Smoky Skies

It's bad. The weather satellite at NOAA shows the smoke blowing directly over us and just hanging. If it is this bad here, imagine how bad it must be down in Big Sur. I just wonder about all the animals. I read that some of the condor chicks were lost.
We take our wonderful air quality for granted; it's sobering to see how easily it is taken away.

All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by...

...And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking..." John Masefield
We were cruising to find a lunch spot between jobs the other day, and around the bend of the road, spotted this out in the bay:


It's the Privateer Lynx which spends six months of the year sailing up and down the West Coast, and will, for a fee, take on apprentice sailors and students willing to live in very tight and spartan quarters, with no mutiny allowed.
As we watched, a mysterious puff of smoke appeared, and then drifted away, and the sound of a cannon finally reached us on shore.




A few days later we took the dockside tour. She's a sleek and dangerous seductress, even tied securely at the wharf.







I spoke with the captain, tan with a graying queue and calloused hands (even the girl crew member had incredibly tough hands); we talked about Monterey's sailing history, and Richard Henry Dana's dismissal of Monterey citizens as "the laziest creatures he had ever met, they'd rather ride a horse than walk 50 feet." I asked him if he knew about Hippolyte Bouchard, the Argentine privateer that sacked Monterey in 1818, and he did not, so he was delighted to hear the little I knew.
There's a shorter voyage that's almost tempting: from Half Moon Bay to Oakland, the end of the month. Ah to sail beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, with the cry of the gulls, the slap of waves on the hulls and creaking of a living ship breathing beneath one's feet. And the guaranteed sound of me, retching over the side.

Round 1: LYS Shop Hop 2007

I feel like I've been rode hard and put up wet. We hit 8 yarn stores on Day One of the 2007 Peninsula to Pier Yarn Shop Tour. But it was fun.

Round 1.5 was today, I went to only one place, Knitting by-the-Sea, in Carmel. Then I came home and lay down for an hour. Must save my strength for tomorrow, when we do the last 7 stores.
Many thanks to Marie, who did the research and mapped out the battle plan and scientifically figured the routes, plotting and printing all for the navigator (me) and backseat co-pilot, Martha. We had such fun, and adventures, too. One of the high points wasn't even a yarn shop, but this: Transilvania Restaurant in Los Gatos. We were magnetically drawn there purely by chance, and empty tummies; we had already conquered 5 yarn stores and were running on fumes. "Sushi?" "Nope." "Pizza?" "Nope." "Gelato?" "Well, it seems appealing, but probably not a good idea." This cozy and unusual place materialized in the nick of time, and we were saved from what could have been sugar overdose tragedies. The waitress was a gem, and the food was absolutely divine. Definitely worth a trip back.


Back to business, theoretically this post isn't about food. We started the day at 9 sharp, drove to Capitola for our first stop, arriving with about ten minutes to spare. Unbelievably, they weren't open yet!
We had to be content with just pressing our noses to the glass of The Yarn Place. Very nice place, cheerful, helpful staff, good selection of interesting yarns. Definitely skeins up.




Next we drove on into Santa Cruz, for The Golden Fleece
What a treasure this shop is!
Great yarn, lovely people, their one-skein pattern is adorable, the coziest mary-jane style slippers, I'm so excited to get started on them.
They also had these on display:
Knit characters from Wallace and Gromit, available as a kit. Be still my heart!


From there we drove on to The Swift Stitch, tucked into the corner of an interesting collection of shops and cafes, worth exploring at leisure some future time.
Another very nice store, though the lighting was not great, but still an interesting variety of yarns, very helpful staff, and a unique one-skein pattern and yarn being offered for this Shop Hop. They also had an amazing scarf made of sculpted roving, and a wild collection of knit-clothed dolls.










We had a bit of a drive through redwood scenery to Felton, to Luminous Threads.
They had an absolutely stunning quilt in the window,

and the store itself is quite lovely, with a great collection of fabrics, buttons and yarn, quite charming and helpful staff, again, worth another visit at leisure in future.

We soldiered on, driving over the winding mountain trail that is scary Highway 17, and arriving in beautiful Los Gatos. With my affinity for all things cat, I'm shocked I haven't found a way to live here.
Equally shocking is to find a yarn store called Yarndogs
but it's true.
Yarndogs


Such a great store, really a delight. Fabulous variety of yarn, great staff, really warm feeling overall. Even though we were almost starving, we hated to leave. We knew we had to find something to eat when we started imagining that the skeins of yarn resembled food.





Los Gatos itself is like a piece of art, the trees are turning colors, the park in the center of town gleamed like an emerald, all quite beautiful.
After our fortifying lunch, we drove over the mountains down into Santa Clara valley to
The Rug & Yarn Hut, in Campbell.

I should only say we had been spoiled up to this point. There are reviews of this store online that say it all.




We encountered a slight navigational storm after departing and had to circle the area a few times to reach escape velocity, but we made it to our next stop, The Knitting Room, in San Jose.
Very sweet, patient people, vast selection of plentiful, quality yarns, worth another visit. They also have a knitting group for men, yay.



At this point, we were hot, tired, needing coffee and the rejuvenating sweet air of our own Peninsula, so we sped home.

Marie and I ended up meeting independently at Monarch Knitting, for the perfect end to the day.
I've said it many times, before, I love this store, and the people therein (and I'm counting Sakura and Charlie as people, though they might take umbrage at that).