Home Again, Home Again...

Summer has been a little slow in coming to Erie, Pennsylvania this year. Our temperatures have been in the high 60's and low 70's for most of June and July. If I wanted to see summer, I had to take matters into my own hands. Fortunately, We have family in Jacksonville, Florida. Last week Honey and I headed south. We took the motorcycles. The little puppy boys (That includes my Great Pyrenees) went to Camp Diane and Camp Bonnie. Diane NextDoor watched the cat for me as well.

The weather was a balmy 65F when we left Friday evening. We made it to Clarksburg, WV on Friday. If you are ever near Clarksburg on a motorcycle, make sure to head East on 50. What a great road. Unfortunately we missed that side trip this time. We had 700+ miles to go. The mountains were beautiful as always. Very misty which turned into rain at the higher elevations. We rode the rollercoaster between rainy and cold at elevation down to hot and muggy in the valleys. Ah well, the joys of riding. Once we cleared the mountains, the weather was beautiful.

Most of our trip was spent visiting family. Honey's brothers, sister, and mother were all happy to see us. We took a short 300 mile (round trip) ride to visit my sister in Tallahassee. What a beautiful town. I agree with her the live oaks are stunning and Tallahassee has plenty of them. She also has a really cute quilt shop. I stopped in the Quilting Patch and looked around.

My sister-in-law has the same crazy infatuation with fabric that I do. She took off an afternoon so we could do a little shopping. We visited Paula's Fine Fabric and looked at the Bernina Sewing Machines. Neither Chris or I are really looking for a new machine, but it was fun to look at what is new. Paula also had rows of beautiful apparel and handbag. I love the Michael Miller collections she carries. Paula's focus is clothing, not quilting. She did have a few quilts that must have snuck in her back door though. She also has a service person in the store on Wednesdays. Chris and I agreed it would be nice to know you could drop off your machine Tuesday and pick it back up on Wednesday when it needed a cleaning. After Paula's we went down to Old Green Cupboard. They have quite a fabric collection. We were there a long time. I bought fabric to make a new bag and more of the In The Beginning Wintergraphix snowflakes. It's really too bad we can't buy more time to make the beautiful things. Old Green Cupboard has plenty to offer in addition to fabric. The store was full of pumpkins last week. They were all so cute. It's a good thing we brought the bikes down, or I might have brought many more home with me.

Unfortunately we only had a week to spend in the south. We took 2 days to come home. The weather cooled off again as soon as we hit the mountains of West Virginia. It's still in the high 60's and low 70's here at home. I hope summer arrives before September. I would like a little warm weather before the snow starts to fly.