this image of my suitcase may not be as sublimely satisfying to you but for me it represents a good investment of time and thought and is the most organized my travelling wardrobe has been in a long time.
sure, the car still smells like sweat all the time and we are basically filthy but this makes me feel like i might have some secret dignity.
it will last a day.
on the way out of minneapolis (or mipples, as we now almost exclusively call it), we managed to slip into i like you before closing. aside from the obvious awesomeness of wall-to-wall astroturf carpeting and an indoor swing, this is the most indie craft packed shop i have come across in the twin cities (crafty planet excelling in craft materials and resources, of course). i am so glad we made the effort to find the shop. angela and sarah were so great to hang out with and i am happy to say that they now stock a good selection of buttons and artist sets. go check 'em out!
we finally got on the road late and didn't drive for long. i got tired and pulled off the highway at eau claire. it was a good thing we did, too, because as soon as we settled into the motel, the television was buzzing with flash flood warnings on all stations. my pictures don't do the chaos justice - it's was an incredible storm. suffice it to say we are happy to be safely tucked into our motel room.
i made these special buttons today as gifts for my friends lee and steve who had aitor and i on their weekly radio show here in winnipeg. these buttons (made on the new 3" machine) represent some great technological leaps for me - ribbons, duotones (although you can't tell), etc.
we had a great time on the show. the boys are very fun and attentive hosts. we also got to field call-ins from folks like janet and another fellow who liked to spread gossip about her. thank, you 'peggers! we always enjoy ourselves in your breezy folds.
the crumbs show is every monday at 5:00pm on umfm in winnipeg (but also streaming live on the internet).
this kitchen mess is nothing compared to what i am capable of. our incredibly gracious hosts here in albuquerque, christie and shenoah, have allowed us to truly take over for some crafting, sorting and general mess-making. so we have pushed our plans in arizona back by a day and decided to linger and work.
this also means time left for visits with other new mexican friends like mark and marya.
this really is a town of favorite people. marya is my old college roommate (if we actually went to college and not clown school) who has fianlly settled here to immerse herself in jazz and find a reason to make theatre again. she's very talented at everything so i'm not worried that the joy will return. if not, something else will emerge. mark and shenoah are the pajama men, currently eyeballs-deep in making their new show to bring to the edinburgh fringe. we always seem to converge with them while this process is happening. it is such torture to make a show. outsiders rarely understand this and can't imagine any gut wrenching when they finally see the finished project. in the case of the pajama men, the finished product is always something i can get behind - sight unseen. go find them. they will also be flying away with some new buttons made by me. christie is a journalist/editor extraordinaire. we stay up nights trying to build her a new website between buttons squishings and sips of tea.
i finally feel like i can breathe for a minute here. thank you so much guys.
oh, and when you can't decide if you want green or red chilis (the state question), you can opt for christmas (which means both).
i did not mean to take these two pictures back to back.
the second one is of louise. we share a bedroom with her here. i wish louise no harm or ill will.
today we mostly picked up where we left off. this crossing the continent business has always been a mild ordeal for us. we have friends between the east and west but not a lot of crafty things to do. this translates into long driving days in the hot hot heat. (by the way, if you are a crafty sort along route 66, we want to hear from you. the vague plan for next summer is to set up a small gallery/boutique/trailer park tour along this path to los angeles).
but back to our crossing to albuquerque...
we quickly passed through oklahoma and crossed into texas, reading historical markers about towns that ebbed and flowed with deposits of natural resource. i really like traveling the panhandle along route 66. the towns are pretty and interesting. we were again thwarted by our own timing as we passed through mclean, texas, in the hopes of gaining entrance to the devil's rope museum. i guess we are doomed to just pass through, stare through the glass and leave.
we left texas and entered new mexico where the sun was going down and weather started to turn.
until it really turned into the most white knuckled our drive has been yet. aitor took some pictures as we came through the end of our mountain monsoon outside of tucumcari. my arm was numb from stress.
i considered not posting these pictures for fear that our moms would have heart attacks. but it's okay, ladies; we survived. and look:
it's a miracle! the alternator was repaired before i even got out of bed! aitor was a champ for dealing with everything as i recovered from a late night of problem solving. and our hero, rob, well...he holds a special place in our hearts. how did we get our car fixed on the fourth of july? how could we have rolled out of town by noon?
above is a picture from a rummage sale we encountered in bourbon, missouri. everything was half price so our selections worked out to 17.5 cents. we tipped.
i don't know, there is not much to say about driving route 66 through missouri and oklahoma that will do any justice to the experience, so i will leave it to a few pictures:
oh, and there is so much more but it was a big driving day so we couldn't stop as much as i wanted to photograph the remains of america's main street.
as the sun began to set, we turned off the mother road and drove south through oklahoma. while the skies darkened, people in the small towns and places we passed were setting off fireworks. it is so flat out here that when we would hit a small rise in the road, we could see small store-bought fireworks displays for miles. some were tiny colourful pops on the horizon, some were big and startling explosions shot right over the highway from places like roadside sausage factories.
it was such a beatiful way to coast into muskogee, oklahoma, that i couldn't imagine where i would rather be to witness the celebration of america's big day. maybe a mattress sale?
