Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jog

Well Hello All,


I have missed you and will be attempting to catch up on your blogs to see what has been going on.


Our vacation was not the best...but certainly not the worst.  A quick version (I hope).  About 2 days before we left, I started feeling really lousy.  That continued for the entire trip.  I had a lot of tooth pain and lived on Advil all week.  But, I didn't want to cancel the trip.  Fletch was so anxious to get away.  So, we left home last Thursday driving west on the PA turnpike.  Around the Laurel Highlands it started sleeting and snowing.  An inch or so of snow on the ground.  We made it to Washington, PA (just south of Pittsburgh) and our campground which was ok, but pretty uninspired.  Two cold nights (in the 20's).  The first night our microwave died.  We may have fried it, I'm not sure.


After that we drove down into West Virginia and spent two nights in another uninspired campground in Flatwoods.  Oh those WV roads!!  Bridget - you know what I'm talking about.  Very narrow, very hilly, lots of hairpin turns.  Not what I call fun when you are pulling a camper behind the car (and, yes, I do a lot of the driving).


We finally ended up in a beautiful campground in Harrisonburg, VA and spent a day walking around Charlottesville.  It rained.....


We did visit Meadowcroft Rockshelter in PA.  Similar to the rock shelters we saw in Ohio last Fall, only this one has been excavated.  We had a private tour which was really nice and it was quite interesting.  We also visited Moundsville, WV and saw the Grave Creek Mound - again, similar to what we had seen in Ohio last Fall.  Though interesting, we both felt the sites in Ohio were more impressive.  There was a very interesting display at the mound site though of objects found in the area.  One was a ball of yarn!!

Fletch was happy to see tons of arrowheads, spears, etc.  Our weather was beautiful for both of these visits.  And one day after getting back to our campsite, Fletch spent some time writing in the journal he keeps of our camping trips.

We prefer wooded sites, but at least we were dry!  Until Harrisonburg...


In WV we also stopped at Tygert Lake State Park and Stonewall Jackson Park, but water levels were so high at both places that we were unable to hike more than a mile or so before running into flooded areas.  At Tygert the water levels are 40' above normal and their marina has been completely flooded!


This past Tuesday found us in Charlottesville where we spent the day walking around (in the rain).  We started by parking at the UVA bookstore and wandering around a bit of the campus which is very beautiful.  Charlottesville has a free trolley you can hop at various places to go downtown, so we left the car and wandered around downtown.  I found the first yarn shop I wanted to visit, but was pretty disappointed in what they had to offer.  We tried and tried but could not find the second shop, so I told Fletch to forget it.  By this time I was a bit more than cranky.....


Anyway, Fletch wanted to go to a raw bar for lunch so we took the trolley back towards the University and (finally) found the raw bar only to discover they did not open till 4 p.m.  But...almost next door was the 2nd yarn shop:  EWE Fine Fiber Goods.  What a lovely shop!  I ended up getting the latest MDK Field Guide (#6):  Transparency which is gorgeous.  And:

this beautiful skein of sock yarn in the colorway Canary.  Lots of yellow and splotches of blue and pink.  It's fun.  I also picked up some yarn for a new shawl:

When I saw it was called Dirty Hippie I just had to have it.  Blue, purple, pink and then a very lime green.  Gorgeous!  This is from a local spinner/dyer in the Charlottesville area.


Fletch, being the sneak he is, bought this for me when I wasn't looking:

This cute little pin will go on one of my knitting bags. 


The owner of the shop recommended we go to Feast for lunch.  The food was delicious and it was so nice to sit with a beer!

The soup (which we both had) was a curried coconut tomato with kale.  So good!  Fletch had a tuna melt and my sandwich was chicken, cheddar with a fig spread.  We both had the bean salad as a side.  Everything was so yummy.


We also had good meals at our campsites:  steaks with grilled veggies, nachos done over the fire, BBQ chicken wings, peach pancakes, eggs with bacon, spinach, onions and mushrooms. 


We made it home Wednesday afternoon (almost running out of gas on the PA turnpike!!).


Thursday I called Dr. George, our dentist, and was in his office by 11:30.  Turns out my molar all the way at the back of my mouth was dying, and infected.  It was not worth saving so I had it pulled.  What a world of difference.  No more pain or discomfort.  Surprisingly no swelling or pain from the extraction.


And, just for the record, I ended up taking the socks AND the shawl to work on.  I only worked on the shawl (which really, really surprised me).  No pictures yet, but this post is already long enough.  I did get quite a bit done though.  I didn't do as much reading as I thought I would, but Fletch and I did continue reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea each night after dinner.  We are both thoroughly enjoying this!


Tyg was extremely happy to see us!  Colin cared for him while we were gone and even worked from our house 2 days so that he could spend the entire day with Tyg. 


And that's been my life!  I'm off to (try to) catch up on what you all have been doing.