Yeah, Well, That Break Lasted A Long Time...

Okay, so I was in a snit on Saturday. I think, as well as being tired and cranky, I just hit the overload of spam comments. It's so exciting to see I have comments and then have them be spammers...all on one long ago post here, all sorts of spam. Bleah.

Anyway, part of the silence of the past couple weeks was being up in Massachusetts. We picked Rachel up from school, whizzed all around Amherst and Northampton hunting for an apartment for her (Success! More about that later.), went to Webs (twice), and spent hours and hours and hours in the car. One thing about 7 hour car trips and lots of little side trips is that you get a lot of knitting done. I finished my Alki socks.


And on the way home I started a pair of socks for Rachel.

She has tiny feet so they are working up quickly. I'm up into the leg already.

What else? ML asked about the latest red scarf. The June red scarf is finished up and the July scarf was started today at lunch. Here's June.

It has a nice texture, I think, and feels very nice. It is a little short, however.

While we were in MA, we also visited Quabbin Reservoir, which was lovely. As we turned into the entrance, we saw these guys.


Quabbin Reservoir was formed by building the Winsor Dam, the second longest earth dam in the US, surpassed only by the Hetch-Hetchy in California.


They had to destroy four towns that were going to end up on the bottom of the reservoir. Some of the dorms at Hampshire are named for those towns. Barbara Cooney wrote a book about the creation of the reservoir called Letting Swift River Go. The dam is about 1/2 a mile long and very tall. On one side it's very wet....

and on the other side, rather dry....

You cannot see, in this picture, how steeply this side falls off. You also cannot see, way down there, another turkey pacing about.

It's a pretty place. We walked halfway across the dam and then back (we had to get back to Amherst at a certain time) but I thought this path through the woods looked tempting.

We walked a little way down here and watched a chipmunk skitter about.

And saw some pretty flowers.

We found a cute little two-bedroom apartment for Rachel in what seems to be a pretty quiet development not too far from school and right on the bus route. And, although it hasn't been settled for sure, we may have found her a room-mate, too! A friend from middle school will be attending UMass Amherst for graduate school and she doesn't want to live in grad housing, which she has been told is sort of loud and rowdy. So she and Rachel are meeting tomorrow and talking about room-mating -- what they expect and want in room-mates. Fingers crossed, please. She heads back up there next month sometime.

I also bought a little something last night.This is supposed to be for Rachel. She wants to learn to ride it and use it to get about until she gets her driver's license. But I rode it last night and oh my! I felt like a kid again. So. much. fun!! So when this one disappears to Massachusetts, I may just have to go bike shopping for myself.

Kaethe, I have some book suggestions for you but I'll get to them tomorrow.