See the Sights

In which I report on several more days of vacation

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After a promising start to taking a lot of vacation pictures, my picture taking became quite a bit more erratic. I’ll muddle along as best I can. After all, if you were desperately into cohesive narrative, you probably wouldn’t be here in the first place, right? 😉

Some views from Michaele’s place – see the really large REI in the second picture? I got a pair of Keens there…

 

 

The day after the party (Wednesday, June 13), I rambled around downtown Denver in the morning. You’ve already seen my best pictures from that day in the Things to do in Denver when you’re alive post. Then Michaele and I stopped at Fancy Tiger (where the horndribbles are plentiful), Colorful Yarns, and A Knitted Peace on our way to Buca to celebrate Stacey’s birthday in the Pope Room.

 

I cannot sufficiently emphasize the freakiness of the Pope Room! You might remember my picture of the Pope under glass on a spinner… The womens’ room at Buca was massively entertaining, but I restrained myself from spending the entire evening in there taking pictures.

 

After Buca, we went back to Colorful Yarns and knit for a while with some of the folks from Stacey’s party. (Yes, yes, of course I made purchases at our various stops, but you’ll have to wait for the purchases post, since everything’s been so muddled together now!)

Thursday the 14th, Michaele and I headed up to Boulder for a bit of morning hiking along the Flatirons. Then we wandered along Pearl Street, dining and exploring shops. You’ll have to completely imagine this part, since I apparently didn’t take a single picture of our idyllic day. We camped at a table outside the Bookend Cafe, next to the Boulder Bookstore, enjoying excellent people watching, conversation, and a bit of knitting. In the evening, Anne joined us for knitting and conversation before we headed back to Denver.

Friday the 15th, I wandered up to Estes Park, checked into our cabin, and headed across the street to a thrift shop while I waited for everyone else to arrive. I think I was meant to go to that shop. What do you think?

 

The chenille black cat, black cat coasters, knitting pattern and booklet, and eight vintage Estes Park postcards (not pictured, because they were ready to be mailed) set me back a whopping $2.15.

Ok, more on Estes later – this has gone on long enough!

 

“Look, Mom, no cavities (or paper)!” -Mayhem

Alongs, Contests, Knitting

Vacation knitting

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Have a special knitting friend who could really use some gorgeous sock blockers? Nominate her/him in the comments over at Leggy Creations before noon EDT, June 30, and he/she might receive a set of special friendship sock blockers.

Kristi’s got a new etsy store, where she’ll be selling handcrafted personal care products. Leave her a comment about your favorite scent before midnight EDT on July 4 and you could be randomly selected to win some of her concoctions.

You can join the Tour de France KAL anytime before the Tour officially starts on July 7 – and you don’t need to be a bicycling fiend to participate. 🙂

Knitting
Oh, I had grand plans for all the knitting I would get done over vacation! I took all sorts of things along toward that end. Ha! I did about 2″ on my first July Sockamania sock (left, below) and I started the Meilenweit Colortweed sock (right, below) at Michaele’s Stumbling Over Chris party. That’s it.

“Knitting needles! Oh, how I missed our special time together while you were gone, Mom.” -Mayhem

“See? See how much I missed you? I am hugging your foot!” -Mayhem

“Whatever, May. You’re such a goof.” -Chaos

“You take that back, big kitty! I am not a goof!” -Mayhem

Contests, Festing, Reading

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming

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I’m glad y’all enjoyed my quirky vacation pictures! I have to admit, I had such a wonderful time and met so many great people and took so many pictures that I’m a bit overwhelmed at the thought of trying to document it all here… Baby steps, right?

Missed out on the Estes goodies? Imbrium is giving away a skein of Brooks Farm sock yarn that she bought at Estes – simply leave her a comment with your favorite joke before midnight MDT, June 28, and that sock yarn might be yours!

The Crazy Haberdasher is having a contest – leave her a comment about what you collect and you could win a lovely purple-blue piebird.

A few more tummy pictures appeared while I was on vacation…

Reading Update
Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (audiobooks). If you haven’t had the chance to listen to any of the audiobooks, you should! Jim Dale does an absolutely amazing job. In fact, I haven’t actually read any of the books – just listened to them all.
Knit Fast, Die Young by Mary Kruger. The second book in this series about yarn store owner Ariadne Evans features a murder at a small fiber festival. I’m glad Estes wasn’t that dramatic!
In a Dark House by Deborah Crombie. A Kincaid and James mystery – I fear I’m nearly caught up to present with this series!
Charmed and Ready by Candace Havens. The second book in the Bronwyn the Witch series – silly, but I do have the third one in my library queue…
Tall, Dark, and Dead by Tate Hallaway. Another witchy tale, this time set in Madison, WI, and featuring sexy vampire guys and evil Vatican witch hunters.

Stumbling Over Chris: The Party

After driving through rain for most of the day, I arrived at Michaele’s place in Denver mid-afternoon Tuesday, June 12. I had just enough time to hop in the shower before Ruth came over. Ruth is a skilled massage therapist and what better way to start vacation than with a massage?! Plus Ruth brought me some new gluten-free baking mixes I hadn’t tried. Thank you, Ruth – you definitely worked out those kinks from two days of driving, and I’m looking forward to doing some baking now that I’m home.

Michaele threw a “Stumbling Over Chris” party so I could meet and chat with some of the area knitbloggers. She made lots of tasty food and sangria (well documented by Ruth). Thank you so much, Michaele – it was a wonderfully relaxing atmosphere in which to match faces to the names and words.

Wanda and Michaele (with some of that tasty food in the background!)

Michaele, the back of Wanda’s head, and Ruth

Imbrium!!!

Anne (I’m pretty sure only one of those glasses is hers…)

Kim, Stacey, and Michelle

Jenifer and Cathi (Isn’t everyone great at not looking at the camera?!)

Michaele sent me home with gifts for Chaos and Mayhem – a kitty dvd that we haven’t tried yet (I will definitely be set up to take pictures when we do!), a funky square mouse (May’s already added it to her fetch toy rotation), and a catnip toy beloved by both Mayhem (hugging it below) and Chaos (who spends a lot of time licking the toy…).

“I will hug it and cuddle it and be its best friend forever! No, big kitty, that is not just the ‘nip talking.” -Mayhem

Contests, Knitting, Randonymity, Reading

Oh, the felinity!

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Things are gonna get kinda irregular around ye olde blog. We’re going on vacation scheduling here – erratic! I will have the SoC mobile blogging station with me, but I’ll tend to have time to post when nothing very interesting is happening – like from my motel room in Lincoln, Nebraska, tomorrow night! Wild times. Needless to say, I shall get very behind in bloglines and probably never catch up. 🙂

I’m packing. I almost have the knitting projects figured out. The book bag is filled and waiting. My ipod is loaded with Harry Potter books 1-5 and the His Dark Materials trilogy. I even have a backup book on tape (Wuthering Heights), just in case. What else…. D’oh! Clothes!

Whoa, flashin’ – and not just the yarn stashin‘! (Before this gets too out of hand- no human tummies, of any age, ‘k?)

JessZ is having a contest while she and Dv are in suspense to hear whether the offer they put in on a house has been accepted – complicated backstory and complicated point awarding system to determine the contest winner. (“Triple points if either one of us shoots a beverage out our nose while reading your comment.”)

Carol of Go Knit In Your Hat is having a contest looking for ideas for her imaginary line of greeting cards: “How I Really Feel”TM. Email her your ideas before midnight, June 25. Only emailed ideas are eligible for prizes! Also, she will have prizes for the non-knitters, so don’t let that stop you (yes, Tink, Van, TB, MamaT, Deb B-M – I’m talking to you).

Michaele is featuring some interesting things I could see on my drive from Minneapolis to Denver, should I so desire. Tragically, Carhenge would require quite a detour.

Nichole has a nice post about animal protection that includes information about the ban on ivory, which expires very soon.

Reading Update
Smitten by Janet Evanovich. Another of Evanovich’s romances from back in the early 80s. Cute, but not worth exerting any effort over.
Murder of a Sleeping Beauty, Murder of a Snake in the Grass, Murder of a Barbie and Ken, Murder of a Pink Elephant, Murder of a Smart Cookie, Murder of a Real Bad Boy by Denise Swanson. A whole bunch of Scumble River mysteries. They’re light and cute and reading them is sort of like eating potato chips…

Knitting Update
Finally finished my pink’n’black socks. Whew! Plain stockinette foot and slip stitch rib on the leg, just to break things up a bit.

“Just out for a living room stroll, dum-de-dum-de-dum.” -Mayhem

“What have we here? A new kitty bed?” -Mayhem

“Lots of support. I like that in a kitty bed. And such a flattering color for me!” -Mayhem

Randonymity, See the Sights

Rub-a-tum-tum

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Edit: Hee hee – I wonder if they used Chaos as inspiration?! 

And more again…

I found another cat tummy or two myself. Chaos’ brother, Diablo (he’s on a diet!) – hmm, it’s a bit hard to tell, but doesn’t it look like he’s missing guard hair in the same spot Chaos is?! (I know, more exposed boy kitty nipples. Blog’s going to heck in a handbasket.)

A really bad shot of Chaos’ mom, Riley, and her white tummy spot – if it helps, part of her mouth is on the extreme upper left of the picture.

Our unsettled weather continues. Yesterday we had crazy, crazy wind. The big storms missed my area of Minneapolis, but the clouds over Lake Calhoun last night were pretty dramatic – these are from the south shore of Lake Calhoun, looking north toward downtown.

Ok, you busted me. I got nothin’! I’ve been doing all sorts of little things to get ready for vacation, but haven’t made a whole lot of knitting progress (although I am on the cuff of the second pink and black sock). Somewhere I have a reading update to post, too… I will post something else before I leave Monday, I promise!

Gratuitous Chaos shot to distract you…

*bite bite bite nip nip nip* -Chaos

Art journaling, reading, knitting, and cat parenting. It's a wild life.