Weekend Road Trip

Seth and I went to Crater Lake and Bend this weekend to take advantage of the gorgeous fall weather. We left Saturday morning and drove to Crater Lake and took several hours to drive around the 30 mile loop. One of the pull-offs had tons of chipmunks running everywhere and Sailor got really excited about them.

Seth, of course, wanted to climb things (can you see him way up towards the top of the waterfall?):

And, I took lots of photos:

After we finished driving around Crater Lake, we drove up towards Bend with a slight idea of where we were going to camp. We ended up stopping about 25 miles south of Bend at Newberry National Volcanic Monument and drove in to find a place to camp. There are tons of campgrounds along the road, but a book I have recommended a particular one right near East Lake. They had tons of open sites, so we set up the tent, made a campfire, and whipped up some Annie's Mac and Cheese for dinner.

And then, it got cold. Freezing cold. When Seth got up in the morning, it was around 30 degrees and there was frost on the car and on the tent fly. Seth made another small fire, and I toasted some Fiber One Toaster Pastries on it.

When we had all the stuff packed up we took a little walk down to see the lake in the daylight.

Then we headed to drive to the top of Paulina Peak, but drove up the wrong road and ended up stopping at the Big Obsidian Flow on the way out of the park. We took a small hike up to the top, and it was gorgeous. Big and shiny rocks everywhere and a great view from the top.

Once we were done there we drove up to Bend to find Seth some new running shoes. We had lunch at The Crepe Place, which was delicious. Seth ended up finding some new running shoes, and we headed back home with a quick stop in Sisters. Sisters is a very small, cute little town that his a fabulous fabric store called The Stitchin' Post. I ended up with some fat quarters for more box bags and an Amy Butler pattern (I have serious desire to make an apron....must be all the canning going to my head). I could have spent a fortune there on fabric, especially since they had the Heather Ross fabric I've been dying to see in real life. But, I ended up not getting it because I have no idea what I'd do with it.

Now onto knitting...

I finished a pair of socks this weekend with some yarn that I picked up last fall at Purl Diva's De-Stash Do Good sale.

Pattern: Turkish Bed Socks by Kit Hutchin

Yarn: Sweet Georgia Sock Yarn

Modifications: None. I'm not crazy about the construction of these socks though. They require seaming to form the heel, and I think next time I'd do a more conventional short row heel.

I also cast on last night for the Salem Hooded Jacket from New England Knits. I have a few inches of one sleeve done and I think it's going to be a relatively quick knit. 

Congrats on the interview!  Good Luck! I can't wait to hear all about it. 

Love the picture of baby George in the sweater....too cute! They must be so overwhelmed with the thought of having a second baby!! 

did you get anything at kaleidoscope yarns?? i've heard it's lovely there!

I think those are all the updates for now!

Love,

liz 

Paddle, Paddle, Paddle

Yesterday we went paddling with our neighbors on the Salmon River and almost (but not quite) into the Pacific Ocean. It's their favorite place to paddle, and I can see why!

Photo credits go to Seth, by the way. As soon as we put the boats in, a cute seal popped his head up and was swimming around! Unfortunately he was too quick and we weren't able to get a picture of him.

We paddled about 1/2 mile down the river (although, since the tide was coming in it was like paddling up river!), pulled our boats up on the sand, and saw this:

Gorgeous, huh?

We walked up and down the beach for a while collecting cool rocks and even found some sea glass and a starfish:

Seth found lots of sand dollars. Don't worry. We brought them all home. :)

We had lunch on the beach and then paddled back up the river, which involved a lot more sitting than paddling since the tide was still coming in!

Don't I look like a pro?

Here's our neighbors in their tandem kayak doing a little bird watching:

We ended up having perfect weather. The weather at the coast can be unpredictable, at best. Most of the time it's cloudy/foggy and cold. We ended up with 60 degree weather and sun! The water, however, was freezing. Colder than the Atlantic in Maine, by quite a bit. BRRR! I was a little surprised to see a bunch of little kids swimming in the ocean! It was too cold to do anything but dip your toes in.

No knitting to share today....but I did make a pretty fantastic dinner with cherry tomatoes from our garden. I meant to take a picture...but it didn't last long on the plate! It was just roasted cherry tomatoes with garlic, olive oil, and basil tossed with pasta. Oh, and some parmesan cheese. Yum. It was delish. I'm also trying my hand at dehydrating apples. We have an apple tree in our back yard, and have more apples than I know what to do with. I'll definitely be making some applesauce, but I need to get some new cans first.

I'll leave you with one last parting shot of gorgeous Oregon:

Love,
liz

Road Trip with the Parents

My plan was to blog while my parents were here....however, we were so busy I didn't really have time. I picked my parents up from Portland last Saturday (they flew in Friday night and spent the night) and while Seth ran 30 miles on the Portland trails we toured around. We started out at the Portland Farmers Market, then headed to Powell's, Knit Purl, and VooDoo Donuts. Though, after realizing that it was a 45-60 minute wait to get into VooDoo Donuts, we decided to get out of line. After Seth was done running, we met him at the Japanese Gardens, which were really beautiful.

There were all these cool little "houses", waterfalls, ponds and a sand and stone garden:

Sunday we took a drive up Mary's Peak and took the 1 1/2 mile (round-trip) Summit Trail. Sailor came along and posed for a photo with my parents:

On Monday we headed to Crater Lake National Park, which was breathtakingly beautiful.

The lake is 31 miles around the outside, and there is a road that runs all the way around the rim. We drove around the entire lake and stopped lots to take pictures and take in the views.

We stayed in Medford, OR Monday night and on Tuesday headed south to California.

We took a drive through the Avenue of the Giants and explored the Redwood Forest.

(how tiny do my parents look?!)

My Dad was a lumberjack in his former life and is able to pick up Redwoods while people stand on them:

The Redwood Forest was beautiful and the trees are gigantic. Gigantic enough to drive through:

Tuesday night we stayed in Crescent City, CA and then headed up the Oregon coast on Wednesday. It's amazing how foggy and cold it is out there all summer!

The Oregon coast isn't like any other coast line. There are huge rocks sticking straight out of the ocean as well as huge sand dunes.

Here's my dad climbing a huge rock:

And here he is a little farther up:

It did clear up a little while we were driving, but it was only about 55 degrees out!

A little bit north of Florence, OR there is a tourist trap called the "Sea Lion Caves". Obviously we had to stop. An elevator takes you 200 feet down into a cave and you can look out and see the Sea Lions hanging out on the rocks.

There is also another gorgeous lookout onto the coastline.

We were pretty exhausted from 3 full days of driving, so Thursday I took my parents around Corvallis and Friday Mom and I went yarn shopping while Dad went golfing. Seth and I dropped them at the airport yesterday morning and then we stopped at the Fabric Depot, which was slightly overwhelming. I didn't end up buying any fabric for knitting bags, but did end up with some fabric for a quilt. We also stopped at the Farmer's Market for lunch and there was a Iranian Festival happening, so we ended up eating Mediterranean food....yumm!!!

I do have some fibery things to share, but I think I'll wait to post those!

Hope your last few weeks of camp are going well!

Love,
liz

I "Should" Have Pictures of Beautiful Mountains....

However, I'm an idiot and forgot to put the memory card back in my camera. Seth's Mom and Joe arrived on Friday night and we took them up to Portland on Saturday. The weather was gorgeous and we drove up to Pittock Mansion to get a great view of all the surrounding mountains. We also hit the Portland Farmer's Market, Powell's Books, and the Organic BrewFest. If I hadn't forgotten the memory card for my camera, I would have pictures to share of all of these things. Ah, well.

Sunday we took a drive out to the coast and stopped at Seal Rock State Park:

Seth defying the rules, per usual:

The Oregon coast certainly isn't for sunbathing. It was about 20 degrees colder out at the coast than it was inland at our house. But, the weather was gorgeous despite it being a little chilly.

We also stopped at Yaquina Bay Lighthouse and walked through and saw a gorgeous view from the top floor:

There was also a spinning wheel and a bowl with yarn in the "sitting room" on the first floor:

After spending time down at the ocean, we wandered around the town of Newport and got some dinner a great little local place. While we were walking around Newport we saw some Sea Lions hanging out down on the docks:

Aren't they adorable?!

Needless to say, we were all pretty exhausted by Monday! 

In knitting news, I finally took some pictures of my Beaumont Beanie:

Do you have any idea how hard it is to take a picture of the top of your head?? Quite difficult, I tell you. 

Blocking made this look 100 times better than it did right after I finished it! It's a little big....but for my first colorwork project, I'm thrilled with it. 

I also spun up some yarn today:

It's a camel/merino blend that I picked up at the fiber festival a couple weekends ago...it came out soooo soft and squishy! 

I feel like this post has been a little bit all over the place! I promise a more coherent, cohesive post next time! 

Love,

liz :)