Snow, 2015

We are back home from a short stay at Falls Creek. We had planned on staying the usual full week but the booking officer advised against staying over the weekend when CSL booked out most of the lodge. 

The snow was great. We had three days of great skiing and one day of fog before we left. Just as we arrived on Sunday night a guest's boy was taken to the medical centre with a sore ankle. He came back with a full leg cast and diagnosis of a broken tibia. 

The next day, just as we came in from skiing, the same family was told that Mum was at the medical centre. She came back in a cast on her broken ankle!

Needless to say they were in a room at the top of the lodge. I talked everybody in our dungeon room downstairs, into changing with them. They left the next day. 

After that auspicious start, the only other casualty was Julie the manager whose cold (caught from Tony, her husband) got really bad, so they left early too. I got my exercise on the foggy day by helping him dig out their car and carry down their loads of luggage.

So I didn't get much knitting done this year. But I did teach Margit (Reto's mum) and Julie (John's friend) how to knit Entrelac. And I got some Fractur calligraphy practise for the first class that I missed on Wednesday night.

Asian Art Museum

This is our last day in the U.S. We had a lazy morning, checked out but left our bags at the hotel before we set off for the Asian Art museum. Lots and lots of Buddhas!

A special treat was a room full of Safavid velvet fabrics. There is one that I might be able to reproduce, albeit on a larger scale, for our 8Plus project next year.

We caught the tram to Fisherman's Wharf, along with a gazillion other tourists, for an early dinner. Now we are waiting in the United lounge for the midnight flight to Sydney. We hope to sleep through Wednesday.

California Academy of Science

The only reason we went was that it is the only museum open on Mondays in San Francisco. And we thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the hordes of little people. It is in a Ne building that is three stories tall to accomodate a rain forest and aquariums that you can walk under.

There is a garden that covers the roof.

The building is edged by a row of photo voltaic cells that act as a porch roof and supply only 5-10% of their electricity needs. So we were happy to pay the $30 each entry fee.

Jo finally found a pair of travel pants to replace the ones he has worn for the past 10 years. And they were on sale and a bit big. He will grow into them.

While we were at REI I got a Fitbit One: the kind you clip to your clothes rather than wear on your wrist. I hope it is washing machine proof.

A gay day

Choose heaven for the weather 

Choose hell for the company

Says Mark Twain

We arrived at the Mark Twain Hotel yesterday after the usual long flight from DC. It is a nice old pub on the edge of the seamy end of town. 

Today we went to the Legion of Honor (a museum) to see the High Style exhibition of couturier gowns from the Brooklyn Museum whose collection has been absorbed by the Metropolitan Museum in NY. These were the Paris fashions that Mrs Post didn't choose because she was a real person not a fashion model. 

We were glad to get out of the city to avoid the huge gay parade which was still going when we got back. Tonight there is a ball game so the traffic is ferocious but the tourists donT mind because they are on foot. 

Hillwood Estate

I sat to watch water lilies opening imperceptibly

There was a special exhibit of Ms Post's gowns. She lived from the time when even girls were corseted to when she could have relaxed in tricky dacks . . . . not that she would have done that. She kept every gown that she had been painted in and got painted almost as often as Bill Clinton.

More yarn

We went, with Jean and Lois to the Super-natural exhibition of botanical and other works at the Women in the Arts Museum( http://nmwa.org/exhibitions/super-natural). It was built as a Masonic Centre and is very grand. I imagine the masons turn in their graves because of the female take over. The lunch was great and the shop was irrestible to Lois and Jean. 

Because I finally finished these socks, I saved my pennies for some yarn from Looped. 

Now to find the pattern of the shawl that I knitted from Mary Evan's camel down which I spun. I gave her the shawl and she gave it to her niece who lives in Wales, for safekeeping!

Perfect

That is what Montrealists say instead of "No problems." But it applied to the weather as we left today which had clear, clean blue sky, cool breeze, warm sun. . . Rather like a nice Brisbane winter day but ?I wouldn't dare tell them that.

It took us two hours to get from the airport to our hotel. Perhaps the traffic is as bad here as it is in Sydney, at peak hour.