Vacation is well and truly over. Downloading the pictures from the camera makes it official. It was a great week and a half, and of course it was much too short.

The main event was a trip to Iowa to spend time with my friend Amy working on the double wedding ring. It was a day and a half on the road to get there, even without exploring interesting places along the way. I always knew there was a place on this earth where I would fit right in:

On the way home I stopped here to get gas. I got to see the Peculiar Bank and the Peculiar Lion's Club and the Peculiar Pharmacy. Clearly these people are proud of the place they call home. The countryside in Iowa was very green. It reminded me a lot of Alberta except for the terracing of the slopes. Mostly it was planted in corn and beans, just like home. But one thing they do have, that we don't have here, is barn quilts. I saw three or four different ones in our rambles around the countryside. Makes me wish I had a barn.

The best part was getting to spend time with Amy and work on the quilt. It seems like we hardly made a dent in it in the 5 days we had, but it was great fun. There were visits to quilt shops, and routine checks for sale yarn. There was good cooking and good eating. And lots and lots of talking. You'd think we never talk to each other.

Now I'm back home and have to rely on the quilting assistants here. Princess is doing a good job of keeping the quilt from lifting off the table while I work on it. Bart patrols the floor in case orange yarn drops from the sky or a ball of mohair strays from the drawer mohair lives in. I wish one or the other of them would learn to use a thimble and help with the stitching. But meanwhile they do what they do very well. You take what you can get.