Drakes Beach

For Jackie's birthday, we went to Drakes Beach at Point Reyes. The day started well. We got food, made sandwiches, and drove out to get a fire permit. Drakes Beach was recommended to us by the person who gave us the fire permit. And I have to say, it is a lovely area. (Bonus: there is an excellent bathroom that was unlocked even though the visitor center was closed)

While exploring the area, we found this grotto with a cross dedicated to Sir Frances Drake's landing in the area. While looking at the cross, a turkey vulture flew to a nearby tree and tried to eat a rodent it had caught. Eventually it accidentally dropped its meal and looked rather embarrassed.

While exploring the beach, I dug into the sand by the surf to see if we could find any sand crabs. What ended up happening is that every scoop of sand contained dozens of sand crabs. They were just everywhere. 

After scouting out a spot for our fire, Laurel started building up a little teepee. Jackie and Karl looked for tinder while I worked on stabilizing our seating situation. We ended up burning up almost all of our tinder without getting a stable fire. Sadness set in as we realized that there was a good chance we might not be able to light a fire. But guacamole saved the day. I went over to where the food was, ate some guac, looked over at our supplies, and realized that we had a whole roll of paper towels. It only took one or two to get the fire going.

Laurel exclaimed, " We could totally survive in the wilderness!" To which Karl replied, "If we had a lighter." And I added, "And paper towels."

With the fire lit, we set out to stuff ourselves full of food. Hot dogs, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, s'mores. We didn't even get to the watermelon; there was just too much good stuff.

As we looked up into the heavens, I was lucky enough to see a shooting star. The constellation Scorpio was prominent in the sky.

It took awhile to put out the fire. One of the bigger logs refused to stop steaming despite the amount of water we poured onto it. Beach curfew neared, so we threw the log into the ocean. On the way back from the surf, I stepped onto what I thought was sand but turned out to be the tide coming in. My sandals squeaked as we headed back to the car.

Knitting Catastrophe

After five days of knitting, I was able to finish the newest design. I blocked it Sunday night and went to bed pleased.

But when I woke up Monday morning and picked up the scarf, it immediately curled into a tight tube.  I had expected some curling since there is so much stockinette. But I thought that the blocking should sort it all out. I was wrong. My heart sank. This has to be out by the 19th and here I was starting over. (I also needed to have a second sample mailed to another dyer by the Monday after Stitches West and it wasn't looking good.)

After panicking for a couple hours, I decided that based on my time and yarn constraints, this design is going to a garter stitch base. This picture shows day one of knitting. I'm on day three, and thanks to anti-inflammatories, I'll be done with this in one more day. It isn't exactly what I had envisioned, but now that I've passed the 3/4 mark, I have to say, it looks pretty good. I'm looking forward to seeing what it will look like when I finish blocking it.

Also, a shoutout to Cindy and Kourtney for helping out with sample knitting and testing. Thanks guys!

Yosemite, The Final Frontier

I've lived within 4 hours of Yosemite National Park my entire life, but I'd never been until this week. It truly is a beautiful place. My Mum, Natalie and I went for two days. The first thing we did was visit the Mariposa grove. The trees are just huge. You can see me jumping to the left of the giant tree in the picture below.

While hiking around the grove, we first saw my spirit animal. This little guy was pulling bark off of the stick to make a nest. Over the course of our visit, I saw multiple little guys. They usually showed up when I was tired while hiking and needed some encouragement. And more than once they would sneak up behind me and scare the bejeezus out of me.

After hiking around Mariposa Grove, we headed towards the valley floor. This is the tunnel that you go through right before seeing the most amazing view.

The vista point is to your left just as soon as you exit the tunnel. It's impossible to drive by without stopping. You can see El Capitan, Half Dome, and Bridalveil Falls. A guy near me chuckled when I shared, in detail, the significance of El Capitan in Star Trek 5 to Natalie and Mum.

It's necessary to stop and high five in front of Half Dome and Bridalveil falls. If you don't do this once in your life, you are most definitely missing out.

In the evening, I was able to take a bunch of beautiful star pictures right before the moon rose. Almost every picture had a shooting star in it. (Check out the streak on the right side of the picture just above the cliff) After stargazing, Natalie got a little bottle of wine, I got a bottle of beer, mum got a flashlight and we all played scrabble at the lounge in Curry Village.