Arizona Love

I love Arizona.  Well I love the Southwest as a whole and I go every chance I get, which meant that I was going to subject Aubri to the places I love too!

Our first stop was Horseshoe Bend.  Since it was early morning we did the hike to the promontory.

Then we headed off to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. 

Instead of going to the North Rim lodge we went out toward Cape Imperial and Cape Royal.

 Aubri Jo and Bobbin sat still long enough for a picture.

 There flowers were full of bees and oh the scent!

 The view with the tree and the shadows.

 It has been so long since I had been out this way I don't remember seeing this sign about the excavations of the delta, nor the Anasazi.

 Angel's Window I would have loved to walk out, but Aubri is a wee bit terrified of heights so it was a no go.

I love the colors of the canyon, the play of light and shadow with the strata of the rock.  After a quick stop at the lodge we headed 110 mile North West toward Zion National park to do a drive through look see for Aubri.  We drove in from the Mt. Carmel Junction through the tunnel.  Aubri loved it!

 A window in the tunnel.

We then headed toward Cedar City Utah for a good night's sleep.  We packed in a lot of miles and a lot of sight seeing in one day.

What I Did on Summer Vacation

Remember back in the day when you had to write a short article on what you did for summer vacation?  Well if you remember my I Like Thursday post #69 I shared that I had a summer visitor, my grand daughter Aubri.  She arrived on June 16th and on July 15th we headed west to take her home.  Aubri is a reluctant traveler, but once on the road she was great.

I shared that we stopped at Lincoln's Cabin in my previous post.  The next day we headed across Kansas,  toward  the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site near Eads, Colorado.

I thought it was neat that they had a flag with 35 stars from that era. 

The park ranger was really great, but oh the biting flies!  We didn't walk the paths as much as we wanted just because of those little blood thirsty boogers.

This plaque shares information about two soldiers who were so disgusted with what went on that they refused to fire and later reported the actions to a commander. 

There was a monument with sweet grass bracelets, and other trinkets that have been left.

The gully you see is where the attack took place.  You can read more about it here.

Territorial Governor John Evans, and an explanation why the massacre took place.

Some of those killed at Sand Creek are now being buried here. 

This is the area that last September when I was on my way home I saw the trees full of butterflies.

We drove on to Pueblo, Colorado for the night.

The next morning we were up bright and early to drive west more.  I saw this sign and it made me giggle.

As we wound our way through the lower part of Colorado, we stopped at The 4 Corners monument.

The line of people are waiting to stand on all 4 corners for their pictures.  Aubri didn't want to do it, so we just took a quick pictures of the 4 corners and walked around the booths.  I purchased a couple of sand paintings, and a couple of pots. 

There was a lot of driving involved for our day 2 and 3. 

I Like #72 and Road Tripping 2019

Since I am back from my country wide jaunt I have so much to share, some of it can be put into an I Like Post.

I like driving, getting lost and spying interesting places to stop.  Like Lincoln's Log Cabin near Lerna, Illinois. 

This was not a cabin that Abraham Lincoln lived in, but his father Thomas.  As we drove down farm roads looking fr the site,  we came across this cemetery where Thomas Lincoln was buried.

Lincoln's Cabin is a State Historic site.  I will say it is a very nice park, and the museum was very neat with lots of information, and interactive displays.

Thomas Lincoln's blanket chest that he made out of walnut.

Replicas of the broken dishes found in the fire pit behind the Lincoln cabin which were discovered during an archaeological dig in 1978.  I can really relate to finding dishes, glassware, and crockery all over my farm too!

I spied this neat quilt in a display about quilting and other pastimes. 

Some more of the display. 

There were some neat plants as we wandered around looking at the barns and outbuildings.

Garlic and it was huge!

I was fascinated with these, I have no idea what they are but they were interesting.

I was very excited to see they had a small quilt display in the theater.

Unfortunately Aubri and I never did figure out what building was the cabin.  You can read more about it here- Lincoln Log Cabin, and Lincoln Log Cabin Historical Site.

Howdy

How do you begin to blog when you haven't really had much to blog about or been way to busy to blog for the past few months?  Well I am done traveling for a while, starting to settle back into home life again, even though my parents are visiting for the next couple of weeks.

I will start with what I have been working on.

I made a quilt for a distant cousin for thanks in helping my mother doing genealogy research.

 The grand daughter was my quilt holder.  She was extra brave perched up on the downed tree in the river. 

 Of course as soon as I got her situated the wind came up. 

The pictures were taken across and down the river from my great grandparent's homestead.  I learned to swim in this river.  I miss this place, especially the clear, clean water.  The quilt was made up of a jelly roll of Robert Kaufman Wildlife Sanctuary, a yellow/gold speckled batik, a light blue and dark midnight blue for the border.  At this time I cannot locate the name of the pattern but it is easy peasy.  I quilted it with a simple wavy line on my sewing machine.

I entered my Fiesta Vintage Rose in the county fair and won a blue ribbon!

I have the block of the month for my Tuesday sewing group.

I am currently working on the one for the month of August.

The LQS BOM that I am participating in.

This one is called Kaleidoscope.

These are Amish with a Twist.

I have an idea for the Quilt Guild Challenge quilt and it started with a set of New York Beauty blocks.

I have a couple of different parts going on this one right now.

Before I left on my journeys I was working on quilting a charity quilt on my quilting machine, broke a needle which resulted in the needle collar getting really loose.  I decided to take the machine in since it is over 2 years old even though it may have less than 20 hours of sewing.  The nearest repair shop was in Pickney, Michigan about 1 hour away.  I called and made arrangements for my girl to have a spa day.  Took her out of the table with the help of the grand daughter, and loaded her in the car for the trip.  While they were checking her in I started playing with a similar machine on what they call a little foot frame.

Yep I upgraded my Sweet Sixteen to a Simply Sixteen (technically) with a little foot frame.  The frame is only 5 feet long, but already I have been enjoying the control much more than the sit down machine.

While I was traveling I did do a bit of shopping, but honestly not a whole lot. I saw a Row by Row in Brownsville, Oregon that I thought was hilarious so one day my mom and I headed out to visit Brownsville.  We got there and this teeny, tiny town off the beaten path was crazy busy for being July 23rd. 

Old cars everywhere.

Neat old buildings.

There was no place to park in town, we had to drive around, and around before we finally located a parking spot.  Come to find out the town is where the movie Stand By Me was filmed, and July 23rd is always "Stand By Me Days", no matter what day of the week it falls on.

The quilt shop in Brownsville is called Yankee Dutch Quilting and they had the funnest Row by Row pattern.

While we were driving through Montana after visiting Glacier National Park we spied a quilt store next to a small diner where we were enjoying breakfast.  The store is called Native Life and is in Browning, Montana.  I liked their row by row for this year and last year so I purchased the kits.

I have tons more to share and finally figured out how to move the pictures from my phone to my computer quickly, which will make things a whole lot easier when it comes to posting.