We only have two kinds of weather in California, magnificent and unusual. – James M CainIn my last post, we were still in sunny California, enjoying a well-needed change of scenery and perspective... except we did get one cloudy/drizzly day in the Golden State. We took the opportunity to go and explore a museum that we kept driving past two and from the cottage we were staying at:
The Stagecoach Inn Museum is run entirely by volunteers and is open two days a week to the public. It's built around an old stagecoach inn that was run by the families of some of the early homesteaders in the area. Ironically, it survived for nearly a hundred years in various states as an inn, a restaurant, and then eventually as a museum... which tragically burned down shortly after it opened its doors to the public. This building is a replica of the original museum and houses many of the items from the era that were collected from nearby homes and personal collections.
Of course, you can't have a place called The Stagecoach Inn Museum without having a stagecoach or two:
The site also has an old schoolhouse on it, complete with separate entrances for boys and girls and desks of different sizes for the range of pupils that attended it:
And the schoolteacher who made sure you learned your ABC's:
I always like seeing little museums run by volunteers, because you get to witness their enthusiasm and hear about all of the things they took it upon themselves to learn. It's always such a personal and enjoyable experience.
The next couple of days were warm and sunny, so we decided to go for a hike to see if we could find Paradise Falls in the nearby Wildwood Park. It's days like this when you can see what California really looks like away from the shiny glamour of Hollywood and Los Angeles:
After getting some exercise (and humbling myself with how out of shape I am), we decided to drop in on the local farmer's market. I tasted a few of the ubiquitous California oranges and enjoyed the smells and colours of all the produce:
On our final day, we decided to drive into the city to visit the Getty Museum. It was in direct contrast to the little volunteer-run place we had seen. It was huge and austere and impressive:
I admit: we didn't get through it all... but my favourite part was the gardens outside:
We returned home the following day to a very foggy, somewhat snowy Vancouver Island. I must say: that was a bit of a struggle after being in such glorious sunshine for a week. It's hard not to feel grumpy when you've been fortunate enough to have a nice holiday away... but man... I miss the sunshine.
I did promise that I would share my latest finished knitting project, which was perfect for the cool, dreary days I returned to. This is a sweater made from a Pure Wash DK fade bundle I purchased a while back from
Tanis Fiber Arts. Her stuff sells out so quickly, that I felt like I'd won the lottery when I was lucky enough to nab one. It don't normally go for the grey fades, but this one was so delicately pretty that I couldn't resist:
It's been a long time since I've knitted with DK weight yarn, and it was very satisfying. This is just a simple raglan sweater knit with size 7 needles, so it went relatively quickly, apart from me weighing and re-weighing my remaining yarn to eke out every single gram of the pack to get longer sleeves. I thought it would only be enough to knit a tee, but I managed to get almost full-length sleeves out of it.
So here we are, back on the Island. Today is the first day it hasn't rained and the sun came out, so I'm going to go out and enjoy the day. I hope you have a great week!
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