This one's for Silent Thunder

This is Alex's favorite word. So, inspired by him, I embroidered it. Someone else may love it, too. Who knows!

Market

Today was the last day of the Oak Park farmer's market. . . which means no more fresh veg or church donuts again until next May. It's a blow combined with falling back thanks to Day Light Savings Time.

But at least today, we had donuts and found the most beautiful carrots (for Catatoes! or Mashed Parrots!) brussel sprouts and butternut squash. Good eatins the rest of this week!

Last Day of Travel

So we've been back from vacation for 4 or 5 days now, but the last day of travel was so pretty, that I still wanted to post pictures. When I was a kid, the Pennsylvania Turnpike was an unending emotional wasteland of when-are-going-to-get-there and are-we-there-yet. It was interminable. Going was slow. Loads of traffic and it went on for hours.

But now that other highways have been opened in the area--the Appalachian Highway to the south most especially--the Turnpike is now actually amazing. As beautiful as it always was, but now also speedy. Driving home from the beach, where it was 80 degrees on our last morning, through the fall splendor of Pennsylvanian mountains the next day felt like unexpected magic.

Vacationing in late September/early October is fine by me.


Plus, bonus! In the very first rest stop on the Ohio toll road, on the extreme eastern border of the state, we found this guy:

It was a happy surprise to see that the robots are branching out to other states. And it gave us a boost before we took on driving the whole width of Ohio.

The MAP Grant

So, this blog is usually dedicated almost entirely to good news, good design, happy things. But I wanted to post this video that Columbia students, staff and faculty put together about the MAP Grant, about the possibility of very bad news for Illinois college students if the MAP Grant is cut as expected. . . with no MAP Grant aid available to students in their 2nd semester of study.



Write your State congresspeople, people.

Trip Home--Day 1

The first day's drive from the Outer Banks is so much easier than it once was twenty years ago, and doubly so this year, probably because it was October and we weren't fighting the high season exodus out on Saturday.

Our destination was Mason Neck, VA, where my aunt and uncle live in a beautiful neighborhood at the end of a peninsula past Gunston Manner and Pohick state Park (once having arrived in the evening, and out on a walk to show off the area to Dan, we saw a Great Blue Heron a foot off the banks of the Potomac. . . and an angry flock of Canada Geese--no picture. sorry. but it was lovely).

But all trips are as much about the getting there as they are final destinations. And while half of the trip is burnt away on the plod of Interstate 95 North of Richmond, the first half of the trip is up the Outer Banks, through the humid early morning haze, then to Manteo for breakfast at Poor Richard's (every year, without fail), an hour of thin two lane stretch surrounded by the Dismal Swamp, then a jaunt past Suffolk of tiny country Virginia towns strung together by farm land and their love of boiled peanuts.

And because we were going through in October at harvest time, instead of growing season, we got to see soybeans in their gold-tinged readiness and cotton, cotton, cotton.

beh, i don't want to leave yet. . .

just in case anyone was wondering. . .

More Embroidery

A new little tree. . . done! Making a number of simple designs--all designed by me--and then embroidering and embroidering and embroidering. My favorite, so far is the caterpillar, and I think a few fuzzy monsters might be my next push in design.

Grackles are Funny

This time of year, there appears to be seven main bird types on Hatteras Island: seagulls (though very very few), sanderlings, pelicans (we're lousy with pelicans. . . I've never seen so many pelicans), Canada geese, herons, mocking birds and grackles. Grackles are by far the funniest. They have a really weird carriage and gait when walking--very upright, very southern gentleman, a little foghorn leghorn. I can't stop staring at them on the beach or taking millions of pictures.

new rattles

Back to Ocracoke

One day down to Ocracoke with mama to see buddies, the next day down with the whole kit and caboodle so the kids could enjoy the Ocracoke beach. The beach in Ocracoke is different than in Avon--wider and flatter and the water is generally shallower and calmer (though filled with blue crabs).

ridiculously lovely.

Halloween at the Beach?

Weird being here in the fall. There's more candy corn at the grocery than suntan lotion. Crazy. Check out this nutty Halloween Fisher-truck.

Ocracoke + AQJ

Pretty much my whole life--minus the very early years when we vacationed in Pensacola, FL-- vacation has always included a ferry ride. It simply doesn't feel like vacation without one. The ferry to Washington Island in Door County. The ferry to the Cranberry islands in Maine. And on this trip, the ferry to Ocracoke.


Um, Senor Quinn is unrealistically cute. There's no way he can sustain this level of preciousness. I could barely keep my fish tacos down, he was so redonkulously adorable.


the aforementioned fish tacos.