Another Road Trip

St. Louis has finally cooled down into autumn, and I'm dying to cast on for a sweater for myself. Ooooh, that would be perfect about now, wouldn't it? What with the hint of frost in the air and the leaves turning, wouldn't it be wonderful to be knitting something all wooly and cable-y for my own pleasure?

But my 2007 Parade of Unfinished Objects has inspired me to stay on task. So, when we packed up to go on a road trip, I took knitting to which I had already commited myself. (And while I'm feeling so virtuous about that, I also decided to tuck my prepositions in neatly, even though it made for a lumpy sentence just now.)

In other words, it was a very, very boring trip in regards to the knitting.

I worked on Counterpoint from Magknits -- mild-mannered black and white stripe scarf from one angle:



Clever illusion-knitted piano keyboard from another angle:



It's for Mrs. Piano-Teacher for Christmas. Mrs. Piano-Teacher knits. A lot. I'm not sure it she's ever seen illusion knitting, though, and I thought she'd get a kick out of this.

I also worked on The Socks Formerly Known As All-But-Kitchenered (Shaun's term in the comments, which has now stuck in my head as the name of the socks):



Mid-way through the heel flap of sock 2. We don't have dance class this week, so I'm unable to wave them in front of snarky dance-moms. Actually, it would be better to simply show up with them totally done. Except they don't fit me (they're a Christmas present), so I'd have to be casually carrying them or something.

Anyway, you may be wondering "why were you on a road trip?". (And if you weren't wondering that, you can stop reading now.)

This was the weekend that Kid2 made the pilgrimage to that most sacred site for middle-class caucasian 8-year-old girls. Yes, the fantastic, amazing, awe-inspiring Aunt E took her to American Girl Place in Chicago. To let you know what a rite of passage this is, last week Kid2 discovered that one of her good friends (also a middle-class caucasian 8-year-old girl) was going to be there at practically the same time, transported there by her grandparents. Expect much squealing when they see each other later this week and compare notes on the experience.

We drove to my parents' place in Indiana, and Aunt E picked up Kid2 for the trip to Chicago. This left us to hang out at the retirement center where Mom and Dad have an apartment. The retirement center is within reasonable driving distance from a place you can go horseback riding (not that any of the retirees go horseback riding on a regular basis, other than my parents, who consented to go along with us). It was a glorious fall day, and a great day to be out in the woods on horseback.

(Aside: it was also a great day to drag all of your trash into your back yard and set it on fire, judging from the number of people we saw doing that. Or maybe people in Indiana are trying to recreate the California fires. I don't know. But it was sort of weird how many people were out doing it last Friday.)

We also stopped by an apple orchard. MrV has a quest for unpasteurized apple cider every fall; it's getting harder and harder to find the stuff. The cider we found this year is amazingly good. Skiles Orchard, folks.

The retirement center also has a bowling alley. Four lanes, lots of shoes and bowling balls to choose from (including switching shoes and/or ball mid-game). Hand scoring, so you're not locked into bowling in a certain order or a certain number of frames. You'd be amazed how much a 12-year-old can bowl when given a chance to run down and do it for free whenever she wants. It's safe to say I bowled more this weekend than I have in the past 10-15 years. Also, I got my bowling groove on to the point where, yes, I actually bowled 2 strikes in a row in the final frame of the final game we bowled over the weekend allowing me to BEAT MRV.

MrV and my dad also made it to Purdue's homecoming. Kid1 worked on various Junior Girl Scout badges that involved hanging around large amounts of old people, although we weren't able to find any women that were Girl Scouts between 1912 and 1950 (we will continue quizzing the retirees about that when we return for another visit -- the odds are in our favor, given the age group we're hanging around with there).

Overall, other than the boring knitting, it was a fun trip. And I get to feel virtuous about the knitting. It's a winning combination.