Back in Civilization!

Hey y'all! Did you miss me? I sure missed you guys. And, man, I can barely live without internet access these days. Maybe you've noticed I'm a very curious person. I can't tell you how many unanswered questions I have roaming around my skull right now. I'm always Googling this, that, or the other thing, to find out more about it. Not possible for the past week, and so you can only imagine how many questions I've asked without being able to access an answer. You can only imagine how many times Mike and I have disagreed on some fact or story, and there's been no way to resolve our disagreement by out-Googling one another. It's a travesty of first world order, I'm telling you. Well. I think our no-internet days might be over for this trip at least. 

Kitties are fat and happy, as you might guess. They had full sun for their time in Death Valley.

We had mostly good weather, but chillier and windier than we usually find in Death Valley. We had a couple of excursions while we were there, and I'll have to do a some time traveling posts to catch up on that. For now, I'll back up to the final sunset from our last night in Death Valley.

Sunsets are big in Death Valley, and what you'll see depends on which direction you're looking.

We did some star-gazing the first night there, but the Dark Sky Festival of the past weekend was probably a bust since there were high clouds obscuring any starlight. We were glad to have gotten there early.

This morning's sunrise was beautiful as well, and this is really what we love about Death Valley. The colors and ripples in the rugged hillsides are stunningly beautiful in their simplicity.

As we drove out of the park this morning, we got a last glimpse of Corkscrew Peak. I'm going to tell you more about the landscape in my time traveling posts.

We had excursions through Titus Canyon, the associated Leadfield ghost town, and the Goldwell Open Air Museum. In our drive through Titus Canyon we learned about the volcanic origin of much of the Nevada landscape. It's hard to imagine, but this stuff is so old, the volcanoes have eroded away into oblivion. Still, knowing that, we appreciated more of what we were seeing. We were well out of the park when I snapped this image below of two cinder cones, no longer active.

We're spending the next two nights in Hawthorne, Nevada, a place we've stayed as we passed through before. We're about 225 miles north of Death Valley now. The history of Nevada is filled with boom  and bust stories, like this one we read about at a historic rest area along our way. You can read a little more about Millers, Nevada, right here. I can't begin to tell you how many stories about Death Valley and the surrounding areas began with a mineral discovery. People came full of their dreams and built them up into a good-sized towns. Then, within a few years, the railroad came through. And then, the towns went bust when the minerals ran dry or else turned out to be of lesser quality than expected. Here's the story of the historic rest area we saw today:

Looking overhead from where I read the sign, I noticed these leafless trees.

We're on our way home now. Ordinarily, we head north paralleling the Sierra Nevada range. Looking at the forecast ahead, our usual stopping places have very cold temperatures and snow in the forecast, and so we're heading home by a different route. We could see the snow-covered mountains to the west of us.

We're spending two nights in Hawthorne so that we can visit the Marietta Wild Burro Range tomorrow. I've already checked the BLM website to be certain there will be no surprises. We have about an hour's drive to reach the "range." Hopefully, we'll see some of the wild burros and wild horses that live there. We've visited Hawthorne once before in our travels. Hawthorne is notable for being home to the largest munitions depot in the world. You can see some pictures and read a little more about the area in a series of old blog posts here and right here.

Okay, so we have some catching up to do. For now, I'll stop and pick up again once I've gathered myself and my thoughts (no easy task). I'll be back here later this evening or tomorrow to tell you what we've been up to. I hope you're all well and warm. Things have fallen apart in Europe while we've been away. If you're one of my European readers, know that you've been in my thoughts, and I'm wishing for a return to peace in the region.

Moving On

Okay, so it's true I said I wasn't going to blog today. But you knew better than that, didn't you? I realized I had too many things to tell you, and I didn't want to spend the next week with all that rattling around in my head. Life is hard. But now it's going to be easier because I'm spending our last morning in Pahrump chatting with my blogging friends. So, thank you.

Speaking of friends...did you know yesterday was National Love Your Pet Day? Of course, every day is "love your pet day" here at the Traveling Three Cats Ranch. The kitties were raring to go...ready to party hardy, you might say.

With them so excitable, it seemed like a good idea to quiet things down a little with some slow-stitching. Here is yesterday's inchy:

Here are the 20 I have so far.

We had a short grocery shopping trip to pick up a few last-minute items. One thing on the list was some chopped pecans so that I could make this Apple Bourbon Bundt Cake for Two. I'd discovered some crystallized ginger in the cupboard from a different trip. It seemed prudent to use it to make this little cake. I'd made it once before, but I'd kind of forgotten about it until I went searching for recipes that used crystallized ginger in my Paprika app. (And let me just say if you're not using the Paprika app, your missing out on one of the best apps ever.) So, here's the little cake:

We had it last night with some whipped cream. So yummy. It's really, technically, a cake for four. We each had a small piece, and then we ate the other piece right away. It was that good. Also, I was reminded once again that I can turn one of my quart-sized freezer containers upside down to make a cute little cake container.

You can find the recipe for this right here. I've also linked to the little 3-cup bundt pan I'm using. And it gave me a chance to try out this tip for softening butter without melting it. I saw this tip from Cook's Illustrated on Instagram, and let me just tell you...it made my whole day. It might even change my life!

I only needed a half stick of butter for my little cake. I'd left one on the counter before we took off for the grocery store, but it was still fairly hard when we got back. So, I tried this using a custard cup. It fit nicely over a half stick of butter. I filled it with boiling water, then waited, then dumped out the water and covered the butter with the warm custard cup. Then I waited 20 minutes and voila! The butter was perfectly softened for mixing. I was beside myself with joy. I had to stop and love up on my kitties to dissipate some of the sheer jubilation. Smitty gave me some ideas on new ways to love him up.

Okay, and while I waited for the cake to bake, I filled my hoop on the eighth blackwork basket. I really like this one.

By day's end, Smitty was exhausted from all the loving up he received. He stretched out to his full length on the bed for a long nap. Long cats take long naps.

Sadie was still partying hard. She was ready for another meowgarita.

Okay, so the morning's inchy should be posted by now, and so I'll at least get started on it. We don't have far to drive today, and we have until 11:00 a.m. to vacate our space here in Pahrump. I've already given you the low-down on blogging for the next week: I will if I can, but don't count on it. If it won't work, I'll be back by next Monday to update you on all the news. If I don't talk to you before then, have a good week. Stay warm and stay dry.

Yard Art and Blooming Cacti

It was a nice day yesterday, and I made good on my threat to get out for a walk in the next door neighborhood. There isn't a lot to see at this time of year. Almost nothing is blooming except possibly some of the cacti. The first bit of yard art I saw were these birdhouses attached to someone's mailbox post.

And isn't there always one in every neighborhood? People who don't keep up with their general home maintenance projects. Or possibly this is the neighborhood frat house. What do you think?

Walking on, there was a pencil cholla. I put my finger there for scale. Its branches aren't much bigger in diameter than a pencil...about the diameter of a #1 pencil.

Here's one of the larger chollas. Its branches are closer to the diameter of my wrist.

Walking on, I noticed these chickens and briefly considered them as a subject for my next art quilt.

The only flowers I saw were the blooming rosemary plants. These were alive with bees. With so little blooming right now, it isn't surprising the bees would congregate here.

Okay...and here's a message for you. Woofies, pay attention!

This next one is for my pig-loving friend, Sue.

And I'm really hoping we'll see some of these little burros when we visit the Burro Range in a couple of weeks. I doubt any of them will be hitched to carts, however.

Walking back to the RV park, I noticed an army of vintage Thunderbirds parked in a row in the parking lot. It was lunch time, and so I'm guessing this is a club get-together.

Back at the RV, I had some lunch, and then went digging through my stash of embroidery floss to find this metallic blue floss from another project.

I had in mind to stitch a snowflake in that one spot where the piecing error was. The space is only one-inch square, and so there wasn't much room to get very fancy. I free-hand stitched this little snowflake into that space. When I get home, I'll add some tiny hot fix crystals or else some beads to this spot to give it even a little more sparkle.

The piecing error is still fairly obvious, but I like this fix.

Smitty has his opinion about it too, but he wisely kept quiet.

I'm still waiting for the morning's inchy to be posted. We've already had our Sunday morning blueberry pancakes. We need to make a quick trip to the grocery store today to pick up some last-minute items before we head into that grocery store desert known as Death Valley National Park. I'm trying to remember what the situation is there at Death Valley, but it isn't coming to me with any certainty. If memory serves, we had internet access, but such poor signal quality that I wasn't able to upload pictures. And if memory serves even further, I think I posted each day with a time traveling link to a previous visit. Pictures were already uploaded, and so the link would take you to something about Death Valley that might keep you entertained until we're back in business.

So all of that to say I might not post next week. Or, I might post something old. Or, I might post just as usual. It's impossible to say. For sure and certain, I will not be posting tomorrow since it's a get-out-of-town-and-drive-to-the-next-destination day. And whatever happens, I'll see you on the other side.

Snow in Nevada

Don't let that title scare you...there is no snow in Nevada right now. On the other hand, we have been right here in Pahrump when snow has fallen. Here's a picture from our visit last year.

Okay, but we've written that off as an aberration of the pandemic year when everything was crazy. (Whaddaya mean everything is still crazy?!?)  It does get cold here sometimes, and sometimes it snows. Just not now...and not today, because it's sunny and warm outside right now. I'll get to the snow in a just a minute, but first, yesterday's inchy:

It was an easy one, and I needed it after the dreaded bullion stitches of the day before. Smitty could see I didn't need help with this one, and so he took the opportunity for a long winter's nap, including dreaming and kicking. (He'll be embarrassed to see this image when he reads today's post.)

After that, I went straight to work on the Scrappy Mini Single Snowflake. Right away, I decided to do the cutting a little differently. If you read the pattern at the link I've provided above, I was to cut 112 – 1-1/2” blue squares and 98 – 1-1/2” cream squares. The pattern goes on to say that from each color, 41 of these squares will be used to make half square triangle blocks. And that seemed kind of silly to me. Why cut all those little blocks? Why not use a different method to make the half square triangles so that there is less cutting and less waste? So, rebel that I am, I went ahead and cut 72 of the blue squares and 58 of the cream squares. Then I cut 21 - 1-7/8" squares from each color to make the half square triangles two at a time. (There was one left over when I was finished sewing it all together.)

If you're unfamiliar with this way of making them, just know that by adding 3/8 inch to any size square, you can make two half square triangles in the proper size. Simply draw a line corner to corner, stitch 1/4 inch away from each side of the line, then cut on the line and voila! You'll have two half square triangles in the size you want them. (Trimming is highly recommended.)

When all that was finished, I was ready to start sewing it together. I divided the picture from the pattern into four quadrants and sewed them together starting with the northwest quadrant...

Then the southwest quadrant...

Then the northeast quadrant...

And, finally, the southeast quadrant.

Then I sewed them all together and my quilt top was finished.

And since I'm trying to use the iron as much as possible while I still have electricity, I sewed together the binding strips, folded them in half and ironed. You can see the binding on the right side of the image below.

As it turns out, I packed this kit up as thoroughly as I did the Mini Apple quilt. In addition to binding strips, I had batting and a backing included. I'll be using the fabric below for the backing. These were the cut-off edges from the quilt back on another larger quilt I made a while back. It required sewing one seam to get it to the right size.

And then I sandwiched it for quilting, using my hairspray again for spray baste.

So I had the quilt this far, and even posted to social media when I realized there was a piecing error. Do you see it? Go ahead and look. I'll wait. (Doh!) Only then...I'd been so careful...and so I went back and looked at the picture from the pattern (shown below). Do you see it there too?

Okay, well hers might actually be a very light blue, but it looked cream to me, and so I copied what she'd done. I was already scheming about how to fix this without taking it all apart again. I decided instead of changing it, I'm going to either quilt or hand embroider a little blue snowflake there using a blue metallic thread (or metallic floss), and I'll probably stitch some little beads there too. I might even like it better with that little bit of sparkly embellishment. It's all good, and I'm happy with what I have so far.

Okay, and so then, after trying dozens of times during our stay here, I finally caught an Annas hummingbird at the feeder. His head is aglow in the afternoon light.

And then I turned around and admired how nicely the roses have kept since Valentine's Day. 

This morning's inchy is already stitched. It was another easy one, but I like it. It's very dainty and pretty.

Today I'm going to hang out and relax some more. Since I spent the whole live-long day inside yesterday, I want to get out for a nice walk. For today's walk, I'd like to get out of the RV park and take a walk through the adjacent neighborhood. Mike is off getting yet another flat tire fixed. He noticed one of the front tires on the truck was low yesterday. We both looked at the tire, but couldn't see anything, so I'm curious what they'll find when they fix it.

So that's all the news from the Traveling Three Cats Ranch. We have just today and tomorrow in Pahrump, and then we'll be moving on to Death Valley National Park for a week-long stay. I hope your Saturday is off to a good start.