Getting Ready To Roll Again

My last day to work for this season was Saturday. I spent Sunday doing as little as possible–all I did was work on that baby quilt. Then on Monday, I spent all day cleaning out closets, drawers, cubby holes, and the pantry. I do this every time before we leave on a road trip so that everything is all neat and clean, and to get rid of extra weight of the things we have accumulated over the season. I was planning to finish up the quilt today, but….

Last week when FabGrandpa went to town, he made an appointment for work to be done on the truck, thinking he would be off on Tuesday. Well, he is not off on Tuesday, and hasn’t been all season, so I was elected to go and take care of business.  I was ok with going, but I have so many things on my “TO DO” list Iwasn’t really happy about it.  This morning, I got up at 4:30 A.M. and drove to Utah to the mechanic. It was sooo foggy out there it was hard to see, but I did ok.

That photo was taken on the side of the road at about 5:45 A.M., before the sun came up. It was getting lighter outside, but still hard to see in the fog. Had breakfast at Jacob Lake, then headed on down the plateau towards Kanab. The sun was out and shining on the Vermillion Cliffs—I think this is the best photo I have ever been able to get of them since it had rained the night before and washed all the dust out of the air.

I love seeing this area, it looks different every day, in every light.  I got to Kanab about 8:30 A.M. Utah time, (7:30 AZ time). It’s kind of like going from Carrollton, Georgia to Anniston, Alabama—it’s just over the state line, but in a different time zone. I dropped off the truck, and my friend Chris picked me up. The first place we headed was the coffee shop! I NEEDED coffee!

After a french vanilla cappucino, we went to the fabric store. Need I say more? I didn’t get a lot of stuff, but did get what I needed to finish up the quilt I am working on:

I got a batting and this solid pink Kona Cotton for the back. Now I can sit down tomorrow and finish this little jewel up!

I also got this set of fabric:

I really love that green batik, and it looks really good with the others in blues, purples, and greens. I am thinking about making a laptop bag out of it, but really haven’t decided yet. The last thing I got was 4 yards of white on white print just so I will have it for when I need it. I never have enough of solids, especially whites and creams.

After I dragged myself away from the Ace Hardware/Fabric Shop, we went to a couple of thrift stores. Didn’t find much that interested me today there. The last stop with Chris was at Calvin T’s barbecue for lunch. I had a pulled pork sandwich without the bun, and some potato salad. The barbecue was the best I have had in this part of the country (in my opinion, they really don’t know how to do barbecue here 🙂 but the potato salad was lacking. I always measure potato salad by what my mother makes, and this was not even close.

Finally, the truck was ready to go, so Chris dropped me back at the mechanic shop to pick it up. It was hard to say goodbye because I don’t know when we’ll meet again. Such is the life of a fulltime RV’er, though. There’s always Facebook!

On the way home, I stopped at the Fresh Produce sign, and picked up some corn and tomatoes:

The weird thing is, that those tomatoes weren’t cracked open like that until I got back up the plateau. It happened last time we bought some, too. I think it is the high altitude, over 8800 feet, that does this. But it is weird that ONLY the fresh picked ones do this, not the hard ones from the grocery store. Hmmmmm…….

I had to stop and take this one last picture, because the place just looked so, well, photogenic, today:

This is on Hwy 67 on the way to the North Rim, in the Warm Fire area. The Warm Fire happened in 2006, started by a lightning strike, and burned about 58,000 acres. In case you can’t get your head around 58,000 acres, you drive through the burned area for 11 miles. Those clouds, with tinge of gray around the edges, and the stark trees, just screamed “WINTER IS COMING!”. I’m glad I’m leaving soon.