{"id":891,"date":"2016-09-12T15:56:59","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T22:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/?p=891"},"modified":"2016-09-12T15:56:59","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T22:56:59","slug":"more-summertime-wanderings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/?p=891","title":{"rendered":"More Summertime Wanderings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, the summer vacation is over and it&#8217;s time to settle back into the regular routines of life.\u00c2\u00a0 Bummer!\u00c2\u00a0 But what have I been doing for the last month or two, you say?\u00c2\u00a0 Recovering.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the shortlist:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We decided to take a looooong driving and camping vacation &#8211; 18 days total &#8211; from Seattle to LA and back again.\u00c2\u00a0 We did not drive in a straight line there and back.\u00c2\u00a0 We took a very scenic and wandering route.<\/li>\n<li>Stop #1 &#8211; Crater Lake.\u00c2\u00a0 We were very impressed; after the first hour, Son was not.\u00c2\u00a0 Teenagers!<\/li>\n<li>Stop #2 &#8211; Coast Redwoods near Crescent City, CA, with a short visit to the Oregon Vortex (weird and a little bit circus sideshow) along the way.\u00c2\u00a0 We loved the Coast Redwoods so much we repeated the visit on the way back.\u00c2\u00a0 Pro tip: even teenagers love to climb into ancient hollow trees the size of tiny houses.<\/li>\n<li>Stop #3 &#8211; South Lake Tahoe.\u00c2\u00a0 After so many nights in a tent, it was nice to sleep in a real bed and lounge on the beach for a few days.<\/li>\n<li>Stop #4 &#8211; Yosemite National Park.\u00c2\u00a0 The main Giant Sequoia grove was being renovated, so we made do with a secondary grove.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ve decided that I like the Coast Redwoods best.\u00c2\u00a0 We also decided that the drive into the park from the northern entrance is the way to do it right &#8211; so many gorgeous scenic views!\u00c2\u00a0 Next time we&#8217;ll camp to the north of the park, rather than to the south, or go when it&#8217;s not still 90 F at 10 pm in the foothills.<\/li>\n<li>Stop #5 &#8211; LA and environs.\u00c2\u00a0 Again, a real bed and Internet!\u00c2\u00a0 This stop was for amusement parks and visiting with Husband&#8217;s brother.\u00c2\u00a0 I finally got to play in Harry Potter World at Universal.\u00c2\u00a0 (Yes, I brought a wand home with me.)<\/li>\n<li>Stop #6 &#8211; Morro Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 We were supposed to stay at a campground near Santa Barbara, but we discovered that it was not as advertised.\u00c2\u00a0 So we found a last-minute place at an inn in Morro Bay, had a picnic on the beach, and enjoyed a much better location and weather.<\/li>\n<li>Stop #7 &#8211; Monterey\/Pacific Grove.\u00c2\u00a0 Our campsite reservation near Big Sur was cancelled due to the wildfire, so we relied again on a last-minute spot in a local inn.\u00c2\u00a0 No one complained about touring Hearst Castle, walking on the beach, eating a seafood dinner, or touring the aquarium.<\/li>\n<li>Stop #8 &#8211; San Francisco.\u00c2\u00a0 I toured museums and knit for a few days while Husband went into the office.\u00c2\u00a0 Still not getting tired of visiting this city.\u00c2\u00a0 We tried to stop at Muir Woods on the way north, but parking was impossible and we decided to just keep going up the coast instead.<\/li>\n<li>Stop #9 &#8211; Leggett, CA.\u00c2\u00a0 A good spot to stop after driving up Hwy 1 and before continuing up Hwy 101.\u00c2\u00a0 Bonus: The town sits in a micro-climate that is similar to the coast, so it isn&#8217;t blisteringly hot and dry.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a small Coast Redwood grove with a drive-through tree nearby.<\/li>\n<li>Stop #10 &#8211; Coast Redwoods near Crescent City, CA.\u00c2\u00a0 Yep, we love it there.\u00c2\u00a0 There&#8217;s a scenic gravel drive through a huge redwood grove that is worth doing over and over again.\u00c2\u00a0 I could totally just stay there forever.<\/li>\n<li>Stop #11 &#8211; didn&#8217;t happen.\u00c2\u00a0 We intended to stop overnight in Portland, but made such excellent progress that we just kept going until we got home.\u00c2\u00a0 Yay, soft bed and warm shower!!!<\/li>\n<li>I took a sock project, two summer sweater projects, a fingerless mitt project, and a stuffed toy project.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a long trip, with lots of hours in the car.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t want to run out of knitting.<\/li>\n<li>It is impossible (not to mention inadvisable) to knit while driving.\u00c2\u00a0 It is also rather difficult to knit while ogling the scenery, or pitching a tent, or building a fire, or walking a hiking trail.\u00c2\u00a0 All of which means I didn&#8217;t manage to run out of knitting.<\/li>\n<li>I did finish one of the summer sweater projects while on vacation.\u00c2\u00a0 I also got about halfway through the sock project, then finished it as purse knitting once I got back home.<\/li>\n<li>The other summer sweater project just needed a few hours of work.\u00c2\u00a0 That one got finished in a couple of Knit Night gatherings once I got home.<\/li>\n<li>The mitts and the stuffed toy never made it out of their project bags on the trip.\u00c2\u00a0 These will be long-term works in progress over the next few months, along with a small blanket.<\/li>\n<li>The deadline knitting\/crocheting has begun in earnest.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a spreadsheet with daily and weekly progress goals for each project.\u00c2\u00a0 I love a good spreadsheet.\u00c2\u00a0 I also love being able to tell myself (and anyone else who wants to know) that yes I have to be knitting right now, there&#8217;s a deadline.<\/li>\n<li>The stuffed toy is composed of a million (not really, but close) little crocheted motifs.\u00c2\u00a0 This makes for an excellent purse project.\u00c2\u00a0 Remember how fast Husband&#8217;s last pair of socks were finished, because I had all that time spent waiting around?\u00c2\u00a0 Yep, you guessed it.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m knocking out motifs now.<\/li>\n<li>There is also some spinning happening.\u00c2\u00a0 In between the deadline crafting, I&#8217;m processing the rest of the alpaca fleece to get it ready for spinning.\u00c2\u00a0 I also have a dyed Shetland project on the wheel.<\/li>\n<li>The time since vacation has been spent in deep recovery mode.\u00c2\u00a0 No, not the usual couple of days&#8217; worth to reinsert one&#8217;s self back into normal life.\u00c2\u00a0 I had oral surgery shortly after returning home, and it knocked me down more than expected.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought: I&#8217;ve had surgery before; I got this.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn&#8217;t tell me I wouldn&#8217;t be able to eat <em>for 2-3 months<\/em>!<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m discovering that it&#8217;s hard to get enough calories to function properly when on a liquid diet.\u00c2\u00a0 Which means it&#8217;s nearly impossible to get enough calories to do much physical activity &#8211; the category my pay-the-bills work falls into at the moment.\u00c2\u00a0 I also get very cranky when I haven&#8217;t had enough to eat.<\/li>\n<li>I feel a bit like a teenager again.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m grumpy all the time and my diet stinks.<\/li>\n<li>The last few days there has been major progress on the eating front.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ve graduated to oatmeal and macaroni-and-cheese.\u00c2\u00a0 There might also have been a test of rice and meatloaf.\u00c2\u00a0 Pho has been a diet staple &#8211; sip the broth, slurp a few noodles, move up to gingerly chewing a couple of soft veggies.<\/li>\n<li>Bonus: I&#8217;ve lost 5 lbs in the last three weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 They (rather cheerfully) tell me that most people typically lose 10 lbs after this type of surgery.\u00c2\u00a0 I am decidedly not impressed with this method of weight control.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thank goodness I can still knit, crochet, and spin!\u00c2\u00a0 Otherwise, my sanity and the health of everyone in the immediate environment might have suffered over the past three weeks.<\/p>\n<p>We now return you to the regularly scheduled crafty programming.\u00c2\u00a0 There is, after all, deadline work to be done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, the summer vacation is over and it&#8217;s time to settle back into the regular routines of life.\u00c2\u00a0 Bummer!\u00c2\u00a0 But what have I been doing for the last month or two, you say?\u00c2\u00a0 Recovering. Here&#8217;s the shortlist: We decided to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/?p=891\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4,66],"tags":[58,60],"class_list":["post-891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventuring","category-knitting","category-spinning","tag-summer","tag-vacation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}