow storm was forecast and I did not want to get stuck there. And then as the days went by, I was on call to stay at the house with my 21 month old granddaughter Blair, when James and Kelsey had to go to the hospital for the birth.

The truck repair was finally complete late on Tuesday, April 1, a week after we had arrived in Grants, New Mexico. Wayne got on the road Wednesday morning, and arrived back at our house on Friday afternoon, April 4. There was a lot to do there, after being gone for three months and with company arriving for the weekend to help with our extended family biannual maple syrup making operation. I would have enjoyed being there for that, but it made more sense for me to stay in the cities waiting for the baby.

The weather was perfect for the flow of sap this spring, with a long stretch of daytime high temperatures above freezing and overnight lows below freezing. There may be as much as 50 gallons of syrup bottled by the end of this week. My cousins are manning the syrup evaporator in the following photo. Looks like they are set for snacks with a Costco size container of Cheez-Its.

Meanwhile back in the Twin Cities I continued to hang out and help as I could. On Saturday, April 5, James, Kelsey, Blair and I went to the Minnesota Children’s Museum. Kelsey looked like she was ready to pop any time.

Saturday, April 5, at the Children’s Museum

Early Sunday morning at about 5:00 am I woke up and saw lights on. I heard people up, so I was pretty sure it was “time”. Soon James brought me the baby monitor, and they left for the hospital. I was worried that Blair would be confused in the morning when I went in her room to get her up, but after first saying “no” and “bye bye” to me, she was fine. Wayne drove down from our house to St. Paul. Around the middle of the day we got word that Nora Jane was born at 10:10 am.

I finally arrived at my house on Tuesday, April 8, two weeks after leaving Arizona. New hardwood flooring was installed at the end of December just before we left, so we have no furniture in the living room, dining area and main floor bedroom. The laundry room, three season porch and some basement areas are full of all the furniture and other things that go in those rooms. There is a lot to do here now putting away all the stuff we brought back from Arizona, and getting ready for more company to help with syrup making again this coming weekend. Despite the chaos, I am glad to be home.