It was a good day.

(I turned out not staying over night - by the time I called the hotel I was planning on staying at on Thursday, they were booked up - I had forgotten that Canton does a 1st weekend "Trades Days" and Mineola is one place close to Canton. But it worked out, as I got on the road around 5 so it wasn't terribly late when I got home. The only bad thing was driving for a long stretch into the sun going home).

I have to say that Sirius radio's "Book" channel, and their "Vintage Radio" channel are excellent for long trips. I think I am going to take out a subscription when the free-bee runs out. I don't take long trips often, but it's nice to have something a bit "longer" to listen to for those times on the road. (And for the shorter, around-town type driving, it's really nice to have the classical channels, or the old swing jazz channel, or the "First Wave" channel - yes, I am back listening to some of the stuff I listened to in high school. I heard "Endicott" again for the first time in 20+ years and it made me smile.)

I will say Loop 281 in Longview is a giant mess right now - they're doing construction, it looks like they're tearing out the center median to put in more lanes. Route 80 was also somewhat torn up. I wound up going north to go home - going up to the town of Diana and getting on 154 to 182 and then picking 69 back up in Quitman. (There's supposed to be - or at least there used to be - a large quilt shop in Quitman but it was after 6 pm by the time I got there so I assumed it had closed for the day and didn't look for it)

I got down there a little early, and stopped at Barron's and Books-a-Million and Michael's.

I bought a few books; I was especially looking to try Georgette Heyer mysteries. I think my mom read some of her other books when I was a teenager (or SOMEONE I know was reading them, I don't remember who) and I remember looking at one and going "Meh, a romance" (I never cared for that genre. I know a lot of people enjoy it but it's just not for me). But recently, I read a review of some of her work that talked about her mysteries - and how they were part of the Golden Age of British mysteries, and a lot of them were the "Country House" type of mystery, and how they were kind of light and frothy (in the good way) like some Golden Age mysteries were - and I decided I wanted to read some.

I found a couple, bought two. The books themselves are pleasing: shorter but wider than a standard mass-market paperback, with smooth covers bearing a sort of Jazz Age style drawing of the main characters of of a scene from the book. The paper is thicker and smoother than typical mass-market books, and the typeface is a nice size.

I find for me, that the physical quality of a book is sometimes almost as pleasing as what's contained inside it. I think that's part of the reason why I would never really succumb to the allure of the e-reader. (I suppose they're useful if, say, you're taking one of those long trips on a cargo ship like some people do, as long as there's an outlet where you can recharge it).

I also got lunch (an enormous salad) at Barron's (and dessert: a piece of chocolate cake, that, while small, was so rich I could only eat 2/3 of it). And a cup of their excellent hot chai tea (I wish I knew what went in it to make it so good. Heavy cream, I suppose. But it's a real treat). And yes, I drink hot tea in the summer. I figure, people eat ice cream in the winter and that's kind of the same thing.

Then Laura and I met at the knit shop. I didn't buy a whole lot - remembering allllll the sweater yarn I have ahead at home, and the two sweaters languishing on the needles.

I did get more sock yarn. One with sparkles in it. And a skein of a dk weight yarn - very soft - made from sugar cane, that I plan to use for fingerless gloves (I have a pattern in mind, from a book I bought and have never yet made anything from).

And I found some of the "ergonomic" crochet hooks (that don't make your hands cramp up) in small sizes, so I may take another go at doing thread crochet.

We also spent about two hours just wandering around and talking as we looked. Luckily, the yarn shop we were in was not one of the "grumpy owner" yarn shops, where they hover over you thinking "buy something and get out" in your direction, so we were able to do that.

After we finally decided we really should pay for our stuff and scram, we went to a Starbucks (first time I'd ever been in one. I'm not a coffee drinker, and I'm generally not a just-stop-off-somewhere-and-buy-a-beverage-I-could-make-at-home person.) I wasn't sure what to get but then I saw they had what they called something like "Shaken iced tea and lemonade." Which in my universe is called an Arnold Palmer (one of the mystery series I read - the Monica Ferris books - talks about them). I had never had one.

They're surprisingly good. They're less sticky-sweet than lemonade sometimes is, and less astringent than iced tea often is (I'm not a big fan of iced tea, other than the "sweet tea" served here in the south, which many of my northern friends and relatives are aghast at because it's SOOOOOO sweet. But plain iced tea tastes like drinking water with old paper in it to me, which is funny, because I like hot tea and usually take it black). I may have to consider making a pitcher of this stuff (I can see how to do it pretty easily: brew up some tea, and then squeeze a bunch of lemons into it, add sugar and water to taste) and keep it in the fridge, at least for those days when I come home after fieldwork.

After that, I decided it was time to hit the road.

I wound up taking the northern route - 154 to 182 to 69. It was a little longer, milewise, but it had three benefits: first, much less traffic than 80 on a Friday afternoon would have had, second, no construction to mess things up, and third, it was an interesting and pretty drive - the first part of it was through the typical "piney woods" country - and there were lots of streams and even sort of a small swamp at one point. Then there was what I assume was ranches, but a lot lusher and well-watered than ranches are in my part of the world. And then tree farms, and small towns, and finally, back on to the route home.

I had thought of stopping at the Target in Sherman, but it was after 8:30 pm when I got up there, and while the Target was most likely still open, I just wanted to get home.

And now today - at least as soon as I sign off here - I'm cleaning house. I hadn't done it since before I went out of town and I've been tracking in pecan catkins and grass and stuff and I really need to sweep, as well as just put some stuff away and do things like scrub the kitchen floor.

It's the Magnolia Festival in town today, but it's going to be super-hot, so I think I'm just going to stick at home and clean, and then work on my quilt. (And lay out the batting I bought at Micheal's for the vintage quilt - I looked at the battings I had on hand and the one I had planned on using was too small for the quilt top. The one queen size I had was one put aside for the Provence quilt; it's a pure white batting that won't show up behind the light colored background fabric).

(When you're getting ready to "layer" a quilt - backing, batting, and top - you're supposed to let the batting lay out for a day or so. To "relax," they say. Or tumble it in the dryer. I'm not sure if there's an actual textile-science reason for that or if it's one of those things that is tradition that everyone does even though there's no real need for it. (Like the old story about the new wife who would cut roasts in half before cooking them. Her husband asked her why and she said, "I don't know but this is how my mother always did it." And the next time she talked with her mother, she asked her. And her mother said, "I don't know, that's how *my* mother always did it." Finally, when the young woman saw her grandmother at a family gathering, she asked her. The grandmother laughed and said, "Dear, I did that when my husband and I were first married, because we didn't own a pan large enough to fit an entire roast in!")