Time Change?!

For the past three days I've been in bed with the flu. It's safe to say I got it at SOAR 2009. I meant to get a t-shirt but all I got was this damn sickness. Now, I'm up typing in another room so I won't wake anyone up. Marcel doesn't sleep at night, so he doesn't mind.

Kristine made an awesome dinner tonight, lemon crouton chicken by Ina Garten. I love it so much. But other than than that I've been on a very low key sick diet. You know the liquid type, juice, soup, bread and stuff like that. My fever finally broke today so I can sit up without getting dizzy, so I'm happy with the improvement.

If you had spoken to me on Tuesday, you would have thought I had something worse. I've spent most of my days sleeping and drinking tea. When I couldn't go back to sleep I laid on the couch and watched the Blue Lagoon (which I've never seen!) and Batman (love that movie!) (daytime AMC). Anyway, I didn't really have a cough until last night. And now the darn thing won't go away. I've tried Delsym, Tussin, cough drops, hot tea, hot lemon water, I gargled with warm water and salt, I even took a half of vicodin cuz I read it's an anti-tussive (meaning it suppresses the urge to cough). Through the current paragraph I'm typing I coughed about five times. *SIGH* My fever is gone now but at it's height hit 101.5 and that was the worse part, but now it's the dry cough. :(

This past Sunday Morning we drove home from Sunriver, Oregon. We were both very tired and wanted to relax in our own house. On the way back we saw my favorite mountain/volcano Mt. Shasta.


As you can see from the picture below Kristine can knit anywhere.


Ohh But wait!, before that, on Friday (when I was HEALTHY) my friend Velma and I went to the High Desert Museum 10 min away from the resort.


When we walked in we saw a cowboy braiding a new horse bridle! Velma and I promptly told him we were both spinners. Later I asked him if there were knitting cowboys, he said, they darned their own socks but bought the socks at a general store...hmm, the search goes on. Here he is braiding away like a living statue at disneyland!



While checking out the exhibits we found a spinning wheel in one of the tableaus! A Flax Spinning wheel, we noticed the distaff was just to the left of it, see it?!


We also saw a lot of Native American woven and beaded items. One of the neatest items I saw was a bag woven out of corn husks! Here you can see the Sturgeon, condors, deer, and dogs.


Then we came across these lovely mohair hide chaps. Very Nice!



Then we ventured into the exploratorium-like area where we could look at materials under a microscope. For example here is my shirt under magnification:

Here's Velma trying to see her hair:


We both had to be back at the market so we left before we could see the museum's Birds of Prey exhibit. However, we did see a very nice screech owl with a handler in the lobby, those little things are really cute!!!

I really wish I had more time to explore because I love rocks and lichen and the Deschutes Forest had lot to offer. Not to mention chipmunks! Do you see the chipmunk in the picture below?




The deer were playing golf! Not really but what a cool picture.

Reporting Live from SOAR!

The Drive

We awoke at 5:45am this Sunday Morning. Kristine's mom was catching a bayporter to the Oakland Airport at 6am to head back to Minnesota. She spent the last three weeks with us helping us prepare for SOAR. Her visit was a total god sent for numerous reasons. Needless to say we really appreciated all of her help and company.

The van was loaded on Saturday night with the help of Nam, WonderMike (podcaster with a NEW podcast called Fiber Beat, check it out!!!! he has a contest right now), Kristine's mom, Kristine and myself. We had pizza from Rotten Cty Pizza which really helped us pack!

After running around loading the last bits of stuff into the van we left Oakland, CA at 7:15am. The van was and is still filled with most of the AVFKW store. Kristine's cherry matchless laid on it's back in view through the back window. Which came in handy when a little red Prius passed us honking. Of course my first thought when someone is passing me honking and waving at me is "I must have a flat tire" or "Oh god the back door is open" you know something bad. But no, the little red Prius had a very happy girl waving at us in spinning camaraderie as I noticed a spinning wheel in tea back seat as she passed us. It was seriously the cutest moment so far.

We got to WEED, CA at 11am and stopped to have breakfast at the Hi-Lo cafe (I got the pancakes). While I was finishing up breakfast Kristine ran across the street to the local liquor store for the special Weed Beer.

After we left Weed we caught the 97 north. It was so super beautiful. I was driving so not a lot of pictures from pictures me. Kristine took some nice ones, so stay tuned to her flickr page or blog.



We arrived ar Sunriver at 3:30pm. We were both bouncing off the walls excited to be there. We went to the registration table and immediately saw people we knew, yea!

I felt jet lagged so I was dying for some decompression. Let's just say I had a coffee for my headache and a beer for my nerves. We're in the Deschutes forest area, so I drank a delicious, no joke, Mirror Pond Pale Ale

SUNRIVER

The Sunriver Resort is much more than I expected. This is now on my top list of working vacation locations. It is nicely wooded, quiet, and accommodating. I even spotted two deer outside my window just after arrving to our room!



The best part of our room is the fireplace!



MONDAY, October 26th

Breakfast is from 7am - 8am so we needed to get a bit earlier than I wanted, but if someone is cooking for me and doing the dishes I'm there! So after breakfast Kristine headed to her class with Michael Cook (Worm Spit) the famous Silk Master. I went to the market area to start setting up. I unloaded the van which I actually had fun doing, I blame the good coffee. Then in the late morning I went looking for the restroom and found a coffee and hot chocolate station, decked out with whipped cream and mini marshmallows. At that point I really forgot I was at work! After 5 hours of setting up the booth my body ached and knew I had gotten a pretty good workout. After dinner Kristine and I headed for the hot tub while it was snowing and the moon glowed above!!! Truly one of the most beautiful moments in my life. I never realized how beautiful and quiet snow is falling at night. Just heavenly!