Vacation

We are home from a wonderful vacation at Skamania Lodge in the Columbia River Gorge. It was a working vacation for DH (meetings), and I don't think he got to enjoy a lot of the vacation part. But it was a beautiful place to work! The kitties are very happy to be home, since their "vacation" was at the kennel. They're very much Klingons (cling-ons) since they got home, and are very lovey.

Of course, I'm behind on answering my emails and blog reading. There was internet access at the lodge, but DH always had the laptop. So, bear with me while I try to catch up with everyone.

This was the sunrise we saw on our first morning there. It gives you an idea of how scenic this beautiful place is. I took a ton of pictures, but I won't bore you with most of them.

My friend K was there, as her DH was working there too. So, we got to spend some time together - the most time we've had together in years. It was so much fun. The first day we went to a fish hatchery on the river. We saw the Chinook salmon swimming up the fish ladder, which was really hard to photograph. We also saw the salmon spawning, but it was more like artifical insemination. I had never seen anything like this before, and it was neat to see.



We also went over the river to Hood River, Oregon and visited a good quilt shop called ETC (Every Thread Counts). I got some cute Halloween fabric and the new book by Jean Wells. Pictures later, because I forgot to take any yet!

The second day, a group of 6 of the wives of the men attending all the meetings took a field trip east along the river to the Maryhill Art Museum. We missed the Ansel Adams exhibit by two days, drat it. But we had a nice lunch there, with a peacock for company. Saw some good exhibits and learned some about Sam Hill, who built the building that eventually became the museum. He also built this replica of Stonehenge as a World War I monument.

On Thursday, there was a quilt show just up the road from the lodge. So, of course, I HAD to go. It was a nice quilt show, with some great quilts. I'll show just a few.

"Ben" by Kathie R. Kerler

This quilt was my favorite. It won 2nd place in the Innovative Quilt catagory. I love that blue!

"Discharge Dye or Discard" by Jeanine Moser

This quilt won 3rd place in the Innovative Quilt catagory. I was fascinated to see this, having read about this technique in Quilting Arts magazine in an article by Malka Dubrawsky a few months ago.

I have no information of this quilt. I didn't get a picture of the entire quilt, nor the title of the quilt nor the name of the maker. But I was fascinated by the fact that she put a photo transfer of a building in her landscape quilt. She did this in two of her landscape quilts. I think that's pretty clever!

(If anyone reading this has any information on this quilt, please email me. I'd like to give credit where credit is due.)

One of the vendors at the quilt show had this awesome laptop. She said she had a friend that painted it for her, and it's been at least 3 years since this was done. What a great idea. . . . . I hope someday not all computer stuff will be tan/grey/boring! I want a purple laptop!

I took my sewing machine and a couple of projects with me to Skamania, just in case. I never touched any of it. I guess that was good, because it meant I was busy and having fun, but I did miss sewing. I hope to get in the quilt studio very soon.

We stopped to see my sister on the way home and had a nice visit with her. We always like to talk "art" when we get together.

On the final leg of the trip home, my car decided that it was time to liven things up. The tightener on the serpentine belt decided to give up the ghost when we were in a traffic jam. DH got us off the interstate and onto a local highway, which put us close to the car dealership and their service department. So we got a tow and DS came to give us (and all our stuff) a ride home. It was all resolved rather quickly and relatively painlessly on Saturday, but it sure made Friday a long day. Thank goodness for AAA - they were really responsive and helpful. And the tow truck company was too. It made it so much easier. The poor kitties had to wait until Saturday to come home, but they survived. We're all back to what passes for normal around here now.