The Castoffs went on our first ever Road trip! Yay! We met and drove up to East Glacier, MT on a beautiful, cloudless, sunny day. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect and we enjoyed this first blush of summer. We drove in two cars – Marsha and Michele drove – and had a good drive up until we got to about 10 miles from East Glacier when we hit ROAD WORK, or as some put it, Montana’s other season. Fall, Winter, Spring and Roadwork. After at least 30 minutes in a very long line, we were allowed to go the rest of the way and went directly to the beautiful, historic Glacier Park Lodge, found a shady spot on the big lawn, threw out our chairs, food, cooler, bags of yarn and started to knit.
HEAVEN.
We had so much fun. Julie brought her new camp chair that looked so much like a howdah that all she needed was an elephant.
Princess Ridesanelephantforfun
Here is Princess Ridesanelephantforfun holding court over all us knitting peons. But it was okay, because she needed help setting up the howdah . Howdat, Jules?
Oh, peasant, peel me a grape...
We all brought our ongoing projects and had no trouble at all relaxing into our knitting.
Ah, shade. Ah, bliss.
Can't get better than this.
Leslie was working on Dick’s felted mittens that we’re making for him out of the leftover yarn from Marylane’s wrap. We will be passing them around at our meetings and putting in our two cents worth by knitting several rows of love from all of us. Leslie modeled the left one…no, the right one…no, the left one. Oh, at this point it doesn’t matter much. No thumbs yet!
Hot hands.
Michele is working on Erica’s sweater – so pretty. She and Leslie looked pretty darn comfy in the grass. With needles.
It's amazing how much stuff we brought!
Carol finished her dad’s slippers and attached the pom-poms that she made from the two knitted baby blankets for Mabel and Waylon (her grandbabies). Great-grandpa will be so proud of these slippers!
Pom-poms of love.
Our Carol!
I wanted to get a shot of the lodge and happened to get one of Linda – she was tickled about something – just happy to be there, I guess.
Funny!
Finishing up her great-niece's sweater.
Linda was getting to the end of her great-niece’s sparkly sweater. It’s going to be so cute!
I started a blue lace vest to wear over summer shirts. So far I’m working on the ribbed waist in the back. It’s Tonic yarn – acrylic and wool – and very nice to work with.
I think that is the shortest chair in the universe.
My thanks to Mary for sharing some of the photos that she took. It was great to see things from a different perspective. And I returned the favor and got a shot of Mary knitting a SOCK! Not very big yet, but we have high hopes, right Mary?
Teeny, tiny little sock
Mary and Marylane were pretty serious about their knitting at first. We all started thinking about the meal we were going to eat later at Serrano’s. And, of course, the margaritas that we were going to drink because it was Tequila Tuesday, after all.
Dreams of margaritas?
Deb has started a top-down Henley for her husband, Glenn in a maroon Paton’s yarn. Several of us have used this yarn and this pattern (or a similar one by Pure & Simple) and we love it.
Deb in the sunshine.
As it got closer to 4:00, Leslie gave us the high sign to adjourn to the front porch of Serrano’s to wait for the opening. We wanted to get a good table, because this restaurant gets very crowded! The food is wonderful and let’s not forget the margaritas! Yummy! Serrano’s is a great place to eat after a hike and we all highly recommend it if you’re in East Glacier.
Leslie was cracking the whip and giving us the finger (well, not that finger).
Anyway, Leslie herded us all over to the seating on the front porch of Serrano’s where we continued knitting for about an hour while we waited. We looked pretty cute all in a row.
Pretty knitters all in a row.
We got some funny looks, but we are professional ‘Knit in Public’ knitters. We laugh at ridicule. HA! We knit fearlessly because we have sharp, pointy sticks and we know how to use them!
Wow, there were a lot of us, eh?
We finally got in and ordered our margaritas. Carol knows the owners very well, and the bartender brought her a special mango margarita that Carol passed around to give us a taste. It was good – and had a LOT of tequila. Our Carol also ordered a regular margarita and, if I’m not mistaken, nodded off on the way home. Perhaps that’s just a rumor…
It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it...
Marylane enjoyed her margarita, as did we all. The Cadillac Margarita was superb and a lot cheaper than ones that we had last week at Tequila Tuesday.
Hey, where's my margarita?
Of course it was a longer way to go, but well worth the effort. And, you can’t beat the scenery from the front porch.
Hey, mountains!
We all ordered either the Veggie Dish or the Enchilada Especial and everyone raved over their meals. I got a quick photo before they were devoured.
Makes me hungry all over again.
After we ate and talked and laughed and drank our fill, we started on the long drive home, hoping that all the roadwork would be finished. Ha! As if the roadwork is ever finished while we have warm weather. We didn’t have to wait nearly as long as the trip over, but here is the view of Michele’s car waiting, waiting, waiting at a roadwork stoppage.
Hello, up there!
We had so much fun, we decided to do another road trip. The choices were bandied about: ocean trip, lake trip, tour of yarn shops trip. We’ll have to wait and see what we come up with for the next one, but in the meantime we can hold wonderful memories of our knitting road trip to East Glacier. Great fun!
