Knitters Run Amuck

So as some of you out there may know.  I am a bit of an instigator.  I like to gather a bunch of people together to do stuff.  This is rather novel for me because I have a not so latent hermit gene.  It takes quite a bit for me to gather up the motivation to go out and see people.  Since I met my knitterly crew though - they get me out and about - even if only for a beer and a couple of rows. 

This weekend however - was more than just a jaunt of an afternoon.  Two and a half days in Big Bear, California!

Friday evening we all gathered at my house for a quick bite to eat and to carpool up together.  Only two cars but man were those cars packed with stuff as you will see shortly. 

We had about a three hour drive ahead of us - which was a challenge in the dark going up the mountain.  I'm not the most confident of drivers and I'd taken Mr. Bird's car which is a stick.  With a white knuckled grip we managed to get to the cabin without me sending us over the edge of the road at 6500 feet or having Mary Kay barf on me.  Poor woman - she was just miserable with motion sickness, but she was a total trooper and made it all the way there!

By the time we all get settled in it was after 11pm so we just relaxed a bit and went to bed.  There were three bedrooms and several of us brought those spiffy Aero beds which came in handy.  The cabin was cozy but I dont think too cramped for the seven of us.   I would have liked to have more lounging out room though.

Saturday morning lazing about watching some movies and knitting.  It was super dry up there so we all were chugging down water like it was going out of style.  The skin goop I brought came in handy as we all started to turn ashy and dried out.  Friends dont let friends have flaky skin I say.

Have you ever wondered how much food 7 women need for 2.5 days?  Definately not this much...

The fridge was fully stocked and we ran out of room, this doesnt include all the snacks that were brought either.  The cabin came with a fully stocked kitchen so we split up the meals for the weekend and those who didnt make a meal brought snacks.  And MAN were there a lot of snacks.  Fruits, chips, nuts, cheeses, 5 loaves of bread - you name it - we probably brought it.  And there was lots of beer!

You can see from the view from our deck and the treeline by Bear Mountain Sky resort that it was incredibly beautiful.  The leaves were turning and the air was brisk and clean.  We had wood peckers, chipmunks and squirrels in residence around the cabin.  Quite the departure for us city girls and I loved it.

I sat on the deck with Heidi early Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and enjoyed the cool weather and it was wonderful.

After a nice breakfast we hung out at the cabin knitting for a while then headed into town to explore.  The area we ended up in was filled with tourists and kitchy shops.  Wandering about for a bit we made our way down to Big Bear Lake as the sky started to become over cast.  I really like this picture of Wendy looking out over the water - she seems so pensive.

A knitting retreat's Must haves:  Knitting, music, phone/technology, trashy magazines,  and yarn!

By Sunday we were all pretty worn out and the drive home during the afternoon was much less scary than the drive up.  On the way home we pulled over for some pictures of the lake and saw this ruin of a house up on the hill.  Didnt get to explore it though unfortunately, but I thought it looked really cool.

Finally our Ode to the Cabin in the Woods scary movie genre....

Blair Witch Pine Cones

Comments

[Jessica]

Man, it looks like you guys had so much fun! I was stuck in a stupid seminar all weekend. I'm going to show up for something soon, I swear!

[Mary-Kay]

You took some great photos Nancy! I have no idea why I only took the one. I guess my little camera just doesn't cut it so, I forgot. Thanks for the re-cap! But mostly, thanks for setting it all up! I had a blast. (Even though I almost threw-up everywhere)

[spaazlicious]

Thanks for organising this, it was fun!
I'm always surprised by pictures of me--is that really me? I look like a gosling.

It's always possible we could've chowed down through 7 loaves of bread and a whole case of beer in some sort of altitude-induced carb freakout...minutely possible...