Back from the North

When you go to the farthest northern corner of Wisconsin you do not expect it to be too hot and humid to spend much time outside.  It had to be a fluke that last year it was so hot up there.  But, alas, this year was even worse.  I’m not sure why we end up there when they are having an unusual heat wave but it was just as hot there as it was here at home.  But that didn’t keep us from having a nice relaxing time (yes thank goodness the cabin had air conditioning — it is not your “roughing” it type of log cabin. 🙂  So we spent lots of time reading, playing cards, a new dice game they taught me, watching movies and just visiting.  So today my parents are headed on to their next visiting desination but we had a wonderful visit.

The weather did cooperate one evening when we went to a play in an outdoor tent venue — it was warm but a bit of a breeze wafting through the tent sides (think big circus tent with the sides rolled up) kept it comfortable.  It was called Keepers of the Light and was based on the journals of the lighthouse keepers in the Apostle Islands (the area where we were).  It was very good.  There were no bear sightings this year but we did see…

Okay – not her most attractive side but she crossed the road in front of us and is headed into the forest on the other side.  She did stop to look at us when Dad opened the window and whistled at her – tho my photo turned out blurry

But we didn’t see nearly as many deer as last year – too hot for them to be moving around much I think.

But the wildflowers were blooming all around  the forest (the cabin is in a National Forest area) and were beautiful – pinks and purples and yellow grassy areas everywhere.

  And yes – Pirates!!!  There was a festival in Duluth, MN, last weekend that the clipper ships were there for and we saw photos of them in the Sunday paper.  We were heading to Duluth on Monday so figured we’d missed them but there were still some of them there.  Not a great photo – it was a very hazy day over the lake but bright enough that I couldn’t see the screen on the back of my camera so I had to sort of point and click and hope I got the ship in the photo.

I’ve got some other great wildflower photos, photos from a place where they do chain saw carving into wonderful detailed animals, and photos from Ashland,WI where they have amazing murals painted onn the sides of many buildings but since wordpress’s photo upload is being difficult today, I’ll save those for another day.

I did manage to get my Camp Loopy 2 project – cabled mittens – started and finished while at the cabin, who I don’t care much for the pattern I used so probably won’t be making them again.  So now to wait for the annoucement of the last Camp Loopy project next month.  I also made progress on my star stitch scarf and started on a shawl.

But today, I think I’ll go plug in some movies and start some new quilt project.  Haven’t decided what yet but I’m in the mood for something new.  Plus I ‘ve also got an idea for a Christmas in July project for the TQP gals I need to play with a little since July is getting away from me, but I cannot open EQ yet or I’ll never get anything started.  So off to look for some templates I bought for a new project and then go dig through the stash to see what fabrics to use.  I had thought about a trip to the quilt shop but it’s too hot outside for me to want to bus it over there (but I feel a Saturday shopping excursion coming on).  🙂

Oh – one last thing – as I was catching up on emails from when I was gone, there were a couple that were several MBs in size.  I’m guessing someone was trying to send photos (maybe of BOM or Year of Wallhanging projects they’d finished for me to post.)  I deleted them without letting them download — I’m not patient enough to sit and wait for 15 minutes to let one photo download (remember not everyone has high speed internet – I have dial up)  so if  someone did send images they want me to post, please resize them – under 300kb would be great – and resend.  I’ve got a bunch of photos I need to add to the project pages and will do that some rainy day when I’m bored (and the photo  uploader is being cooperative).  Thanks.

Denise