Jeri and I started our adventure at O'dark hundred and made it to the airport with plenty of time. It was the first time I experienced that the airport was pretty empty.
The flight to Oakland and the plane change to Portland was uneventful and we arrived at our designated time. I had never flown into Portland before and the luggage came out in a timely fashion but the trek to the car rental place was inefficient and convoluted. I estimate that it took us over an hour to get off the airport grounds.
We headed south to Eugene and stopped at the Olive Garden for a quick lunch where I had a flatbread which wasn't bad but I can't rave about it either.
We made it into Eugene and checked into our hotel.
A bit better than the last place we stayed at and then I dropped Jeri off to check in fleeces and I headed to the Eugene Textile Center where I proceeded to try out some looms. I wove on the Louet Spring loom and got some instruction on huck lace.
It was a bit intimidating as this is a countermarche loom but the weaving mechanism was great and easy on the body. This is definitely on my short list. I looked over a few others, but this was the best fit.
I was also able to trade in the raddle clamps that didn't fit on my Mighty Wolf and they did an even trade with me. Awesome people and service.
I got a tour of the place and they had a dyeing class earlier and these were some of the results.
I headed back to the fairgrounds after a couple of hours and the fleeces were flying in. At the end of the evening when most were checked in, I made a tour of the fleeces and took some photos of my highlights.
Mr. Cool and Cinnamon were on the top of my list.
There were lots of goats in the next room.
And for the first time - there be alpacas.
Light dinner of Five Guys burgers and then into bed early due to the long day and the early call for the next day.
Made another Denver field trip and thought to escape the heat and humidity at home which was unusual. When I arrived in Denver, it was warm and the forecast stated there might be some rain. Boy the weather report was wrong in the extreme.
On the way back to Denver after a pretty productive day in Nebraska, the sky looked like this while the sun was setting.
The rest of the time, it looked like this!
Monsoon rains continued non-stop which made the roads a bit treacherous.
We did not head out for good eats since the weather was so bad so we ate a Chilis where we ordered an appetizer, a lunch at Wendy's, another lunch at a place called Cajun Asian where we had noodles, and very late dinners at the hotel.
We had stayed in this hotel before but did not recognize the place. One night we asked the wait staff and were told that there was a huge flood and they had to renovate the entire first level and made it more modern. Here is one of the prints on the wall.
During our long drives, we also saw some goats.
Last thing I saw were these scorpion suckers which are strange indeed.
I did also discover VitaCoCo which I will be buying more of as it was a very refreshing treat in the course of very long days.
