Category Archives: travel

Vacation Knitting

Posted on August 18, 2008 | 14 comments

I’m sure I’m not the only one who plans vacation knitting before packing clothes, right? We were away last week, and I chose three small projects to take with me: the pink February baby sweater, the hyacinth toe-up socks, and some i-cord tote handles. Unfortunately, in the wee hours of packing for a week-long all carry-on luggage trip, I had to jettison the toe up sock and in the process somehow forgot to bring the rest of the pink yarn. 2 a.m. is not a good time to finish packing.

It was a great trip! We were on a family trip with the extended family, sailing the British Virgin Islands on a 65 foot catamaran. It was the 10 of us and a crew of three: captain, chef, and hostess. Here’s our home away from home:

At first I was afraid that the menu would be a lot of this:

But we all found our sea legs and it was fine. Having a chef on board meant that we weren’t roughing it!

Here’s the beginning of the February Baby sweater (I wrote my previous post before I left, and posted it via cell phone on Tuesday):

A bit breezy back there! I made it almost through the first sleeve (I’m on the garter edge), and that’s when I realized that I didn’t have the second ball of yarn. Oops. That’s Guana Island in the background of the picture below; there’s a very nice beach there with beautiful shells, but lots of jellyfish in the water. We were the only people there that day.

Guana Island is named for this rock formation, which looks like an iguana:

I finished all the yarn for the tote handles, too, leaving me with NOTHING more to knit.

Somehow, I managed. Here is some wildlife from Norman Island:

It was an amazing week, with lots of face time with family. We were celebrating MIL’s birthday; it was a trip she’d wanted to do for years. The trip of a lifetime!

14 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged February Baby Sweater, Knit

Away from keyboard; be right back…

Posted on July 29, 2008 | 5 comments

Sometimes you just need to unplug. It was beautiful on Saturday, so we went to Multnomah Falls. Us and a bazillion other people! But it was a good time, anyway.

Multnomah Falls is 620 feet high; it’s the second highest year-round waterfall in the US. This is just the upper portion of the upper falls. There’s a paved trail to the top of the falls. The trail gains 600 feet in elevation over 1.2 miles. Don’t think I didn’t notice.

Photo ops make a great excuse to stop for a moment:

Somehow this fern looks like a sock pattern to me.

We eventually made it up to the top, and could look down at where the water falls over the edge of the mountain.

In this photo, you can see Multnomah Falls Lodge and the parking lot in the upper right corner. It’s a long way down.

But this picture is my favorite. It’s a little waterfall just before the big one. You wouldn’t know it’s there unless you went to the top. It looks mysterious and secluded, but it’s right next to the viewing platform at the top of the falls.

5 Comments

Posted in Blogging, travel, Uncategorized

Tagged multnomah falls, waterfall

Vickie wrote:

Posted on May 13, 2008 | 1 comment

“i’m meeting mom at kahneeta to camp on friday/saturday, may 9/10. there’d be a bunk for you in keiko if you’d like. it’d be just sitting around in the sun (hopefully), playing scrabble, that kind of thing.”

Coming off a busy spring of organizing other people and projects, I jumped at the chance to do something that someone else had planned, especially since it meant that I could spend a weekend catching up with my best friend from college. Her mom is cool, too. The bit about sitting around in the sun sounded pretty good. Spring has been a long time coming around here. It’s still cold, and it’s been really damp. So I didn’t ask too many questions. None, in fact.

You might ask, “What’s Keiko?” I didn’t, but I was pleasantly surprised.

We stopped at Timberline Lodge (elevation 5,960 ft) on Mount Hood on the way over. It was a gorgeous day. The last time I was there, I stood on this deck to take a picture. Not this time!

Mount Hood is 11,239 feet tall, the tallest mountain in Oregon, and according to Wikipedia, the Oregon volcano most likely to erupt. This wasn’t the day.

Crossing over the Cascade Mountains takes you to another Oregon. I live on the wet side. It’s sunnier on the other side, and less populated. We did have to stop for some traffic. (By the time I could get the camera out, the traffic jam was over and she was safely across the road.)

In Simnasho, on the way to Warm Springs, is this picturesque ruin:

The weekend did include the aforementioned sitting around in the sun at the hot springs-fed pool, scrabble, and lots of scenery.

And a baby (well, three weeks old):

Vickie came up with an impromptu martini shaker, courtesy of REI. Ingenious!

It was a lovely weekend, great to get out my usual routine. I always feel like I have new eyes when I go someplace and really “see” things. Thanks, Vic!

I knitted on Shetland Triangle II over the weekend. It’s getting close to the end, which means that each row takes longer than you’d think. I haven’t decided if it’s going to be the same size as the first one, or bigger. I’ll have to decide soon. I also brought lots of cotton washcloth yarn to knit samples, but that didn’t happen. I wrote some teaching patterns a few years ago for a beginning knitters’ group, and I’d like to publish them as a set, but I gave the samples away as gifts, so I have to make them again to photograph them. All in good time. Knit on!

1 Comment

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged knitting, mt hood, scenic

Falling for falls, all over again (aka Gorge-ous)

Posted on April 29, 2008 | Comments Off

Sunday was a beautiful spring day, and my friend Nova was in town from San Diego. We drove out into the Columbia River Gorge to look at waterfalls and wild flowers. I used to take the kids out to the falls to play in the water on hot summer days, but I hadn’t been out there in the past few years. (At ages 20 and 15, it’s just not the same.) It was fun to see the falls through fresh eyes. Wahkeena Falls is my favorite; Wahkeena means most beautiful. Too bad I didn’t bring the camera!

I did have the camera phone, though, and took this picture of Nova at Multnomah Falls:

And I tried to capture the shaft of sunlight coming down the hillside:

But it was much more beautiful in person. I’m so glad Nova came to visit! A perfect afternoon.

I was actually out in the Gorge last weekend, too. I was working at a women’s retreat at Menucha. Lovely, lovely place. Friday night’s sunset was spectacular through low curtain-y clouds. The sun is reflecting off the Columbia River down below.