Back-Blogging: Camp Socks

It occurs to me that I have been neglecting the blog yet again. I have several projects to share, and even a few photos to accompany them. So here goes.

 A cross-country plane trip is a good time to get some knitting finished. No trouble with the sock needles. These are the Sara Elin Socks by Vicki Bird that I started during the Lots of Socks KAL back in February. I finished the first sock, but not during the challenge time; then the second sock sat for a long time. It's a lace sock on size 0 needles, that's why.

 But they are quite pretty, even with the occasional hiccup in the lace. Glad they are done though. Finished them at the hotel after arrival in Virginia, before leaving for camp. Tertia and I had a wonderful time on Friday before leaving for camp, touring D.C. Here are some pictures from that:

 At the Metro station learning a different kind of public transit than she is used to. She thinks the name "Foggy Bottom" for a Metro station is hilarious!

 We went to the National Archives, where no photography is allowed inside, but we admired the patriotic flower beds outside! Seeing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution was exciting for her. I loved the Magna Carta and would have stayed longer, but we wanted to check out the National Portrait Gallery (and American Art Museum).

 Crossing Constitution was the only real shot we had of the Capitol, so I took this while crossing. We looked at all the presidents' portraits in order, and she read the dates and is working on memorizing a few details on each one. Maybe we can convince her that memorizing facts about the presidents is better than Harry Potter trivia?

 This is in honor of Eisenhower Elementary School.

 This is in honor of Thomas Jefferson Middle School.

This one is just because she shares two names with the subject, and read it as we passed by. Her feet were getting tired by then, and when her feet get tired, we need to quit and go back to the hotel.

 This is The Puritan by Augustus St. Gaudens. I've been doing enough genealogy lately to have come across a lot of Puritan Great Migration ancestors, so why not? It's cool.

So, after that interlude of art and history...

These are the socks I started after the Sara Elin socks were finished. Thankfully on size 1 needles, and a simple pattern so the knitting went faster. It's Patons Kroy sock yarn, the first time I've tried it, and the pattern is Non-Euclidian by Sarah Jordan, another pattern I bought during the KAL in February. This is the second pair I've made from that pattern. I'm calling them Camp Socks because I worked on them over the two camps I attended this summer. They will probably be a Christmas gift...shh! I may want to buy more Patons Kroy sock yarn, because I liked this. It's a little heavier gauge than most sock yarns, and unfortunately lower yardage per skein, but a better price point. So that's the news on the sock knitting front. Next time: quilting.

An Anniversary Trip

Today is the first day of school; it's also the first first day of school in the last sixteen years that I haven't been teaching. It feels great... and weird. I have a half-empty nest; both boys are launched, more or less, and I may not see them for a matter of months. My youngest is in her first year of high school. My teaching career spanned a very full 16 years; that's a third of my life. My pregnancy with Quarta was during my second year of teaching. So to cope with the disorientation and a bit of melancholy at not being in the thick of the whirlwind of teaching, here is my retrospective on the trip I took out to meet up with Steve and see Daniel off on his internship, over Labor Day weekend... which just happened to be Steve and my 24th anniversary. That's half of my life. I just now realized that. I guess one of the benefits of being retired is that you finally have time to do the math.

Bei-Bei the baby (well 1-year-old) panda eating a stick of bamboo. While Steve and Daniel drove out to the East Coast starting on Monday of that week, I flew out early Friday morning. After a very sound sleep on a comfortable hotel bed, we took a trip to the National Zoo on Saturday. I hadn't been there in decades, possibly since the early 80's, but I may have gone in the early 90's when I lived in the area. Daniel had never been. It was even better than I remembered... back then the pandas had never cooperated with my viewing time and all I ever saw of them was Hsing-Hsing's back as he slept. This is obviously a new and promising era in the saga of the National Zoo pandas, and the experience of her supreme cuteness (she also gobbled down an apple as we watched) may have been worth the price of the trip right there.

And I think this is Bei-Bei's older sister, Bao-Bao, playing and tumbling over the decor in her den.

Also high in the cute-factor is this Fennec Fox. You know, it was really fun to go to the zoo and see the beautiful and cute and fascinating animals, and the cute and ornery and fascinating kids, and not be the least bit stressed about the kids. I could get into this idea of not having to be the responsible adult all the time.

Most of our meals were in and around the Mosaic District in Merrifield, not far from the Dunn Loring Metro station and walking distance from our hotel. This brand new and very posh shopping area would have been unimaginable in the days when I was commuting daily from Dunn Loring. The Metro stop itself was only recognizable after you got really close and saw the entrance; the parking structure was not there 25 years ago at all, and only two buildings that had been in the general vicinity looked familiar at all... it was certainly not convenient to anyplace trendy. Steve had the bizarre experience of going by the address of the house he had lived in before we were married and seeing that it had been torn down and two new houses built on its lot.

Sunday, we attended McLean Presbyterian Church, which was where Steve and I met and were married, and where Daniel will be doing his internship. The church has changed a lot since then, but the essentials are the same, and the people have that lovely Virginia gentillesse that may strike a cynical newcomer as too good to be true... but it's legitimate. Interesting ironies of church life abound; Daniel's work experience supervisor is an old friend who led singing and played guitar back in our day; his host family are sweet people - he was the organist at our wedding and she was in choir with me. They also found a link I wasn't expecting; he had been on a missions trip to Chile with our good friend and favorite handyman, Scott Janku, who has made countless improvements to this old house. And it was great to reconnect with those friends who weren't out of town for the weekend.

We went to the National Cathedral, hoping to hear a choral service, but it had been cancelled, so we just enjoyed a leisurely tour of the stained glass windows and the gardens. Then we headed up to Fourth Presbyterian, where Steve grew up, for the evening service. Rob Norris, although retired as head pastor, happened to be preaching and it was a treat to hear him. Steve also connected with former Sunday School teachers and youth group leaders, including a gentleman who's been leading church youth since the 1950's.

Monday, our actual anniversary, Daniel left early to head down to Norfolk for a friend's wedding. That left Steve and me to wear our feet out (or maybe it was just my feet that weren't up to it) by going all over the American Indian museum and the American Art Museum/ National Portrait Gallery. There is a mezzanine level where they have "intermediate storage" of works, all crowded together and not so carefully curated, that might be in long-term storage (I'm thinking the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark). We ended up going top to bottom and spent the bulk of our time on the 3rd floor and mezzanine, recently restored to its Civil War era grandeur (we're told it was the site of Lincoln's 2nd innaugural ball). But we dutifully saw almost everything that we could.

Tuesday morning we had time to pay a visit to Mount Vernon with Daniel. It was a lovely day and a good time to benefit from all the historic presenters... they know their stuff and it's always nice to let them teach you. The house is impressive (I particularly like the bas-relief of G.W. as Cincinnatus in the study) and the farm and gardens are great to wander through. I particularly appreciated this prayer of George Washington, which was displayed by his tomb: George Washington's Prayer for his Country. We wouldn't be doing half bad even in this current political climate if we took this seriously. We ate at the restaurant on-site, and then it was time for Daniel to drop us off at Reagan National Airport and continue on to his retreat center for the Capital Fellows program. Our flight left after 5 Eastern time and we got back to PDX just a little after 8.

I intended to write this up quickly as a way to fill time this morning, but it ended up taking all day, off and on. An anxious day with concerns about my sister's health, but I think ending on a mostly positive note. I leave you with our group selfie as we were waiting to enter Mount Vernon.

Peter's Graduation from Basic Training

I love this picture -- the mother-soldier selfie!  It represents one of the few moments of pure joy in recent months; for Peter, a rare off-base leave after ten weeks of deprivation and harshness; for me, an interlude of one-on-one family time that seems to become rarer all the time.

As you know if you've been following my "What I did on my summer vacation" posts, the rest of our family had a lengthy road trip vacation, combined with seeing Daniel off to college in Pennsylvania.  Peter was at Fort Sill, OK doing basic training for most of the summer.  His first full day was the 4th of July (and he didn't get to take a holiday) after more than a week of whatever "processing" involves, which I really don't want to know about.  I was able to fly down to Oklahoma to see the Family Day and Graduation for Peter and his class of soldiers in training -- four platoons of fine young people who worked very hard to learn how to defend our country.  I was impressed.  And this brought the number of states I set foot on this summer to a grand total of 18.  If you count flyovers it would make more than half the states.

 At the Family Day ceremony they did a series of demonstrations of the skills that were drummed into them over the summer. I think they cleaned up the language a bit for us.  I noticed after I parked the rental car and started walking towards the stands that every few minutes there would be some distant thunder.  But the sky was blue and it was a hot day.  It finally dawned on me that... this is an artillery base.  That thunder wasn't thunder.

 Peter received his first promotion at that time... Private E-2, I believe.  After that ceremony I signed him out and took him to the hotel room where we took that selfie... then we hit the mall.  Lawton, OK is pretty much a company town for the Army.  Everywhere we went Peter was being congratulated and I was amazed at how appreciative everyone was.  The White Buffalo gave him a complementary lunch, for example.  We shopped for dress clothes for school... Peter will be having a more or less regular Senior year at Cedar Tree with one weekend a month where he has to report for National Guard training.  And Seniors at Cedar Tree get to wear "business casual" rather than school uniforms.  We saw "Guardians of the Galaxy," which was a great movie at baseline and Peter liked even more because it was the first entertainment of any kind he had had in so long.  And of course, the hero's named Peter.

 The next day I had to wait until 1:00 for the graduation ceremony, and since I'd already seen the mall, I decided to check out the amenities of the park near the auditorium where graduation would be.  There is a small lake, with lots of extremely un-shy geese.  It was very hot, and I decided this was not the kind of park where I could sit and knit in the shade.  There wasn't really any shade.

 The prairie dogs weren't out, and no one was playing disc golf.

 I couldn't shake the feeling that the geese were organizing.

It was a little bit like a Hitchcock movie.  But not very much, because they never attacked.

 There were memorials for the Korean and Vietnam wars.

 Some pretty prairie flowers.  I kept trying to get a picture of the dragonflies, but they moved too fast.

 I decided to go to the Museum of the Plains, guarded by this statue of a Bison Latifrons.

I need one of these signs for my house.

 The old schoolhouse was locked up, but I think they use it for occasional fiber demonstrations,

 I kind of want to read the Little House books again, after seeing so many of the sites on vacation and then spending time in Oklahoma.

 It's really hot there, even in the morning.

 There was this little squirrel hiding inside the wall of the main building.  I used to think squirrels were cute until one chewed a hole in our roof.  I still think they are interesting little animals, if a bit more destructive than I had previously realized.

 I really wanted to edit the spelling of vertebrae.  The Museum of the Great Plains had a lot of exhibits about the early pioneers and about the conflicts during the time Oklahoma was Indian territory.  I then went to the Comanche Museum and Cultural Center.  There were Comanche code talkers during both World Wars -- everyone hears about the Navajo code talkers, but I didn't know about the Comanche.  They have a great story in their own right.

 As we filed into the auditorium the young soldiers were sitting at attention and presumably forbidden to make eye contact.

 Each graduate stated his or her name and hometown before walking across the stage to shake hands with the officers.  After the ceremony they were bussed back to the base, where we had to drive to pick them up for leave time.

Having exhausted most of the action in Lawton, Peter was happy just to hang out in a comfortable hotel room, listening to his favorite music on Spotify, drinking coffee and surfing Facebook.  We had dinner at the Olive Garden and got him back to base before curfew.  In fact, he made it back to PDX before I did the next day.  Then on the following Monday, it was back to school for him and for me... perhaps the real war zone.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation, Part 3

You know how teachers used to assign this essay for students returning to school?  Well, I'm just trying to finish my own before October.  School has begun, there is no getting away from that obvious fact.  I just want to document the brief, shining moments of vacation before school swallows them up.

We boarded the Badger, a ferryboat across Lake Michigan, quite early in the morning for a 4-hour ride.  Steve appreciated the break from driving, and it was a fun change of pace, exploring the ship and relaxing.  At lunch we discovered that Tertia had quite a terrible injury to the inside of her lip from her braces having poked it and then the spot being widened by catching on the braces every time she moved her mouth.  It must have been going on for several days, but she only seemed to notice it after we did and became concerned. We ended up in Mankato, Minnesota that evening.

The next morning we were encouraged to figure out a dentist's office was right down the street from our hotel, and so we showed up bright and early and after filling out some forms, got her in to be seen very quickly.  Thankfully, no stitches were necessary and the solution was simple - put wax on the poky bits until the wound heals.  A little easier said than done but she is much better these three weeks later.  It was a nickel-sized hole and I can't imagine how she managed not to be howling with pain all along.

The next few days of the trip West were taken up with Little House fandom.  This is the replica of the log cabin near Pepin, Wisconsin, as portrayed in Little House in the Big Woods.  As you can see the woods are not so big anymore, but it was a sweet little rest area as we were hurrying toward Minnesota.

In Minnesota we found our way to Walnut Grove and the site of On the Banks of Plum Creek.  It is a little private farm, left very unspoiled and undeveloped, where you can see the location of the dugout house and walk a few little nature trails.  There are still lots of grasshoppers around, everywhere you go.

We didn't see the in-town museums in Pepin or Walnut Grove because we were trying to make time across the country; and then later in DeSmet, South Dakota ("Little Town on the Prairie") we only bought souvenir t-shirts and declined the special guided tour that said allow 1.5 hours.  There's a limit to how touristy we wanted to be, but we did check out some of the historic buildings and the free museum.  And the Dairy Queen.  That night we stayed in Pierre.

The next day was a long driving day, with a stop at Wall Drug (is it possible not to stop at Wall Drug?  All of South Dakota seems to lead up to it, and it's a good place for a bathroom stop, and your kids can ride the giant jackalope.)

We stopped that night at Cody, Wyoming, which is a really neat Old West kind of town.  There was a regularly scheduled gunfight at one of the local saloons, and we had a very nice meal.  I decided that someday not too long from now, I want to buy myself some cowboy boots.

Next day we arrived at Yellowstone midmorning, and saw a fair amount of the essentials.  Old Faithful was going off at the same time as a more distant geyser.

The geysers are fascinating, but I really like all the weird mineral pools and thermal features.  We didn't have time to drive through the whole park, but we ate bison chili at the cafeteria and took enough walks to give the girls a taste of the park.  Quarta might have seen a bear as we were driving along at one point, but she wasn't sure.  After leaving the park we made it to Twin Falls for the night.  And the next day we drove all day and arrived home.  The house was still standing, and we had a Sunday and a holiday Monday before the school wars began again.

The travelling was not quite over yet for me, though, because Peter's graduation from Basic Training was the following weekend.  I'll do that travelogue in another post.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Part 2

On the great Chapman family vacation of 2014, Daniel was only along for the first part (WA to PA), and Peter was laboring hard at Basic Training in Fort Sill, OK the whole time.  Once we had checked into the Wyndham timeshare resort in Williamsburg, Sunday rolled around again and Peter called to check in.  It was a momentous occasion, with the whole extended family checking in.  The picture probably doesn't do it justice:

We took pictures of people talking to a smart phone on speaker mode.  Sound quality was iffy, especially on Peter's end.  But we got to hear about the things he was going through, and that little bit of contact had to sustain us for another week.

There is an incredible amount of history crammed into the "historic triangle" of Virginia (Colonial Willamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown Colony.)  We bought a pass for our family of 4 that let us into quite a bit, but of course that meant we had to get our money's worth by going somewhere each day.  Truth be told, the girls would probably have been happy swimming at the hotel all day long.  Buy Steve and I, history buffs that we are, made sure they got out to see stuff every day! This is the Colonial Capitol at Williamsburg,

At Jamestown, you could board the three replica ships and imagine what it might be like to make the Atlantic crossing in the hold as an indentured servant or even an investor, confined for months on end to a tiny space on top of all your worldy possessions.  Colonists tried all sorts of industries -- glassblowing, silk, and wine, for example -- which failed to turn a profit, before finally settling on tobacco as the predominant cash crop.

Back in Colonial Williamsburg, the view of the Governor's Palace.  We also had quite a lot of fun at the weaver's shop, the millinery, the gardens, the wigmaker's shop, the silversmiths, the blacksmiths, the print shop, the apothecary... just finding out how people lived in the old days.

We accidentally enlisted in the Continental Army and fell in with a drill sergeant, who trained us in proper musket handling.  It was a little taste of what Peter was going through, and we all appreciated it.  Even though we were perfectly wretched recruits and (shh!) deserted immediately after our first musket lesson.  Fortunately, General Washington found better recruits.

The girls of the family had an afternoon date to the restaurant that invented Death by Chocolate, and there was a lot of relaxing and swimming and talking and eating.  Quarta really enjoyed making friends with her cousins, who are close to her age.  We even did a bit of outlet mall shopping.

Then it was time to go and for our family to start the long drive across country.  We made the first leg as far as Grove City, stopping at Paw Paw tunnel along the C&O canal in Maryland.  Steve really likes canals; think of them as the forerunners of the interstate highway system.

Somewhere along here, I must have picked up the tick that I found on myself in the hotel 12 hours later.  But no harm done, I think.  It's been a few weeks now and no weird rashes or anything.  Weird that I grew up playing in wooded areas, yet this was the first time to my knowledge that I've ever even seen a tick.  But on to more pleasant subjects...

We had a very nice visit with Daniel, went to 2 different churches with him on Sunday, and even had a peek at his dorm room.  The girls enjoyed seeing the college campus and we enjoyed spending some precious time with Daniel before having to say goodbye.

For our adventures along the Westward road, stay tuned for part 3.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation, Part 1

I took a bit of a blog vacation this last month.  This summer it was harder to blog than it has been, with Peter away at Basic Training.  I started living for the short time he was allowed to call home every Sunday.  It's not like life got put on hold, except that it did, sort of.  The family wasn't quite right because he wasn't here.  Now it's the second day of school and it's really time to make up for all the blog neglect that went on.  I don't say I'm motivated, exactly, but I have missed being able to write.

This was what life was like when I last blogged.  Tertia watering the garden, mugging for the camera.  Pacific Northwest summers are lovely; usually not much rain from July through September.  It's a little-known secret.

Quarta went to summer camp, where she was like this...

And as soon as she came home was like this.

Then it came time to take Daniel back to college.  He is a freshman RA this year, and had to be in Pennsylvania a week early for training.  Steve took him out in the van, stopping for some scenery along the way.

 Arches National Park in Utah.  The girls and I waited a few more days, then flew out to Washington D.C. after Steve had already dropped Daniel off.

 We had one very packed day of sightseeing in D.C., starting with the National Archives, where Tertia took great delight in anything relating to Thomas Jefferson (having just graduated from a middle school named after him).

 She also asked to have her picture taken next to this picture at the National Gallery of Art.  Apparently she remembers this well from her own art class.

The Capitol had scaffolding up around it.  We went through the Museum of Natural History, then past the Washington Monument and down through many of the monuments I had not seen, to the Lincoln.

And Honest Abe is still seated where I remember him.  There is something reassuring about that.  We continued, very footsore by this time, around the Tidal Basin to the Jefferson Memorial.  It was a lot of walking... well over 5 miles I think.  We will try not to do that much walking in one day again, especially with Tertia.   But... it was for HISTORY!

That appeal to history did not work so well the following day, when we toured 3 Civil War battlefields (Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Chancellorsville, although I'm not sure I got the order right) in Virginia.  Not to mention the house where Stonewall Jackson died.  This was on our way down to Williamsburg, where we checked into the Wyndham resort for our family reunion.  You'll have to stay tuned for part 2 for that bit.