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Here and There and Back Again

In the last few weeks, I have been traveling a bit.  No exotic countries, but when the travel involves seeing my kids and spending a week at the spa, it's totally worthwhile.

This travel ran the gamut from huge and glitzy to beautiful and peaceful to small and homey.  A few photos will illustrate.

I started in Las Vegas, the home of huge and glitzy,

where I went to help the Princess finish up her move into a house where she will spend at least the next year while she continues her studies at UNLV.  It's a cute four-bedroom house that she will share with three other girls.  Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, washer-dryer, two-car garage, etc. etc.  Reminding her that while in college I shared a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment with three other girls did nothing to make her feel spoiled.  Kids these days!  Although, to be fair, the rent on this house is very reasonable, given the current economic conditions.

So things were purchased, moved, unpacked and set up.  My sister and I left the Princess in pretty good shape and started on the next leg of our vacation.  Note:  the Princess left shortly after we did, but instead of driving to Utah, she flew to New York with one of her roommates, then left for Israel a few days later.  She's having a great time and I can't wait to see her photos and hear all of the stories.

Meanwhile, back to the adventure at hand.  My sister and I drove to St. George, UT to Green Valley Spa.  We've been there before; hopefully, we'll get to go there again.  Ten thousand roses,



amazing and scenic hikes,




wonderful spa treatments, healthy food, and great exercise classes.  I totally loved the cardio boxing!  Lovely accommodations round out the experience.  We were spoiled there.

I returned home and a few days later drove to Ellensburg, which is two hours from home here in Seattle.  The two hours involve a mountain pass, however, so it's not always as easy to get there as it sounds.  It being the middle of May, I expected warm weather and sunny skies, but they were nowhere to be found.  It's been quite cold here and it was just as cold there.  In fact, I experienced rain, wet snow, wind, sunshine, and lots of big trucks and road construction.  This is the land of small and homey, a cute little college town in Eastern Washington.  If you want to see some photos, you can refer back to this post. (And it doesn't hurt that it just happens to have a nice yarn store!)

Collegeboy was presenting a paper at a research symposium at his university and had invited me to attend.  I was delighted to have been asked to come and enjoyed his presentation and the chance to spend some time with him.  He is studying film, and presented a paper on the role of religion in the horror film genre, which was well researched and presented.  I met three of his professors, who all told me how bright he is and how much they enjoy having him in class.  I was very proud.  It is evident in the photo that he's been too busy to shave or get a haircut lately, but I think he looks kind of cute as a mountain man.



Now I'll be home for awhile.  Although I expected to get a lot of knitting done on my eleven days away from home, as usual I overestimated how much I would do.  I will have some socks done shortly, and I'm making progress on my laceweight cardigan, but that's proving to be a long project.  And Buddy is waiting for his walk......

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