Back from the road

VENT about ONE-WAYS

We pulled in at three this morning -- the trip up was good, the trip back could have been better. There is a place called the Belvidere Oasis (near Rockford, IL) that needs to seriously re-think their traffic-flow design. J pulled our vehicle through the 'truckers' area of a one-way gas station that had No Turns, One-Way and Do Not Enter signs all the way through it -- you couldn't get back to the car section, or turn around. We had to go back on the freeway, BACK through a toll road, and get gas at another place before we could go onto our next exit. Nice. Okay, I vented about Belvidere. The guy at the pretzel place in the food court told us what we could do so we didn't run out of gas. Thanks!

KITTENS and 17 hr + CAR RIDES

The kittens went to Minnesota with us. The ride up was tolerable. It was only 17 hours straight through in the car (EEP!). They loved J's mom's upstairs room where we slept. They ran back and forth like a racetrack and met lots of new people. J's Mom has a large fluffy black cat that wanted desparately to play - but the girls would run away every time. On the way back (4 more hours than the trip up) Sally was NOT happy. There was no consoling her. I felt awful - because I couldn't control her in the cab and thus she had to ride in the cat carrier while Willow slept sprawled on my lap for the last six hours. Remember the pink toy bunny I knit? Sally finally went to sleep when I put it in front of the carrier door. She took out some frustration on it and then laid down to sleep with her nose touching it. BTW, the leash and harness thing didn't work.

FAMILY GATHERINGS

Anything good about the vacation? J's family was great. We went to two different gatherings. As I am not fond of large groups, it was surprising how great it all turned out. My family survived. Everything seemed to get better, then we had a strange mini-crisis I don't want to get into... so we ended up with a delicate balance of stress and relaxation.

KNITTING

I knitted some dishcloths and FINISHED the red socks. I'll have to post the new kitten toy I've been making -- a kitten bow-tie/mouse.

Now back to the regular routine (and happy for it). Hope you all had a good holiday, or even better...