6 Sea Cucumbers are the Limit.

There's a reason why no one travels to St. Thomas or most of the Caribbean in the middle of summer. If it's hot in NYC, why on earth would you go to a place that's even hotter??? But then again, my first venture to Vegas was a super hot Labor Day Weekend. It was still summer in Vegas and there was just too many people. But, I digress.

NYC had a super cool summer, not that anyone was complaining. Except for the fact that I was leaving behind beautiful weather to visit an island drenched in sun and humidity. The random sun showers only provided more moisture in an already sticky environment. Not to mention that 2 hours of Caribbean sun was the same as 1 day of North American Sun. Yes, all signs pointed to return home, but there I was.

So even though the hotel room was the coldest place on the island, where did we end up? At the beach! On a boat! Walking through these weird trails that twisted in and out of these huge rock formations, including the space known as the Cathedral. The water was incredibly clear, but as a snorkeler commented, after your 5th Sea Cucumber, the thrill of looking at marine life is long gone. Clearly, no one in our crew was going to be the next Jacques Cousteau.

I also had a little lesson in Painkillers. After staying in the sun all morning, it probably isn't the best idea to hydrate with painkillers. The splash of citrus juice may be enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy, but the rum used is a higher proof and in an hour, we were on a speed boat going all loopy. It's a miracle that when we left the British Virgin Islands to return to US soil, the Customs Officers still welcomed us with open arms. I'd like to say that I've learned a great deal of French while spending the day with my now "new" family additions, but all I can say is that Caribbean Rum pretty much stole the rest of our memories.

And as it turns out, all the photos of me on this trip? They're in everyone else's camera.

Landing in St. Thomas

Having never ventured to the Virgin Islands, I didn't really expect anything except that I was told it was humid and there were sunshowers to be expected. A few things I learned as I left the airport to go to the hotel.

The weather? Oppressively hot. At around 90 degrees with about 85-90% humidity, there's no way around it. The wind is warm and sporadic and you're always sweating as you try to acclimate to the heat. The water? Also 85 degrees year round. It's like taking a tepid bath or going to a neighborhood pool with the distinct feeling that all the kids peed into it at once. However, the water is as clear and beautiful as all the photos make it seem. It doesn't get any bluer and turquoise than this, I suspect.

The people? Amazingly nice. Everyone is accommodating, friendly, making sure your experience is pleasant whether it's your taxi driver, the hotel receptionist or a local who realizes that you've lost your way even if you hadn't realized it yet.

The sandy beaches are impressively clean, the sand is very fine and soft with the water as clear and blue as all the pictures depict it to be. But in all this perfection and beauty, there was no surprise that I'd have to make sure my toe wouldn't be bit by an iguana or three.

Cape Fog. Dead Sharks.

I veered off course for awhile. I blame the fact that I got lost into a huge pile of needles and yarn and only just recently started to regain space into my life.

And since the weather has been so great (doesn't everyone love perpetual gray skies?) I did what every other sane person would do, headed to Cape Cod and survey the beaches. The good news is that since the weather really hasn't been summery, there was little traffic heading up to Boston and even heading to Cape Cod. The bad news being that it was cold and we had gray skies some of the time, even rain.

The trip was uneventful, as the most interesting thing that really happened all weekend was that I found a seagull pecking at a dead baby shark that washed up on shore. Yes that's a piece of his jaw, totally picked clean.
No, I did not pick it up to bring home with me. Because no matter what, I'm still a girl and when I see things like that, my first instinct is to make sure none of that is remotely near me. What I did think about was that 10 minutes before I spotted this dead shark, my feet were in the water and so I now had molecules of the decomposing body on my skin.

I am trying to understand why everyone loves nature, but it seems that every time I venture out into the world, I get a sign to run the other way.

Easter . . . Deer?

Having absolutely no interesting plans for Easter, I agreed to go spend the weekend at the Poconos, a brief mingling with nature outside of Central Park. It wasn't a bad idea, I mean I suppose it isn't a great thing when someone asks, don't you want to go out for some fresh air and see nature, and your respond with, sure, that's when I visit Central Park. There are ducks, bees, birds, bugs, grass and trees.

So I ventured outside the comforting boundaries of NYC into the woodsy area of the Poconos. Most of the weekend was spent in drizzling, drabby rain, leaving us with little to do but read, watch tv and knit. The latter I did a lot of. But I've learned one important difference between "city" folk and quite possibly the "rest of universe."

Deer = pests with 4 legs, a body big enough to stop a car and damage it severely and carries ticks. Most people do anything they can to discourage deer from entering their property as they are carriers of the lyme disease and will eat your garden in minutes. For city people, they're friends. They buy things like deer food and salt licks to entice the deer onto their property so they can admire it.


Yes....I was THAT close!

When Everything goes TERRIBLY wrong.

As a warning, if you are not a knitter, you will neither appreciate nor understand the tragedy below:

I've been knitting long enough to know that like road trip, even the best planned ones go awry. I'm a big fan of spontaneous side trips and taking the road less traveled. That being said, I do like to spend a few minutes to look at a map and orient myself with the world around me. So I finally decided to hop on the bandwagon to knit the Gathered Scarf that's been repeatedly knitted all around Ravelry. What could be so hard about that? There's garter (all knits) and sections of stockinette (knits and purls) and you switch off needles with each section. The needles are pretty distinct, mine have the special bonus of being different colors as well. :) There are no words to describe how everything quickly spiraled out of control.

It started, innocently enough with a different project. The My So Called Scarf in some beautifully dyed orchard yarn. 540 yards of sock yarn in beautiful hues of red, green, creams and just a hint of brown. All the colors you expect to see in an apple orchard. Hours and days of knitting later, I realized that I ran out of yarn. And the dyer was no longer dyeing yarn so I couldn't get more. But it was so perfect. I searched for eons for anyone who dyed a similiar colorway and found it.

She agreed to dye it on whatever yarn I'd like that she had in stock. So I chose shokay orient. A great blend of bamboo (satisfying my inner panda) and yak (time to figure out why everyone thinks this is amazing stuff). It arrived in a beautiful swirl of red and green. And I started to knit the My So Called Scarf pattern- only it resulted in really bad pooling and I just couldn't fix it no matter how many how many stitches I casted on or the needles I used. So I spoke to Kristin from Green Mountain Fibers and she volunteered graciously to redye the yarn. It got lost in the mail. I think Santa must have taken it since I mailed it to her around Christmas Eve and she didn't receive it until the end of January, 1 month later.

At this point, I really should've listened to fate, the knitting fairies, all beings mystic and supernatural. But I didn't. Once I received the re-dyed yarn, all I kept thinking about was what pattern to use it for. And I finally found a pattern, only I couldn't cast on the right number of stitches. I know how to count to 30, but apparently when yarn and needles are involved, not so much. Then my needles were small, so I went up a couple of sizes. Then it was too big. By the time I found the goldlilocks of knitting needles, I carefully casted on. Except as I did the first row of knit stitches, I realized I was off, YET AGAIN. By the end of the evening I had managed 3 rows of garter stitch and then just gave up.

There's nowhere to go after garter stitch. This isn't like casting on 300 stitches of lace and then going ok that's it, all I want is to do some simple garter or stockinette. Or if you used sock needles to get through a huge part of a sock, you could just go find larger needles and work on a simpler project. I was using big needles, a beautifully soft yarn and could not knit. The only lesson I've learned is that sometimes the yarn is a little hexed and there's just no way around it, but what do I care? I finally have 3 rows of garter stitch knitted.


Edited: 5/1/09 Project has been frogged and is waiting to become something else. Some days you really just can't win!

Drowning in Yarn

I'm still drowning in yarn. This is ridiculous, mostly because I just started knitting last year and only really actively acquired a stash since the summer of 2008.

And it's not like I've been neglecting my knitting. I've BEEN knitting, it goes with me everywhere. Movies, cocktails, restaurants, coffee, errands, work, car rides, subways. I mean if my hands are free and there's nothing else to do, I knit. It's also a great way to avoid current events. Like the lady who had octuplets bringing her total to 14? Yes, there's socio-economic responsibility for you. And then they offered her a porn deal? Who can you really hate more? Her? Or the people who are willing to pay to know all this info about her?

I didn't know about her until a few days after everyone else. I'm glad I didn't. It's zen meditation for the soul. At least when your world is reduced to knits, purls, cast on and bind off, you don't have to worry about the crazies or the lies, manipulations, stories that people weave to save themselves from public scrutiny and humiliation. I'm nearly 30 days into a yarn diet and it's working out. It's been a difficult road, but when you're faced with these skeins and the limitless possibilities of what you can do with them, it's hard to say no.



Top Row: Squoosh Silk Lace in Sapphire,
Bottom Row: Sundara Silk Lace in Granite Falls.

Happy New Year?

My 2009 started without firecrackers, noisemakers or champagne. I missed the ball drop on tv by a few minutes and if that's any indication for the rest of the year, then it's going to go by really fast. I'm thankful for online banking which takes care of my bills promptly and assuredly, without which I'll still be signing my checks 2008 or 2010. Just every year but 2009.

I don't know whether resolutions are really effective. For the most part, mine seem to revolve around the concept that life's too short to be bogged down by the little details and banalities that can slow you down. Though, more importantly, it's also a time where I've realized that I need to face the fact that I've got a growing stash of yarn that's going to bury me alive. It's probably not as bad as some and yet worse than others, but it seems that I've become one of those people end up having more yarn than they know what to do with. I will not become that person. Mostly because I love my stash. I don't want it to sit there and stare at me in its pretty twisted hanks. And the knowledge that if I sold everything, I'd have enough for a 15 day cruise around the Greek Isles is sobering enough to realize something must be done.

They're all going to be projects one way or the other and hopefully by 2010, I'll own a tiny shoebox or two of yarn and a lot of pretty items.

Fairy Godmother anyone?

I've officially become an unofficial godmother to a baby boy. Neither his parents nor he are Catholic making it unofficial, but all I ask is where is my magic wand? The big, flouncy blue dress? The invisible wings?

Nothing. But in the spirit of being one, I've knitted him a blanket slightly too big for his newborn self, but I'm sure will fit into nicely in a matter of weeks and a hat. That hat's a bit big, but he'll grow into that too. Maybe next time I'll actually knit things to size. Though, in my head, I'm always afraid that the recipient (especially with children!) will outgrow the item before receiving it. I got snowed in Boston, but it gave me plenty of time to knit the blanket and realize that newborns do 3 things: eat, poop and sleep. Life was definitely a lot simpler then.

New Goals.

It's not even Thanksgiving and I already have resolutions for 2009.

As it turns out I'm slowly becoming the person that will drown in her yarn stash if I keep my rate of acquisition going. So I'm putting it to an end. A complete stop. At least in ordering anymore. Having finally found a dyer that can dye my ABSOLUTELY favorite colorway on some great yarn (Yak/Bamboo Blend) at quite a pretty penny, I've decided that I've most definitely gone off the deep end and it's time I get realistic about my situation at large. NO MORE BUYING.

To add to it, my knitting twin has gotten me a beautiful skein of Great Adirondack Silk Delight in Beach House. It's going into a beautiful project if I can only think of one that is perfect for it.



I've covered an extensive palette of colors in my stash and I'm almost afraid of putting up a slide show of just my stash since it would scare me and I've been the person responsible for squirreling this stuff away for a few months. Yes. A. Few. Months. I've only been knitting a year and I'm afraid of that day that'll come when I decide I no longer have the will to knit. All I have to say to that is someone please be prepared with a big bottle of something. Maybe 2.

Seeing (Ruby Port) Red

Oh how quickly I went from staying on the wagon to mildly tripping with a skein of beautiful soft malabrig, then falling off and waving to the wagon in utter defeat. A few days after the malabrigo incident, I fell for this indie dyer currently living in Sweden (simple scarves by mabel) and snatched up four skeins of beautiful bamboo/merino blend sock yarn. I still haven't figured out why I'm so drawn to bamboo blends, I could be part panda, but I'm weak-kneed at the mere mention of it. A choice between silk or bamboo? Bamboo. Cashmere and bamboo? Give me the green stalks of plants every time. I really must have been a panda in my previous life.

Everything went so well until I finally started to clear out my inbox and was directed toward a Sundara Update- then I was done for. The ruby port. I did my best to ignore it. Did I really need another skein or two of yarn that was going to be a shawl? Didn't I own enough yarns to make me a dozen shawls? How many people did I really love enough to actually make them for? Forget taking the time to knit, how many do I know that I can really knit something beautiful and them not throw it on the floor, lose it in a restaurant or clean up dog vomit?

And then after awhile, it didn't matter. I just had to have it. Then I found the perfect pattern for it. And the voice in the back of my head just kept goading me on. Buy it. Get the red. So I did. Happy Birthday to me. I bought two lovely skeins of FSM and since I won't receive it until 2009, I've got a few more weeks to reduce my stash and wait for the arrival of this cranberry beauty. Yarn makes me happy. I wish I knew it before, but at least I know it now.

On a side note, my friend got me a stunning edible arrangement. The fruits were cold and ripe. Beautiful also. Much more practical than flowers that die prematurely.

Soft and plushy.

I'm weak. I'll be the first to admit it. But you would be too if you walked into the store and there in front of you was a beautifully deep purple hued skein promising to be soft, stunning and pretty when knitted up. It felt like cashmere and if I had to imagine what cloud 9 was made up of? It would be the Malabrigo sock yarn. And I'm not drinking the company koolaid. I don't like any of Malabrigo's other yarns. I've tried but every time a skein came home with me, I found myself destashing it to other lovers. More for them, I always say.

I broke my wonderful yarn fast with this and since I had been planning to get a skein from when I first heard of it, I don't think I broke any rules, maybe bended them slightly. If that. It's already on its way to becoming a beautiful object: Knotty Gloves.

1 Year Anniversary.

As I've finally settled down, planted my feet back home and temporarily stopped making travel plans, I decided to share my 1st year anniversary to you. In late October 2007 while everyone was making Halloween plans, I decided to learn to knit with my friend. We spent a lunch hour (or two, but who's counting?) getting starter needles (KA Bamboo Needles Sz 8) and yarn (Plymouth Encore) and sitting down at a now defunct cafe (blame the Wall Street crash for that) to learn to knit. The only great tragedy about that cafe is that the Pomegranate Lemonade there was to die for. The needles are long gone, having been given away in a teaching lesson to a friend. The scarf frogged for charity socks. I'm not sentimental.

Knitting is an obsession. A year later and there's nothing I really won't try, complicated charts don't phase me- instructions written in another language? Bring them on! But I'm getting ahead of myself. I started out knitting a simple scarf. It languished for about 2-3 months and I realized that I did more frogging than knitting, buying a skein or two every few weeks without ever really thinking about how long this phase would last. Three months later I started to learn lace knitting, different stitches, knitted different items with various yarns and was on a constant search for more patterns.

A little knitting lingo.
Frog = Ripping knitted work back into its original unknitted ball of yarn state. Called Frogging bc you're ripping back your work. Rip it, rip it (ribbit ribbit)
Tink= Backwards of Knit. Exactly what it is. Undoing knitted stitches a stitch at a time.

Magic Number 257

Yes. We all know it. Obama won. But that's not the subject of this post. I don't interfere with politics and I voted, but I've had bigger fish to fry.

I agreed to host my friend's baby shower in a city 4 hours from me. So throw in all the logistics of a baby shower, figure in about 50 guests, including kids, held in hotel at a place that I could only navigate through GPS. Once I got to Boston, I started a list of things that went on forever and required me to go to every store in a 10 mile radius of her home. Or so it felt.

But the magnum opus of the weekend involved creating a diaper cake that was the size of Montana. In my head it was going to be a simple 2 tier affair, maybe two of them, decorated simply, so that people could write notes to the Mother to be and slip in small pacifiers, bottles, washcloths, onesies. Instead it turned into a 5 tier wedding cake affair.

The problem can probably be traced back to the fact that BJ's sells diapers in packages of 276. So the first night I dutifully spent a few hours watching late night tv and rolling these diapers in perfect little cylinders and tying them with rubber bands. And the second night I started to assemble the tied diapers and worked with all the ribbon and streamers I had. 2 hours later? A stunning display that involved 257 diapers and yards of ribbon and streamers in baby pastels and boy colored blues. However I totally forgot my original goal. At least it makes for a pretty photo.

That this project ballooned in size? No surprise there. In fact, for a shower of 50, I think the cake ended up getting was targeted for a smaller people size but it ended up looking like it could feed 100. We had a lot of leftovers for a lot of people. The only sad realization I had post party was that I ended up spending more time with everyone else that was invited than the actual mother-to-be. At least everyone liked the hand knitted door prizes. Best game of the party? Baby Bingo. It's not a game for only the church-going crowds and little grannies in Vegas.

Halloween: Pumpkins- Yes. Candy- No.

The only way I celebrated Halloween this year was knitting (Lorna's Laces Colorway Carrot) Orange Little Pumpkin Socks.




Come on say it with me now.
OOH. Cute!






Happy Halloween Everyone!

Metal Box Entrapment.

This was going to start out as a bad day anyway. The city decided to hold its Medieval Festival in Fort Tryon Park the 28th of Sept regardless of the rain that continued to pour all morning. And since I actually had been looking forward to the event after attending on a whim last year, I decided to deal with the rain.

For most people, rain is an inconvenience. You wear a cap, carry an umbrella and all is well. I'm not one of those people. I never have been. I will reschedule appointments due to rain and even make plans to avoid inclement weather. Rain isn't clean. It's gray. Dirty. Wet. Muddy. You get the idea. But since the fair refused to reschedule on account of inclement weather, I was there trying to find the lady that I bought jewelry from a year ago. Hours of searching later, I realized that she was a no show. Clearly she was one of those rain-hating people. And while I believed, if I'm outside, she should be outside, who am I to get her to leave her home to be surrounded by wet hay and horses.

Exactly. So obviously going home was the next best thing. It would've been fine. We were looking forward to anyplace that was warm and served warm drinks. A flight of wet soaked stone stairs, mud-tracked, a few unwelcomed whiffs of stale horse barns and some time later we get into the elevator to the awaiting subway. Except during our descent, the elevator lurches and stops. A couple of minutes later we realized that we weren't going anywhere. The scene was just like a movie. A hypersensitive elderly lady, a mother of two boys- a child of 7 and an autistic teenager, a nurse with a heavy accent that knew only two volumes- loud and very loud and my friend and I.

We called for help and the operator went to send someone to look for a key and call 911. Nevermind the fact that at this festival there were police cops crawling everywhere. Still 30 min later we got nothing, no word of the impending help and the autistic teenager was yelling and stomping and pounding on the elevator doors as his younger brother burst into tears. The nurse tried to soothe him which didn't help as she was "yelling" words of encouragement as the mother tried to get her son to listen to music. The hypersensitive elderly lady? Anytime the teen got close to her, she hyperventillated and started to scream "Go away! Get away from me!" Lovely. Now where exactly was Keanu Reeves and why isn't he here to save me?

The result? 45 minutes later the FDNY arrived and managed to pry open the elevator doors and through an fire escape staircase, we climbed 12 floors to get out. Only to go back on the elevator to the subway. There is no glass large enough to drink away this incident.

Couch Coaches & Supernaturalists

You know the type I'm talking about. People that sit on the couch watching a sports game and yelling at the tv screen because clearly they're the ones in charge of determining the best play for the team. Nevermind that the team can't hear the advice or, oh yeah, has a coach that is being paid to coach the team. I'm not one of those types.

The other type- well. That I am. I have zero interest in watching sports. I'm more interested in trying out a sport than actually sitting around and watching it on tv or in a stadium. And with good cause. For any game that I caught on tv (aside from the Olympics), the team I was rooting for lost. I apologize in advance to Federer when he lost that amazing game of Wimbledon to Nadal. Normally I flip through tennis matches or catch up on the scores through the next day's news clips or the paper, but I was drawn to the game while knitting a friend's shawl (the clapotis) that would not end. And of course what happened? Federer lost in the greatest game ever in the history of Tennis. I'm sorry. I should not have been watching. I seem to be a bad jinx when it comes to sports games.

This is my roundabout way of saying, I caused the Mets to nearly lose their game to the Cubs on Sept. 25th. It was unintentional. I decided to go to the game because a bunch of knitters were going for a Stitch n' Pitch game and it was one of the last few games the Mets would play at Shea. I've never been to Shea so I thought now would be a perfect time to go. Except that they started to lose. 6-3. So during the 8th inning, we decided to leave. The rain was getting worse, it was getting colder and the outlook looked bleak for the Mets to regain a lead. No sooner than I had left the stadium that the Mets started to score in a few runs. By the time I got home, they had beat the cubs 7-6. I'm told it was a great game to see. The great 9th inning. But I know, that if I were sitting there, watching the game, that 9th inning would be anything less than great.

I'm the person that jinxes sports games whether on tv or live. You can mock me and tell me it's all in my head and that I actually have no control of any of this- like the weather. But there are others like me and we know the truth. Some of us, by our mere presence, can alter game scores.

Things You Only Learn While Traveling

It's true that every trip you go on is an entirely new adventure and with that comes great advice to be remembered for the next time.

- People are nicer out west. More laid back. Definitely more nice. Something's in the drinking water and that should promptly get fixed.
- Being nice to service people actually pays off. The nicer you are the more freebies and upgrades you get at no cost. (Exception? Circumstance. Like bat pee)
- A hotel bed is never as good as the bed you sleep in at home whether you sleep on a futon, ratty couch or those memory foam beds.
- The GPS is never always right or always wrong. It'll get you there correctly about 90% of the time. The other 10% is its way of trying to figure out what dumbass move you made or why you decided to go in the middle of a national forest with extremely windy roads for "fun."

Always have some sort of schedule and leave room to take the road less traveled. Well. Give yourself time to get lost because honestly the GPS is not God and sometimes you need to stop at a place that says Confusion Hill a place that defies gravity, a remote cherry stand or take a big picture of Snoopy because no other place has a huge statute of Snoopy on a sidewalk corner.

You can put anything in a crepe. I mean anything. I've had ice cream in a crepe as well as a breakfast sandwich served crepe style, proving that some items can be great for savory and sweet. Unlike the waffle cone. Put scrambled eggs and tomato in a waffle cone and tell me how that tastes.

It's a good idea to write down the names of places that had memorable things to make proper recommendations. For example, having experienced the best slice of blackberry pie known to mankind, I will forever have to say, it's at that place. In this tiny city. Ferndale. Cute cafe, outdoor garden/table area. As small as it is, like there isn't a few of those cafes there already.

And sometimes it's just nice knowing that the trip you took was so on point with other interested travelers. Barely a month after I had returned home, I saw a travel article in the New York Times documenting the places they visited in Northern Cali and places that were worth skipping. It's safe to say, I was right on.

Happy Travels.

More roads . . . and then Greece?

So the result? I found it. Sterling Vineyards. After parking the car in a lucky spot close to the booth, we surveyed the scene. The parking lot? Very well landscaped cement and potted flowers and ferns. Then the truth sank in. It's a $20 ride for a 5 minute cable car ride to get to a beautiful white winery that had a great view, but they give you "free wine tastings". I recommend going there on a weekday if you'd like to see people at work, just like visiting the Jelly Belly Factory may seem a bit empty on weekends or after hours. Still, with 5 tastings sprinkled around its estate and with picture perfect weather, it was hard to dislike it even with a steep tasting fee.

That's when I cracked. I've visited plenty of wineries throughout California from the Del Grotto Caves where I've tasted some 96 pointers to wineries that sold bottled jungle juice that should only be served at frat parties and campfires. Still I soldiered on, waiting for that perfect bottle of absolute bliss. It's like the perfect pair of shoes. You have vague ideas of what it should be, but in the end, the only way to know that it is the right one is when you see it and walk a few steps. So I was looking for the perfect bottle. Something worthy for me to find a way to pack in my already stuffed suitcase to brave the long trip home.

Did I find it? Absolutely. Malvasia Bianca. I don't like white wine and stay away from rieslings since I find them too sweet, but this? With tropical flavors and a hint of mango, mild acidic to cut the sweetness from the fruit was a nice white wine that smelled even more amazing than it tasted. 2 bottles came home with me and it's a shame that you can't find this in stores. Either way, I found my liquid gold in a remote corner of Calistoga.

There are a lot of factors that can lead to a good wine. The growing season of the grapes that year, the types of barrels used, place of manufacture of the barrels, the yeast used, etc. Go on a few wine tours and the entire picture starts to unfold. However, what often gets neglected is that for many, the reason why some of us gravitate toward one versus the other can be purely based on experience or memory triggers. For me, it will always be the mango and tropical notes of the Malvasia Bianca from Sterling. So much so, that a month after the trip all I was searching for was orange yarn that had the perfect color of a ripe mango.

Did I find it? No. But now I own two bottles of white wine bliss. The lesson? Long winding roads, forests, clueless locals and cherry stands are all things to be endured in the search for Greece in Calistoga.

Got Lost... Found a Cherry Stand and a Forest?

Leaving nature never felt so exciting and liberating. Clearly the guy who wrote about nature being so free and full of clean air, didn't understand the concept that some of us lived perfectly happy lives void of the problems Mother Nature brought.

Armed with a stack of brochures that I've collected since starting the trip, it was time to weed through it. The dreams of visiting Oregon and central California were quickly tossed into a recycling bin as were all the other promising sights that the Redwoods National Forest and Humboldt County offered. It was time to return to the land of the living, and by that, I mean wine.

Yes. If you're going to go through Napa, you must visit at least one vineyard. So this time, I decided to venture through the northern part and found myself in Greece by way of Calistoga. The picture of the winery honestly looked like a Greek monastery set on the high cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It was even more intriguing to know that it took a 5 minute cable car ride just to get the winery. Wait, Greek Monastery? Wine tasting? Cable Car ride? I'm sold. Sterling Vineyards here I come.

Well. Not so much really. As it turns out, this place was far. And I mean far. It was tucked in a remote corner past a lot of other wineries, through miles and miles of winding roads and just when I was about to give up, even more roads and hills of brown grasses and fields appeared along with trucks of cherry stands from local farmers. Clearly there was a boon in the cherry crop that week. Since the only hope of getting there was through the GPS, the same GPS that was going to send me into the ocean from Hwy 101 in Humboldt County just a few days ago, we decided to get some cherries for the ride to our doom. Even the lovely lady selling her baskets of fruit added, "Are you sure you're going to a winery? And not a petrified forest? There's only the forest up that way."

Yes this is exactly what I needed to hear. Past the forest, through more winding roads hoping to see fields of grapes again. At this point, I wondered if maybe the GPS was just confused and was just looking for the longest way back to San Francisco. Either way, there was no other thing to do but to keep going forward.

Small miracles.

Having realized that all things must come to an end and unable to spend another day in nature without my allergies getting the best of me, I decided to return south, far from the land of trees, grasses and bugs. Yes there are bugs. The lack of mention of horrific encounters with these biting, disease laden, flying, ubiquitous creatures is completely based on the fact that I used this amazing substance called Max-Off or something to the max. Basically I was as bug proof as I could get without my skin melting or instantly becoming a bio hazard.

Mock me if you'd like, but I'm not the one with a bug bite behind my knee or between my fingers. Thank you EPA for letting some company create this toxic substance so strong that when I sprayed it on me outside, the swarm of bugs went flying the opposite way and I was immersed in an aura of chemical purity. I couldn't be happier.

So I left the redwoods. It was lovely. I met a lot of people that I'll never see again. And as much as I loved everything about it, I don't think I'll make it back there. At least not in this lifetime. It was beautiful and I'd love to see these trees again, but Mother Nature, I am allergic to you. I'll try most anything once, but I won't suffer twice.