West Coast Wanderings

My friend Ami announced her engagement this past holiday season. Attending the resultant wedding festivities in Santa Clara, CA a couple weeks ago kicked off an incredible 2+ week sojourn Out West.

I see that in my absence Seth tagged me to enlighten the blogosphere on a quintet of personal factoids. Rather than put forth the effort to come up with 5 more facts about me, I've decided instead to share five highlights of the trip (though limiting to five is quite restrictive!)

1. Ami's wedding wasn't just any old wedding. She and her now-hubby pulled out all the stops for a traditional Hindi wedding, spread out over three days of celebration. The ceremony itself on the final day is immediately preceded by the baraat and my friends had it all, including the horse:



2. I convinced my Seattle-based pal Tina to come join me while I was in her time zone so she flew down and joined me in sunny California. Following the wedding festivities, we hopped in a rental car and made our way to the City of Angels, via the incredibly breathtaking Pacific Coast (i.e, Route 1). Preferring Tina's much nicer camera over my bare-bones one, and the unlikelihood of her taking pictures (she tends to forget -- thusly, it was rather amusing to learn that she got the camera as a birthday present), I am currently without any images of the stunning views of that amazing coastline. The best part of our 2-day road trip was catching the sun setting along one of the prettiest bits of coast between Carmel and San Simeon. We stayed in San Simeon that night and took advantage of the oceanside fire pits our hotel had set up on the beach 'cause damn, it was cold!



3. We kicked around L.A. for a few days (including a delicious venture into Koreatown) before taking off for Vegas where I would eventually be meeting up with other friends. This was my first trip -- Tina's fourth. I never fancied myself a Vegas kinda gal, but wanted at least to see it once. Perhaps because I went with only curiosity rather than any expectations, Sin City managed to draw me in and I do intend to go back to do (and eat) the things I didn't get to do on the short stay. Maybe next time I'll even win enough to catch a Cirque show.

4. Tina headed home after Vegas, and I caught up with my East Coast gals Kelly, Jenna and Katie. We ventured south in hopes of escaping the scorching Nevada heat, and made our way over the Hoover Dam toward the grandest of holes in the ground -- the Grand Canyon. Words cannot describe the magnificence of that natural wonder. Only there for one full day, we chose a short but challenging hike down the South Kaibob Trail to explore beyond the Rim:



5. After "conquering" the Grand Canyon, we had one final stop in Denver, CO for my favorite part of the trip -- whitewater rafting. We none of us had done this before but by the end of our 2-hour adventure, we were all itching to do more. I think I'm going to have to find me some whitewater adventures up thisaways!

Now I'm back and it's back to reality. Though I can't complain too much as it was a nice vacation: long enough of a break to enjoy it and leisurely enough that it was indeed, a vacation. Besides, I'm looking forward to soon meeting the latest addition to Ken & Kari's family (shamelessly fishing for an invite, Ken!).

Get Your Vince On

My travels included a stop in Arles where T and I hunted for the easels which are set up throughout the town at the scenes Van Gogh has made us all so familiar with. A must-see of course was my beloved Cafe Terrace at Night:



Apparently, the present-day owners have painted the cafe to match the painting, for the sake of tourists, like myself. Van Gogh's original was meant in part to capture the yellow glow the gas lamps gave off, and so the original cafe was never actually yellow. Nonetheless, I loved seeing the inspiration for the famous rendition. We then scoured the town to "capture" as many easels as time allowed for us that day before we had to catch our train back.

In knitting news, I've been having fun with cables. I don't even mind using the cable needle, though I've been intrigued by this idea I keep reading about on knitting without one. Since K is known to sometimes take a peek at this lil' ol' blog, I leave only a snippet, as this cable belongs to that which will (very) soon be hers (well, her son's, actually).

Return.

Going on vacation is a grand thing. Took off for two weeks and had the most splendid time touring parts of Provence and southern Italy. Still, going away has its side effects as I can't remember the last time I worked the yarn through my fingers! Before I left, I got sick and then was busting my a** to get things in order at work, so it really has been quite some time. But I'm ready to get back to the knit, and I've got quite a plate to clean up. Despite that, I couldn't help but cast on with these souvenier balls I picked up at a shop we just happened upon (really, we did) while in Nice:



Superwash wool at 2 euros a ball. The only way I was able to limit myself was the thought of having to cart the stuff around while finishing up our trip! I figure these balls will serve for a sweet and simple scarf.

Hope everyone had a good holiday and I have high ambitions for posting FO's soon. In the meantime, one of my favorite shots -- the view from the garden atop Eze (we were blessed with gorgeous weather!).



And oh, a shout out to my SP for getting me this book that I've been drooling over forever. Thanks much!

Enter, Fall.

Well, the weather could have been nicer, but still, the trip out to the Adirondacks was not wasted. Went to visit my college pal, J., this past weekend and we took a day trip out to Old Forge. Though it was too wet out for us to walk around the camp that her family's got, we did catch a ride on the scenic railroad and I had a couple opportunities to try and snag some of the autumnal color that's timely peeping out there.



Catching up with my old friend also yielded me quite a windfall in the yarn department. Sadly, her grandmother is losing her eyesight and can no longer crochet. However, she was kind enough to bestow on her honorary granddaughter (she adopted all three of J.'s bridesmaids back when J. tied the knot) whatever I wanted to take from her stash, so I came home with this:



The two garbage bags this filled up hardly made a dent in her stash, to which I've been invited to peruse at any time. So, thank you Grandma! I promise to put it all to good use.

In addition to that, K., the wonderful person that she is, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, dropped these on my desk the other day:



Is she awesome, or is she awesome? I confess, I had been eyeing them lately, but only to put them on my mental wishlist which I only sometimes allow myself to indulge in. So, K., you are too sweet for words and thank you muchly for the fun stuffs. The colorweave of this yarn is just so delightful and happy. I haven't decided yet whether it will be socks, or something else. For now, I'm just having fun staring at it.

The Babes look fun to knit and I can't wait to get at them, but they'll have to wait for the time being as my plate is a bit full.

Currently, am finishing up a scarf in my favorite reversible stitch -- it's a 2-row K3P3/K1P1 that I found over at Fuzzy Galore, which has quite a few fun patterns and stitches. I am working it up in 100% alpaca yarn which is so ridiculously soft that now I know what all the fuss is about alpaca.



Also on the needles are K.'s belated shower gift and some Lelahs that I've promised to work up for a couple non-knitter friends. Busy, busy, busy!!

The Dangers of Reading

Am almost finished with Toujours Provence, which of course makes me want to get on a plane and go. But sadly, tis not in my budget right now. Waaaaah.