The End Of August

That means I’m getting even closer to my vacation which is starting on Monday. Even though the weather is still warm, at least in the afternoon, it’s almost the end of summer. This morning it was only 13 degrees Celsius in my bedroom. That’s as cold as it gets in winter! (Yes, I have a furnace, but right now it’s turned off. And I prefer a cold bedroom with lots of blankets on the bed.) When I got up at 6am, I shut the window which had been open all the way and put on a fleece top over my lighter clothes. It took until almost noon to warm up outside even with the sun shining and it’s still only about 19 degrees in here now. I really love the fall colours and the cooler temperatures outside. Though we’re going to be gone most of September and who knows what the weather will be like wherever we will be? We’re heading south but up — to 8000 feet or more! We’re bringing extra layers just in case. After all we only have heat in the van when we have an electric plug-in which depends on the campsite.

I’m still editing my traveling stash. More yarn, less yarn, more beads, less books. I really don’t want to run out of things to do! I know I won’t really because everything takes forever to finish, but I fantasize about not having anything to work on while we’re driving across Nevada on the Extraterrestrial Highway or something. Don’t beam me up — beam down more yarn!

Notice there’s no spinning stuff on that list. Much as I need to spin more for my Little Squares sweater (if I ever want to finish it), I decided to leave the spinning at home. I’m not bringing my wheel and although I’ve spun a fair amount of the yarn for this project on my spindles, I don’t much like plying on them. I think I have enough stuff to keep me busy anyway. If not, I’ll find another yarn store. I once found both a bead store and a yarn store across the street from each other in Placerville, CA when we only stopped for gas. Who knew they were there? And are they still? (Not that we’re going that way this time.) Ever since, T-Man has said he needs to make up a bumper sticker that says “I brake for craft supplies!” Just so as not to be outdone by this here damselfly, in past trips he has managed to buy or collect wood for turning and glass rods and other stuff for flameworking. He is no slouch in the craft department himself, ya know.

Today I’m feeling like I shouldn’t have boasted about being so healthy for the past 2 years. I’m a little congested but I’ve only used a few Kleenexes so far. I’m sneezing a bit too. Bummer. Hope my immune system is up to snuff and snuffs this out before I get too snuffy. Or something like that. I can’t remember when I last had a cold.

Snuffy or not, I was very good and did a pretty thorough backup of all my Important Files on my computer today. I always feel nervous when I go away and leave it. Wonder how much I will miss it while I’m gone? There’s a couple of state campsites in California with wi-fi so maybe I can even post something from there! My Palm T/X has wi-fi capabilities and we have an auto charger so that even if we don’t have plug-in we can charge our Palms. Can’t leave civilization entirely, ya know! And yesterday, I did a bunch of research online (which is how I found out about the wi-fi) and we have a thick folder of maps and routes and driving instructions and info on how to find the most likely campsites. The itinerary may change as we go, but it’s pretty well mapped out now. How did anyone plan trips before the Internet? I can even get brochures in PDF for places like Zion Canyon! Way cool. All that was just making me want Monday to come even more. Although there’s a tonne of stuff to do around here in the meanwhile. Yes, “tonne” is correct, even though my spell-checker thinks it’s not. It’s metric. I’m Canadian. We’re metric-sort-of. OK bilingual metric-imperial. (Though we don’t use all the weird measurements that the English used to before they wisely went metric.) Oops. I digress.

Packing. Cleaning. Wishing us on our way. Oh, making supper right now might be good too…