Vacation Yarn!

Excuse my absence! Aside from being busy with work, I spent the last week in the CO Rockies on vacation with DH and ALL of our kids. That's a major feat considering how spread out we are these days.

Check out the icy mountain lake in the middle of the picture. It was chilly at the Continental Divide... and we came home to 95 degree temps. I hate heights, but I love the view!

Guess what!? I am a firm believer in vacation yarn, and this trip was no exception.

If you ever find yourself in or near Granby, CO, you should treat yourself to a sidetrip to LoneSome Stone Alpaca Mill. It's only about a mile off the main road (Hwy 40) and you will know you are in the right place when you see the pasture of alpacas (180+ of them). I spent a good deal of time there just petting the yarn.... there were so many pretty colorways to choose from and such soft yarn, it was really hard to make a choice on what to bring home. Nancy and Linda, 2 of the owners, popped in and out and were happy to talk about all their different yarns. I left with 3 hanks of yarn plus a list of more yarn that I fell in love with and hope to order in the future in larger quantities. They have 69 (I think) colorways to choose from on their web site. In their store, they also have one-of-a-kind skeins that they create on special dye days. These yarns are called their BFF line (yes, as in Best Friends Forever - I think that refers to Nancy and Linda). I bought 2 BFF skeins:

This one will probably be a scarf.

And this one will be a set of hat and scarf, or maybe mittens and hat or scarf. Time will tell! There is a lot more yardage on this skein than the previous one. This will become a Christmas gift.

I bought one skein of merino wool to make a hat for DS for when he moves back to the US from Qatar. I *assume* that he will need cold-weather stuff.

The trip:

We drove across the 'amber waves of grain'. These days, the wheat fields are interspersed with wind farms.

My road trip knitting was a sweater at 8 sts = 1 inch.... it's a longtime work in progress and was totally the wrong choice for car knitting. The sweater has an overall lace pattern and I made a couple of goofs that required significant ripping. I'm not one to have multiple projects going at a time, but I should have made an exception!

We finally got to the 'purple mountains majesty'.

You can see a lot of dead trees from the pine bark beetle kill, but when you walk in the forest, new growth is everywhere. The pines are reseeding and the firs and aspen are filling in.

There were a lot of distractions on this trip. I'm sharing just a few.

I'm not sure why some of the elk had collars. (Rocky Mountain National Park)

Town moose..... (we saw lots of country moose, but this one and its mama decided to go to town!)

Country bull elk - he's a big boy (RMNP)!

Cute little squirrel (Arapaho National Forest).

4 happy 'kids' (Adams Falls, Arapaho National Forest)!

Fairy Trumpet wildflowers.

Bittercress wildflowers (I think - and feel free to correct me)! There's an ant on one of the white petals.

We hiked, we rafted, we rode horses and mountain bikes, we played games and tried to keep up with the World Cup games. I really didn't knit that much, except in the car.

Monday morning... back to reality. Last week sure was fun!