Taos!

My apologies for the incredible delay of this post. My only excuses are that a) I was out of town for three weeks, and b) as soon as I got back we started looking for a house to buy, which is a new and exciting way to use up every speck of my time and energy. But more on that later - for now, the expedition report!

One sunny Saturday morning, a bunch of Boulder knitters all woke up way too early, loaded up the cars with knitting and snacks, and drove to New Mexico. I rode along with Anne and Kate, and we had a lovely drive, complete with amazing views of the mountains. With a stop at Pizza Hut for lunch, it took us about 6 hours, but finally we arrived at the enormous traffic jam that is downtown Taos. (It might not be that bad when there aren't hundreds of knitters in town, but I doubt it.) We abandoned the car as soon as possible, grabbed our wallets, and hit the wool festival!

I knew it was a small festival, but I hadn't realized quite how small it would be. There were, maybe, 50 vendors? There were raw fleeces, hand-dyed yarns, some expensive weavings, and hand-knit goods. The most exciting, in my opinion, were the Brooks Farm and Skaska stands.
As you can see, I restrained myself to only one fiber purchase: two skeins of Brooks Farm "Harmony" in a gorgeous rich red. I was thinking of making it into the Wool Peddler's Shawl (from Folk Shawls), but now I'm not so sure. I might have just enough for a sweater. We'll see.

After a stop at La Lana Wools, which had some nice stuff but was way overpriced, we went out for terrific Mexican food in honor of Katie's birthday. (Now I want enchiladas for lunch. Drat.) And then we headed back to our suite at the charming Taos Inn for the night.

The next day the weather turned horrible. Anne and I braved the mud at the festival to look for a few last purchases, but then we fled to the indoor shopping options and ended up at Weaving Southwest. I'm not a weaver, but they had some stunning artwork for sale (all too expensive for me, sadly), and lovely yarn, and best of all, tools. I'd been looking for a really nice two-yard niddy-noddy since Estes, and I finally found one. It's alder wood with a smooth oil finish, it's simple but perfect, and I love it.

Then it was time to take off, as I had to be at the Denver airport in time for my flight to California. It turned out to be a good thing that we hit the road early, because all the rain in Taos turned into SNOW once we got up into the mountains! Thanks to Anne and her Subaru, we didn't slide off the road, made it through the weather, stopped for burritos, and still arrived at DIA in plenty of time. In a delightful coincidence I ended up sitting next to an old friend on the flight to SB, and we chatted all the way there, and then after being in snowy mountains all afternoon I was in the warm, sunny, flower-filled coast before bedtime. And that's the whole story!