On the go ...

One of the good things about grandparenting is being able to help out when little ones are sick and parents have to go to work (a stress I remember all too well from our own working parent days). So we’ve been spending lots of time with P this week and will return to home and blogging next week.

Ranchos de Taos

We stayed just south of Taos proper, at a B&B in Ranchos de Taos ...

There we found tranquil beauty ...

and shelter from the sun ...

But best of all, we were close by the plaza where the San Francisco de Asis church has been the subject of Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams, among others ...

getting close enough to see this is not faux adobe ...

Then wandered on to "shop" at Chimayo Trading del Norte 

http://chimayotrading.com/

that was more of a museum than a gallery  (which is to say, far out of our price range) ...

and the Two Graces gallery next door 

http://www.twograces.com/

which was, by contrast, well within our means ...

Two boxes of metal later, it was clear we had fallen hook, line and sinker. 

Getting there

I'll have more to say about my favorite thrift store linen shirt soon. Suffice it to say for now that it is little more than shreds ...

But I've got some serious walking back to do first. I mean really ... how is it that we left for Taos almost four weeks ago and I'm just now getting to blogging about it?

Maybe because I took so many pictures that it's hard to sort through them all?

I mean, seriously. These are just the ones taken from the car on the way there ...

Although I must admit there was a lot to see in 776 miles of driving. I even pecked out some of the interior monologue that ran through my brain during Don's turns at the wheel. A crazy stream of consciousness threaded with my own personal soundtrack and the songs Don played on his CD mashup ...

Country Road (James Taylor)

Tuesday, July 31

7:25 Amarillo bound, 501 miles

GPS ETA 3:20, rain on the radar

That’ll change ...

Purgatory to the Devil’s Backbone

Follow the River Road along the Blanco, past Luckenbach to 290 (a good stopping point)

Wide open spaces (Dixie Chicks)

Then through Fredericksburg, accelerate to 75 on an undivided two-lane highway and cruise thru Grit and Hext (tho they aren’t more than signs along the way) ... none to see but goats

Shine a different way (Patty Griffin)

Stop in Menard (meh-NARD or MEN-erd rhymes with Leonard?) we’ll never know ... the town is dead or dying

Abandoned gas stations and dry creeks 

Summertime thing

The Hill Country begins to flatten, but in the distance, earthen tables lead to musings about buttes, mesas and plateaus 

Then there was lunch in Sweetwater ... the less said the better

Wind, oil and cotton fields on the flat land ... tractor wakes of red dirt dust ... smoke seen from miles away ... the smell of petroleum ... silos ... Georgia O’Keeffe’s clouds seen from below throw welcome  patches of shadow on parched earth ... irrigation fields leave literal crop circles ... and the rail road runs through it ... Idalou ... cattle dotting far-flung fields, the land so flat their backs define the horizon 

Two miles to Happy ... the road shimmers as cars far ahead appear to rise above an improbable river of highway ... a dust devil twists in the sun, flinging soil toward the sky

Palo Duro canyon a missed opportunity and a lure for another day 

And still the road goes on ... steadily rising to meet the Colorado Plateau

Morning glory (Jimmy Daddy Davis)

Wednesday, August 1 

7:07 63 and breezy under a waning gibbous moon

275 miles to Taos

The land even flatter, the horizon even farther ... wind farms as far as the eye can see 

And, seemingly in an instant, the land changes to scrub and red sand

Mesalands 

The dashlights glow white as we climb and climb and climb, ears popping 

Watch it shine (Walt Wilkins)

"They say there’s iron in these mountains ...

Sunlight through the heavens

Watch it shine"

Go wherever you wanna go (Patty Griffin)

Tall pines and mountains surround us ... elk crossing signs make us cautious about what we wish for

Mora

Falling rock and cow crossing signs as we follow switchbacks up into the Sangre de Cristos

The mountains rise straight up and while I’m not asking Don to slow down, my heart feels like it’s trying to find its way out of my chest

Big horn sheep crossing?

Leaves shimmer ... aspens?

A troubling sign of what’s ahead ... an  S-curve sign standing on its head ... the closest I come to “please slow down” is a comment on the horse carrier ahead of us “he’s from here ... he’s braking for a reason”

That and my foot is about to go thru the dash

Seriously, who rides bikes here?

So it went ...

Lastly (if you've actually made it this far), a confession. In all the years I've flown and looked out the window of the plane (okay, not that often do I actually get the window seat), I have wondered about this ...

And only this past month, as we drove down the road, did I realize the circles of green are formed by irrigation systems that pivot around a central water source.

I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out. Always I am learning ...

That's better

I'm happier with this version of the waxing quarter moon (aka half moon) for page 7 of Moon Myth ...

Both halves of the black sky are Deb Lacativa dyed damasks, and I love that one trends red while the other trends green ...

The starry field is not-so-invisible basting worked in silk. The moon is cut from the selvage edge of a handwoven placemat.

Of course, this isn't exactly what I had planned. I had auditioned these pieces of cloth ...

and pieced them together ...

then invisibly basted them down with the expectation that I would reverse appliqué to reveal both white and a mottled "dark half" of the moon ...

But then I had second thoughts, confirmed by my in-house consultant, that it might be best to reverse appliqué only the half over the moon. So I unstitched, cut and reworked ...

with the result shown at the beginning of this post. 

Phew. I've almost reached the half-way point with seven out of sixteen pages complete. Now I have more bases to make and more pages to compose. 

I think I can, I think I can ...

One step forward and one step back ...

Note: You can view the Moon Myth pages sequentially by going to the sidebar page FOLLOW THE PROGRESS OF MOON MYTH and clicking the link entitled Draft of the most current images.

Page 6 of Moon Myth ...

with some cloudy blue skies and pure white damask, both courtesy of Deb Lacativa who responded awesomely to my request for SunMoonStars cloth ...

and likewise Deb's "dirty threads" seen here encircling the reverse appliqué edge. 

As we drove to Austin yesterday, I spotted the same kind of cloud edging that I was going for ...

albeit a bit more artfully done by Mother Nature.

Unfortunately, I'm less than thrilled with progress on Page 7 ...

So my solution is to cover it up with text rather than try to to rip it all out (and fortunately, I have more of Deb's beautiful dark blue cloth to work with) ...

Finally, I haven't forgotten Hazel's query about how I worked my crossed stitch edging a while back. So, for those who might be interested, here's a step by step.

After pre-cutting a white damask crescent and lining it up behind the cloudy blue cloth which had an erasable marker circle drawn on it, I invisibly basted both to the light blue cloth. Then I cut along the edge of the marked circle, creating a reverse appliqué ...

Of course, I forgot to take process shots of the first step, so what you see is the step where I am wrap stitching the edge of the crescent moon in leftover wedding handkerchief silk ...

After securing the moon's edge, I took a single strand of Deb Lacativa floss and began to stitch counterclockwise around the edge of the cut circle, using the invisible baste stitches as a guide ...

Note: in the earlier version, the invisible baste stitches were larger detached back stitches, and I intentionally varied the distance of the stitches from the edge of the circle  ...

 After completing the first pass ...

I reversed direction ... 

going clockwise ...

to complete the edge ...

As I commented to Hazel, I enjoyed this far more than blanket stitching, but for sure the raw edge will be far more prone to fray. That's okay by me for this application, but might not be appropriate for others. Certainly, a turned appliqué edge on the outer circle could precede the crossed stitch edge for more stability.

Ring them bells

Bob Dylan wrote Ring them bells, covered here (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8avSGnZlnaY) by local singer/songwriter Sarah Jarosz. In my mind it's the perfect accompaniment to these images of the Maroon Bells in Aspen, Colorado.

The story ends here ...

but it begins with the second annual reunion of three teachers and their spouses ...

Don, moi, Pam, Sarah, Wade, Bill

Back in the 1990s, Don, Pam and Sarah taught together at Norge Elementary School in Williamsburg, Virginia. Along the way, Pam and Sarah taught both of our daughters. The guys played sand volleyball together. And we all looked forward to annual jaunts to Jimmy Sneed's restaurants, first Windows on Urbanna Creek and later, The Frog and the Redneck.

Last year, we held a long-hoped-for reunion at our home in Texas. This year, we all traveled to Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Knowing my aversion to heights, Pam and Wade planned a day trip that wouldn't freak me out. After a delightful bistro lunch, we climbed on board a bus (https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/whiteriver/specialplaces/?cid=stelprd3835792) bound for the lake at the foot of the Maroon Bells ...

14,000' peaks named for their resemblance to, well, maroon bells ...

Only 12 miles from Aspen, it was no surprise to find the trees for which it is named, but what truly delighted me was Pam's direction to see the eyes in the aspen trunks ...

The day was hot and the sun strong as we waited for a bus to go back down. When one finally arrived, it was clear we wouldn't make it on ... until the driver offered standing room for those who were willing. Well sure, but as we climbed aboard, a woman shooed her two daughters out of their seats, offering them to three of us in their place.

Always before I would have said "No thanks, I'm fine." But this time I simply said, "Thank you ... thank you very much," then watched the mom and her daughters wrap their arms around each other as the bus bumped and swayed ... 

That was how I came to take my next-to-last imagine peace pin from its place on my purse and pin it to one of my cards. Handing it to the mom as we got off the bus, I thanked her and her daughters one last time. She handed it in turn to the daughter whose seat I had taken ... and I do so hope she will see herself here.

Skipping ahead

Page 8 of Moon Myth ...

because I'm still working on pages 6 and 7.

And yes, the clouds are vintage damask dyed by Deb Lacativa ... 

the rain is kantha on repurposed faux ikat worked with a single strand of DMC cotton floss ... the lightning worked in Jude's split backstitch using some of the silk I gathered for the wedding handkerchief project.

Soon enough

Our nearly-two-week road trip wasn't exactly what we had planned. It was supposed to be an expansion of our 2500 mile Triangulation journey in 2014, which took us from San Marcos to Santa Fe to St Louis and back. The 2018 version was going to be a 3500 mile jaunt from San Marcos to Taos to Glenwood Springs, Colorado to St Louis and back. Epic.

Then this happened ...

5:00 on a Thursday afternoon in the high desert of New Mexico our car died 30+ miles outside of Taos ...

on the edge of the Rio Grande gorge ...

We had one bar of AT&T service and 9% battery power on the cell phone ... just enough to contact Honda Roadside Assistance. A tow truck was dispatched. We were told it might take a while.

So we waited. And reflected on how we had gotten into the mess we were in. How the LOOSE GRAVEL signage on 84 leading into the Sangre de Cristo mountains the day before had portended a bit more than the quarter-sized ding we got in our windshield. Apparently the gravel storm kicked up by an 18-wheeler going 65 mph in the opposite lane had punched a hole in our radiator as well.

So it was that our decision to cross the bridge ...

over the Rio Grande ...

and then take the long way back, turned into a travel saga.

At least we had nice scenery to while away the hours (three of them all told) although it was concerning that a storm appeared to be gathering on the rim ...

Fortunately, the storm never made it to us, but a tow truck from Espanola did ...

While driving us back, the driver regaled us with tales of his car repossession adventures (which included getting shot), recommended what turned out to be a great car repair place in Taos (which was closed at 8:30 pm, but fortunately had a night drop box) and then brought us safely to our B&B.

The rest is a story for another day ... or two or three.