On the road again...

across Oregon and into Tacoma. We spent the night in Eugene, OR and did some exploring the next morning. What an interesting place! A friend of mine went to school there (Go Ducks!) and had told me that if I ever visited I'd never leave. Well, I did leave, but I'd like to go back. I wonder if they need any teachers? Interesting co-incidence - when I got back I was looking through a blog-index thingy and clicked on an interesting-sounding blog. It turned out to be a knitting blog from Eugene - and - it turned out the author was transplanted from ABQ - and- she linked to Scout's Swag (remember - my hand-painted sock yarn teacher). Hmmm...

Tacoma was nothing like I thought it would be. I had the idea that it was an industrial kind of step child to Seattle. We went to the LYS I wanted to visit (read on) and then had some time to kill because of the traffic into Seattle, so we explored quite a bit. We found a lovely park where The Man Of The House enviously watched the joggers. We walked and walked around the downtown area where there is quite a lot of revitalization going on. The condos on the water looked like they afforded quite a life-style! We stopped to ask directions and TMOTH met the owner of the local baseball team. Poor guy tried to talk minor league baseball, but TMOTH has a certain disdain for it (he's a native Houstonian, only the big leagues for him).

Back to the LYS - I've seen Lamb's Ear Farm many times on the various knitting for sale/swap lists. Roxie Roxi
seemed to advertise many of my favorites, so I just had to check out the actual physical shop. I had a map downloaded from the internet, which was a good thing, because TMOTH kept asking me where I was taking him. It sure didn't look like a retail destination. Which turned out to be right - it's a house.

It's a cute place. We parked on the street, but RoxyRoxi
told us they have a brand new parking lot behind the store. Next time!

It was a treat exploring the many and varied yarns displayed. I've never seen so much Opal in one place! I was sorely tempted but...

Look what I found! What a beautiful colorway! I just adore the muted peaches blending ever so softly into the tans and soft greens. Kind of a Zen thing. Or maybe you just have to be there.

Back to the shop...RoxyRoxi
,smart cookie and friendly person that she is, kept my husband conversationally occupied so I could look around to my heart's content. He found out that they had been in business for 7 years, had a daugher in Dallas with 5 kids and had a large family herself (was it 5 as well?). She certainly didn't look old enough to have grown kids, never mind a raft of grandkids! He also found out that they had just finished the addition to the back of the shop. What a wonderful room - lots of windows, therefore lots of light and a great class area in the middle. I bet the classes are fabulous.

On to the daily eye-candy...several shots today of Tacoma's Glass Museum's pedestrian bridge...

one of the glass columns - look to me like rock candy

(above) part of the wall of the span

and....

The Ceiling---fabulous color explosion!

And, another coincidence - the artist has a Taos connection and gets some of his inspiration from Rio Grand rugs.