Northern California

My mom and dad live in Fortuna, California, which is over four hundred miles from us. It takes at least eleven hours to drive up there, which can be tiring to say the least...especially when the little beagle, Gidget threw up in the car after a few hours on the winding mountain roads. Russ was smart enough not ot have fed her in the morning, just in case, so it wasn't too bad.

...But once we get there, it is well worth the drive. Besides the fact that we leave near-one hundred degree weather to come to foggy, sixty-degree weather, it's beautiful with mountains and redwoods all around. My parents have a huge yard full of good stuff to eat.



We have some favorite haunts, but usually try to go places we've never been to before when we're up here too. Last year we drove up to Agate Beach, which is at Patrick's Point State Park about 45 miles from Fortuna. Paige and I searched for Agates..well, I'm not sure search is the right word since they're everywhere on the beach.




Another thing I love about Northern California is that I'm always inspired to knit here. I started the Firday Harbor Sock from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road before we left. Russ and I trade off driving, but I got in a good four or five hours of knitting on the way up.

Typical of me, I had a little trouble at first. I looked on Ravelry, and no one else seemed to have had the problem I had. You're told to cast on a certain number of stitches per needle, but then the number of stitches increase with the pattern, so you have to move on to the next needle to finish the pattern for each particular needle. I didn't realize that and thought I was doing something wrong. I eventually figured it out, but it frustrated me because my stitches weren't coming out right, so I thought I'd done something wrong. Novice mistake, I guess...novice who's been knitting for over twenty-five years!!