Well, dispite the fact that I didn’t update as we completed our vacation, we did have a nice time and we did stop at several quilt shops and a couple of Harley shops. We did drive back home via Pacific Highway 1 and what a beautiful drive. The weather was more cooperative on the drive home in that we didn’t run into any rain, it was windy and cold but no rain.
We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge (go south so you don’t have to pay a toll) and I was suprised at the amount of pedestrians on the bridge. They need to charge a fee to walk out on the bridge (maybe they do), they would make a small fortune just on them. Of course the view was spectacular. The sail boats were out and Alcatraz was still floating out there. We went to Point Reyes National Seashore with the specific plans to do some birding but with the temperature and the wind, if you couldn’t see it from inside the car going 40mph, it wasn’t there. We saw cows. Lots of cows. It seems that the area was a great place to raise cows as there are 8 – 10 historic farms that date back to the 1800’s.
We got to drive through the redwoods. For all the times that I have driven through California, I have never been through the redwood forest before and I must say that they are something else. DH wanted to get a souvenier of our trip. Something having to do with the redwoods and were told to stop at Trees of Mystery because they had nice stuff. Well, in typical Vincent tradition, we got there at 5:05pm. Needless to say, he never got his souvenier. We did stop at the Lady Bird Johnson Grove where we actually got out of the car and went for a hike. It was in the afternoon and was about a mile long through the redwoods. It was astonishing. Some of the trees would easily take 6-8 people holding hands to surround the trunk . They are so different from the fir trees in the Pacific Northwest. Where fir trees grow as a single trunk, redwoods will grow and sort of ’split’ part way up and can have several trunks. Because they grow this way, they have their nutrients going up the outer parts of the tree around the bark. I stood inside one tree that had been damaged by fire. The core of the tree was gone up to 15 -20 feet and I could spread my arms out from my side and still be several feet from touching the sides by another two feet on each side, but the tree still stands and grows.
We continued up the coast of California and into Oregon where we decided that we would drive to Astoria on the Coast Highway. By the time we got to Newport, OR. I had decided I had seen enough quilt shops to last me until I got to Longview, WA. where I had to stop at Momma Made It. She has moved into a new store front and I wanted to see it. This is a quilt store that carries only reproduction fabrics as in civil war and turn of the century and whenever I get down that way I have to stop. Of course I had to buy, also.
All in all I don’t remeber all of the quilt shops that we stopped at but I will try to remember all the cities.
California – Eddie’s in San Jose, who so kindly mailed my car keys home to me when I managed to leave them on their counter and didn’t notice them missing until the next day or so. The other quilt store in San Jose was closed on Sunday when we finally got around to stopping, Albion, Mendocino, Fort Bragg, Ferndale and Eureka. I must say that I enjoyed The Itsy Bitsy Quilt Shop in Ferndale quite a bit. It is appropriatly named, it’s tiny but it is packed with the most wonderful fabrics. Bold, bright big print fabrics that I could have easily taken home a couple of yards each of every thing she had. You must visit if ever in the area.
Oregon – Brookings, Port Orford, Bandon, Coos Bay, Florence, Waldport and Florence. All of which display a different style and taste. When I go to other shops on a trip, I don’t usually just buy fabric unless I have something particular in mind. I mostly look at patterns I might want for my store, kits and cutsy stuff, displays and ideas. I especially like looking at local designers patterns. I found a great block of the month for the Oregon area that I had to have, so I bought 2 of my favs and if I get around to actually making them I might get the rest.
We got home a couple of days earlier than we had planned but it was nice to be home. Our daughter was kind enough to watch our dogs and she was happy to go home earlier than expected. I took Sunday off since someone was scheduled to work but I got stuck on Monday when I tried to sneek in for a bit. So I have been work, work, working, doing lots of things but not getting lots accomplished. UPS managed to lose a box of notions and I have waited another week for the replacements to show up. At last they came today and I got my notion wall replentished. Tomorrow, hopefully I will get some fabric out on the floor.
