Our camping trip last weekend to the North Shore went much better than could have been expected, given the dismal weather forecast for the weekend -- rain, thunderstorms, flash flood warnings, doom/gloom, pack your bags, dude, it's the end of the world. In point of fact, it only rained one night while we were there and even then didn't start until after 10pm, so we didn't mind scattering the embers of the campfire and heading to bed to avoid getting wet.
Perhaps this, which we saw as soon as we caught sight of Lake Superior, was an omen.
It wasn't a very long rainbow, but I think it was the most vivid I have ever seen.
There had been heavy rain earlier in the week, and the many streams and rivers that flow into Lake Superior were still running full. This river was full of debris.
You can see how the guardrail was twisted away from the road and the washout that had occurred.
At the campsite there was tree climbing and dog napping:
There were nature photos galore:
The first and third are the same stump but the third is turned 90°; the second is, I think, trout lilies. They were a week or two past blooming so I only got to see the seed heads. There were hepaticas and wild strawberries and lungwort in bloom, but I got no photos of them.
There was also puking. First Maggie (once), then Matthew (many times), but the rest of us were unaffected. Whew. Perhaps they had eaten some salmonella infested tomatoes before they joined us; but they arrived on Thursday night and didn't get sick until Sunday, so who knows? They were both fine by Monday.
When it was time to break camp Maggie kept Matthew and Andrew on task.
Best of all, there was sock knitting.
The colors are not true in the photo. The background color is more of an olive tan khaki, not as dark as it looks. That ten inches or so of yarn you see lying on my right foot is how much I have left to graft the toe of the left foot. I made the legs extra long; I hate to have cold ankles in January. That little tail is enough to graft, but I want to see exactly how the right foot comes out before I finish off the left. If the second ball -- I wound the 100 gr skein of Colinette Jitterbug into two 50 gr balls -- happens to be slightly shorter, I may finish off both toes with some solid olive green Lang Jawoll that I have in stash. The pair is stalled right now because I ran out of the olive green reinforcing yarn I am using in the heel flaps.The Jitterbug is 100% merino wool, lovely and soft, but I fear it would not wear as well as a yarn with some nylon in it, so I am reinforcing the heels, the spot that I always, always, always wear out first in my purchased socks.
I just noticed that it looks like the columns of purl stitches are wonky in the left sock. They are not, it is just the angle of the photo. I hope.
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Back in the heady days of the '60s and '70s there was a saying that dope would get you through times of no money better than money would get you through times of no dope. Be that as it may, I prefer to think that luck will get one through any kind of hard times at all. And my sweetie is Lucky with a Capital L.
On Saturday afternoon he and I took off for a little drive and ended up at Grand Portage at the gas station/convenience store outside the Indian casino there. After we each ate a Haagen Daas ice cream bar with almonds (yum!), he asked if I wanted to watch him throw some quarters down the toilet/into the slot machines in the store. I decided I would rather go back to the parking lot and knit. By the time I had made a pit stop, gotten back out to the car, and settled myself with my knitting, Smokey was back out there, too, with $95 won from a $20 start. That's my Bear.
