Shortly before we left, I was at the library, talking to my sister-in-law and to the library director (who has grown-up children).  She was telling us that when her kids were younger and they’d take family trips, they took along a journal.  If you wanted to complain about something, you couldn’t do it out loud:  complaints had to be written in the journal.

We decided to give this idea a try, and quite frankly it was fabulous.   For one thing, everyone thought really hard about whether or not whatever they wanted to complain about was worth writing in the journal for posterity.  And it injected a lot of humor into situations to have someone ask “do you need the journal?” or to be simply told “Tell it to the journal!”

There was a bit of cheating:  some of us were heard to say things like “My back hurts.  Not that I’m complaining!”  And at one point, Mark had to dictate his entry (he was driving at the time and needed to complain about his sore backside.

One of the things we didn’t complain about was the price of gas.  We spent about $400 for gas (3500 miles!), averaging about 33 miles to the gallon.  A lot of money, but still quite a bit less than 4 plane tickets, and we would have had to rent a car while we were down there anyway.

OK, we might have complained a little bit at the gas station where it was $4.20/gallon, but mostly, gas prices seemed to be right around $4/gallon.

Mark did the bulk of the driving, so I can’t complain about having to do much driving.  I did do a lot of knitting.  A lot.  3500 miles turns out to be about 58 hours in the car.

First up is this baby sweater:

It’s knit in one piece, still needs to be blocked, the side seams sewn together, and ribbons attached to the front for a closure.  It’s made out of washable wool, and the color is much prettier.  I should have waited to take a better picture in better light.

Next, we have this dishcloth.  I needed the yarn needle in order to bury ends on the sweater, so we went to a Wal-Mart in Kentucky.  I had to get some Peaches and Creme cotton yarn while I was there, so I could make this:

This next oen looks like a big old lump of nothing right now, but trust me, it’s going to be another felted bag.  I got the circular base done, plus 14 rows up the sides done.

And lastly, another dishcloth started:

So there you have it: knitting my way to Florida and back.  Much more portable than trying to bind a queen-size quilt in the front seat.

Oh!  Something else I didn’t have to complain about:  my feet!!!  My new Keen sandals are amazingly awesome.  They have changed my life, and I need to save my pennies to buy more styles.

On Friday, I switched to socks and my nearly brand-new Nikes.  After about two hours of those, my feet were killing me.  We were minutes away from our 4 hour/4 mile hike through Mammoth Cave, and I made Mark go back to the car to get my Keen’s so I could switch.  The relief was almost instantaneous. He thought I was nuts, but it is the absolute truth.

Now, time to tackle some of the mammoth lists I’ve got going, it’s nice to be home, but Wow, I have  a LOT to do.

Suzanne