Autumnal travels

G'day all!

I've been quite busy recently.  MiL and FiL visited and we saw lots of things.  DH took several days off, which meant we could go for a drive earlier this week and see a bit more of Washington state.  We had a lovely break and it was wonderful to catch up with MiL and FiL - they had just been in Italy and Jersey.

Random mountains by highway 20, Washington

I think I should start up my travel blog again - it has been mouldering for a while now and it's not like I don't have plenty of pics for it!

Anyway, it has meant that I haven't had a lot of time for knitting or quilting or blogging.  Or work.  Ahem.

Detail of current knitting.

I have been knitting a very pretty pattern called "Wildberries".  Those of you on Ravelry can look it up.  I was knitting away and it was knitting up pretty quickly and I was very pleased with my progress.  I had gotten halfway around it...

and then I tried it on.

Oh woe!  It was too long!  I had added a few stitches cos I thought it would be too short but when I sat down I realised that the bottom stitches flipped up because they hit the crease of my leg!  I needed to shorten it, not lengthen it.

So I ripped it all out!

This was the fourth time I'd frogged it - I had stuffed up stitch counts and the length three times before.  Then again, that is the joy of knitting.  Most of the time you can fix up your mistakes - it's not like sewing garment where a screw up mostly means finding more fabric to cut a replacement out of.

The Reading Room at UW

I thought I took a pics of the mess of yarn I'd frogged but I can't find it - not that surprising really as we took about 4,000 pics in the week of MiL and FiL visiting.  Despite all those pics, I realised as they were leaving that I didn't have a single pic of them together and had to get one at the airport as we dropped them off!

One of Washington's many hydroelectric stations.

So today I was going to see the laryngologist about my stupid vocal cord.  I am a lot better than I was even a month ago but I'm still not good.  My voice is unreliable and I often sound like I'm about to burst into tears (not a good sound!) and I still get winded pretty easily.  I had to hurry to the bus cos the mongrel is leaving early these days and guess what?  I missed it by 20 yards!  He wouldn't sit and wait for me and DH didn't get him to either.  It isn't as if he's running late, he just likes to get his shift over and done with it seems.

Liberty Bell mountain at Washington Pass

Anyway, it means the next bus runs a bit late cos they end up picking up all of the people like me who just missed the previous bus and are now feeling pretty pissed off because they've waited 20 minutes instead of 15 (or even better getting the bus that they missed because it was early).

Part of Ladder waterfall/cascades.

Topping things off nicely, the Ballard Bridge got stuck in the up position this morning.  It had opened for a boat and then could not lower all the way down to restore the road.  This meant all the traffic that would normally flow down 15th Ave NW had to go down the same road the bus uses and cross the Fremont Bridge (which also goes up and down).  It took twenty minutes to go less than a kilometre/ half a mile or so.  I realised that I would not make my appointment in time - the bus was going to take at least another half hour to get to downtown and I need ten minutes to putter up the very steep hills and I only had twenty minutes to get there.

Yellow leaves

All of this means I have no updates on what to do next about this silly throat.  I will see the ENT on Tuesday instead.  But I did get a good walk in - I walked all the way home from Fremont, via Fred Meier which just so happened to have some cheap tops in colours I need for some of my outfits and a purple microfleece top and one in eye-watering pink and orange.  Hooray!

Hmm what else has happened? 

Leavenworth

We have looked at two houses that are for sale.  One was good location but a bit small for the price and um has interesting decorating features (and this is coming from us, two people who normally like interesting decorating features), the other not as good location but a much better price and a marvellous little house.  It has an upstairs area that would be a brilliant craft room - DH says quilting room but it would be a study and craft room, mostly because I'll get lonely up there by myself and will end up in the basement with DH if there's nothing for him up there.  But we can't get ahead of ourselves because it isn't ours.

Wenatchee River loop, Leavenworth

I have taken many many pictures of autumnal leaves.  Many pictures.  There are so many fabulous trees around.  I'd love Fall if it didn't mean winter came on its heels.  I like my days long and warm, not short and frosty, though I'll take short, frosty and clear over short, dark and rainy any day.

Golden fire, blue sky.

The weather has been a bit bizarre again.  A strong high pressure ridge is sitting over us.  This would be good except there's an inversion layer and it is foggy down here in the lowlands.  Higher up and on the Cascades, it is brilliantly sunny but the fog isn't lifting until some time between midday and 3pm, which doesn't leave a lot of the day to be sunny in.  It looks like it will remain like this for another week!  If it were sunny all day long, I'd be in seventh heaven.

Much sadness, not being able to go to the Locks.
They are open again now.

Hmm, I need to add another paragraph but I've run out of things to say for the moment!  But I wanted to add this pic of one of the octopodes at Seattle Aquarium.  He was having such a good time gallumphing around his tank, waiting for his dinner!

Octopus, on the move.

 anon!