Sunday, July 09, 2006

Had to Get Outa Dodge

We decided to go for a drive yesterday, and end up at the coast. This is why.

Frank's usually behind the camera lens, so I thought I'd add a picture of him here, just before we headed north to go west.

We drove forty-five minutes north to the town of Laytonville, population: 1130. There's not much there, a merchantile, a hardware store, a volunteer fire department, a bank. But they DO have a quilt store, The Fat Quail Quilt shop, which is what took us there. It is so cute. I don't know how she stays in business but the owner-manager had a good selection of current fabrics and patterns and her prices were really reasonable. This is the outside. It was a hot drive to Laytonville and I was glad to go inside to the coolness and browse her fun shop.

Friday when Jana and Lynn were here for our Sew Day, Jana was talking about reorganizing her fabric collection. As a retired School District Librarian, she wants to buy an old library card catalog and store her fat quarters in the nifty little drawers. What a great idea. And since most libraries have moved to on-line card catalogs, the drawers should be pretty easy to find. Well I laughed outloud when I went into the second room of the quilt shop, for this is what I found.


This is a close-up of the signage. I had to take these pictures and send them to Jana.
So if you're ever traveling Hwy 101 north between Willits and Crescent City, be sure and look for this shop. It's worth the stop.

Finally we got to the ocean. I was near heat exhaustion by that point, it had been so hot in Laytonville. But the temperature at the coast was perfect! Usually our beaches are either socked in with fog or windy, so instead of picnic coolers and water toys, we bring wind breakers and shoes with socks. For the first time in about 15 years it was warm enough to leave the jackets in the car and put our feet in the surf. I was in heaven.

I promptly stretched out and fell asleep on the sun-warmed sand. The sound of the surf was in the back ground and I napped so peacefully. Frank was off taking pictures for us... for me to put on my blog and for him to use as source photos for his art.

We took our time driving home through the redwoods. A great day. It was still in the high 80s when we got back to the valley at seven pm. But for the better part of the day we'd been able to escape the heat. You can only hide in the house with the drapes drawn and the fans going for so long, then you gotta "Get outa Dodge".

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