A Day of Rest

When I planned this trip, I put into action a vow I'd made on our previous sight-seeing trip. We need time to recuperate after days of driving and sight-seeing, and so I endeavored to schedule some down time at each stop. Yesterday was an unplanned day, aside from grocery shopping. I thought we might be visiting a quilt shop here in Dillon, but it turns out that both stores are permanently closed. We headed out early for our beloved Egg McMuffins. As it turns out, the McDonald's was in the same parking lot with the local Safeway store. And the Safeway had a gas station, so we got our fuel at the same time. We were home by 10:30 a.m. and we had the rest of the day to relax and recuperate.

The first order of business was to get Smitty out for a walk. He was out the day before too, but it was way too scary. We spent about five minutes sniffing the air and reassuring him that no monsters were lurking about.

Eventually, he hopped down off the step and walked a bit just near the door.

He sampled some of the Montana grass. Don't worry...Montana is a legal state.

Finding it not to his liking, his walk was over.

Back inside, we administered the treats of valor. For Sadie, the treats of appeasement.

After that, I settled down for some slow-stitching. Sadie snuggled up beside me to help.

Later, I moved to a different chair, and Smitty took over as my slow-stitching helper.

Thanks to the kitties, I'm nearly finished with my slow-stitched challenge piece. You only get a peek.

And with so much walking, and helping, and eating, the kitties were exhausted. They spent most of the afternoon napping.

My challenge slow-stitching is nearly finished, and so it seemed prudent to get the next piece ready. You might remember I brought just one project, Stitchin' Wisdom from Bird Brain Designs. It'll be stitched in red Perle cotton. Here's the picture of the whole quilt from the website.

I've printed all the blocks onto Sticky Fabri-Solvy, and I've cut all the backgrounds and stabilizer pieces. All I needed to do was to iron the fabric to the stabilizer, and then stick the design to the fabric. There are eight large blocks and four small blocks. The small blocks are embroidered, then pieced. I'm starting with this one. It's one of the larger blocks.

As soon as I've finished my challenge piece, I'll get to work on my new project.

Later in the afternoon, we took a walk around the RV park. At the far end, we found this headstone.

Beyond was the Sawmill Saloon. We'd seen it when we left in the morning. Unfortunately, there was a car parked out front when we went back to explore. In three days, the place has been sitting off to the side and appearing abandoned. When we went to take a look yesterday, the car was parked out front, a suitcase was propping the door open, and there was music coming from inside. We're still not sure what this is all about. It'll be just one of those mysteries of our travels, I guess. I tried Googling it, but found nothing relevant.

Okay, so we have a short day of driving ahead...just 77 miles to our next stop at Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park, near Whitehall, Montana. I may or may not be meeting an old friend there, but we haven't worked it out logistically yet. The area is fairly remote, and so we may not have internet access while we're there. As always, I'll blog if I can. If not, we'll do some time traveling when I'm back in range. Until then...sew on. I'll see you on the other side.