Tales From the Road Part Two

Once in Arizona we were ready to see some sights! We left Albuquerque early so we would have a couple of hours to devote to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert while still arriving at our campground before dark. I had stopped there briefly once before and was looking forward to seeing it again. Although we started out early it was midday before we had our first glimpse of the Painted Desert. The colors are not at their best under the blazing noon sun, but I thought it was still beautiful.

In addition the the colorful formations, there were some ruins and interesting petroglyphs to see. While we drove around to various viewpoints we enjoyed our leftovers from the previous day's lunch at the Big Texan. Shana shared her sandwich with one of the local Ravens.

The Petrified Forest was a treat. Not only were the logs beautiful and interesting, but we were lucky enough to see a few pronghorn antelope. I knew they lived there, but they are generally pretty shy and often you don't get a glimpse. They are also the fastest land animal in the New World, so if they don't like the look of you they can get out of view in a hurry. We lingered in that area for a while - there's a nice trail that winds around and lets you get a good look around. We left in the nick of time - we barely got the tent up before dark - in fact I finished staking out the fly in the dark. It was a long day, and we were glad to be settling down.

Tales from the Road Part One

Last Friday the long-awaited trip to the Grand Canyon started with the drive to Albuquerque, a city whose name I have yet to spell correctly on the first try. We had all kinds of things packed for every eventuality, including three books on CD. This was a good thing because the first one we tried was a real dog. We persisted over two CD's before giving up in disgust and putting in a Sue Grafton mystery which suited us much better.

Our lunch stop was The Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, where we stop any time we pass through. This is the home of the free 72oz steak (providing you can eat the whole meal in one hour). It's absolutely worth a stop, even if you don't fancy yourself a contender for the free steak. The steaks are good, the service is prompt, and the place must be seen to be believed. It even has an attached motel, a gift shop, a bar and slots. It's right on I40 and cannot be missed - it's the loudest yellow you've ever seen and generously festooned with every kind over sized eye catching tacky western junk. When we were there two contenders were attempting to earn the free steak dinner. We were not contenders, in fact we took half of our meal with us to eat for lunch the next day.

On the way to Albuquerque we kept our eyes peeled for roadside tourist traps. We saw plenty of casinos and trading posts, each more eye catching then the last. I saw a sign I could not believe but was not fast enough to get a picture of: "EAT HERE. GET GAS". Not getting that picture will be one of the great regrets of the trip.

At least I did manage to get a picture of one of the fire extinguishers at the Best Western nearest Old Town tarted up to look like a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Every one I saw in the hotel was so displayed, without apparent irony. We walked down to Old Town to enjoy a good dinner at the Church Street Cafe, and headed out early the next morning.

DON'T PANIC

It's Towel Day. Do you know where your towel is?

Back From the Depths

Well, maybe not the total depths, but I am back from my Grand Canyon vacation. A casual examination tells me that we arrived back in Oklahoma City with all equipment intact, if filthy. Our initial packing was careful and Shana's midweek reorganization kept everything under control, but the last two days were rainy, so packing was more casual and loads of stuff is just plain grubby.

More and better entries on the Big Trip will follow, but pictures are already up and labeled on Flickr, so go take a peek. I'm pretty sure two or three canyon views are mislabeled, but I will get that cleaned up ASAP. They are still beautiful even if the names are wrong.

Yes, I Have Lists

I have a list for every purpose. There is a camping list, a bike event list, a Florida vacation list, and a Boston vacation list. I keep them on Excel and print them off as needed. It's not really because I have any obsessive tendencies - quite the contrary. I keep them ready to go at all times because I am very likely to forget EVERYTHING. For a week of camping at the Grand Canyon there are a lot of things I don't want to forget. With list in hand I am ready to go anywhere. Tomorrow we put the bikes on the car and away we go. I won't be back until Memorial Day, so there will be no posts but Twitter updates until then.

Dinner with The Spawn

Alex and Samantha joined me for dinner on Mothers' Day at my invitation. Sam came over early as she did not have supplies for making a card for me and hoped to make use of my craft stash. I had hoped to get a nice picture of Sam & Alex together while they were here, but as you can see, cooperation was in rather short supply.

An Old Sew and Sew

Aunt Rita's birthday made me actually break out the sewing machine. She's recently started using a walker. It's made her more confident in her balance and speeded her up amazingly. She'd been getting slower and slower walking anywhere; with the walker she's back to her usual energizer-bunny speed. Of course this means she does not have a free hand to carry her things around. This is an important issue because she's settling in at the nursing home and we've been encouraging her to get out of her room to meet people and get outside when the weather is fine. Like everyone else she feels better with a little exercise. Obviously she needed a tote bag for her walker. I looked around online to get an idea of how they were made, and set out to make one for her that would suit her taste and give her something original.

With some upholstery fabric I already had in my stash and a few fat quarters from the quilt shop around the corner I was ready to go. It took me most of the afternoon, but I ended up with a bag I think she'll love and that will hold the things she wants to take along with her. I double stitched the seams and generally made it as tough as I could because Rita has an amazing capacity to tear things up. The bag is lines with two different prints, with two smaller interior pockets. The exterior pockets are embellished with borders cut from the interior fabrics, embroidery with gold thread and beads. For some reason this detail is not showing up in the pictures. The rosettes on the front are made with both fabrics from the exterior pockets and centered with a knot from one of the interior fabrics. The straps are lined with the fabrics from the exterior pockets. Lots of detail, and it really came out the way I had hoped. The best thing about sewing projects is the instant gratification I get. Four hours of knitting would not have resulted in a finished item.

I learned a couple of things from this project. For one, I now understand why quilters have such big fabric stashes. The Savage Quilter just around the corner from me has so many beautiful fabrics that if I had not gone in with a pretty specific idea of what kind of additional colors and prints I wanted I would never have been able to decide. The ladies in the shop were so friendly and helpful that I will surely be dropping in again. The other revelation was that The Mighty Rowenta I pressured Shana into buying for me when our last cheapie iron gave out was worth every penny. The giant bursts of steam it gives out make the pressing involved in any sewing project so much more effective.

And even better - Shana is slipping over to the crafty side! She created a heat transfer on the computer to make Aunt Rita a T shirt for her birthday gift. I can hardly wait to see what her next project turns out to be.