Back in the Saddle....

Yep, that's me hugging a bear at the Mammoth Hot Springs Post Office in Yellowstone National Park. That's the only kind of bear I want to hug!

We had a marvelous vacation, it was everything a vacation should be. We returned as different people and are still feeling the glow of time away, centered around nature and the greatness our country has to offer!

We will be processing our photos for months! We each took lots of memory cards full =)

Yep, that's a coyote, who didn't seem too perturbed by a crowd of photographers as he trotted by! Whoa. (I like his dog-like smile!)

Another life-long dream has been met! (I'm kinda diggin' this trend!) I've wanted to see Yellowstone National Park since I was 7 years old--that's 40 years I waited!!!

I was very sedentary prior to our trip. Hiking for hours daily in the mountains was a nice forced workout, though I WAS looking over my shoulder for a bear the entire time! I have been continuing to exercise since we got home (I only took a break for 3 days of illness, and 2 days with the heat index at 105! I'm not goin' out there in that murk....)

I feel more healthy than ever. To beat the heat today, I made banana, peach, blueberry smoothies with ice, honey, and a splash of OJ. MMMMMMM

I got a ton of knitting done during the travel of our trip. I had spun up my fiber from Shell, remember this?

I really wanted a nice warm woolen hat for hiking in the mountains in springtime. I cast-on the night before our trip, so there would be less chance of airport security looking askance at my needles, and took a wooden crochet hook and plastic circs on the plane with me. I roughly followed a pattern in a LionBrand Hats book, even though my gauge was way off. I just really wanted bobbles along the folded up brim. I made up my own bobble pattern to make the yarn go as far as it could. I didn't have enough yarn to bobble all the way around, but since it is a subtle design addition, I left it partially un-bobbled, and wear that part at the back! (No pics yet, sorry!)

I finished it before we landed in Salt Lake City. So I cast on another project I packed: the simple tee from the current Knit Simple Magazine. I took along some Ty-Dye yarn. Again, I had only the needles at hand and my gauge was off, so I had to compensate. I got it about 3/4 finished by the end of the trip.

DH was laughing at me on the plane; they announced we were approaching SLC and I was starting to cast on another project. What's so funny about that?! I ended up being extremely glad I'd knit that wool hat; I needed to wear it much of the time, especially early in our week there, as it was snowing off and on and the wind was bitter. We had to buy gloves. But it got warmer as the week progressed.

Our first full day there we hiked in a beautiful alpine meadow for miles; when we finally got to the edge of the meadow and saw the trail continued around the base of some foothills, we prudently decided that we probably had done enough for our first day. We turned to go back, and saw the sky had become extremely dark and cloudy behind us!!!

A storm was blowing in over the Gallatin Mountains, and we were 2-3 miles from the car or ANY SHELTER at all!!! I was wearing Meinstein, that lovely green wool coat I knit--boy was I glad for it as the wind picked up. We hoofed it, but just before we got back to the car the heavens let loose with icy freezing rain! We were then stuck in the car with smelly wet wool drying in the back seat, but it was such a beautiful hike it was well worth getting wet! Did you ever smell bitterroot flowers blooming?! OMG it is such a divine scent--DH couldn't smell it, but I was captivated. Such a puny little flower on the open plain. I read that the Indians used to eat the flower's roots like a potato. Pics to come

So, I'm back. My ganglion cyst has been bothering me after all the knitting on the trip--I haven't knit at all in the 2 weeks since we've been back and it is now finally calming down. I have to smack that thing soon and burst it........(I'm too cowardly)

Looking forward to getting back into blogland again! I missed you all =)
Gardiner River from the bridge at Mammoth.


Aim