Assateague

Last week, I went to Assateague Island National Seashore for a work meeting, which sounds a lot cooler than it is. I get to go to a lot of cool places for work meetings, but I also have to stay in crappy depressing hotels, and spend hours and hours and hours discussing sampling plans, budgets for those plans and why two options that are seemingly identical will result in completely different statistical analysis results. Usually, the slightly more difficult option results in the desired results, hence the hours of discussion and explanation. It is interesting work, but usually it's not quite as fun as it sounds.

This meeting was cooler than some of the others, and the discussion was really productive. We also got to actually go out and visit some of the study sites which meant I got to see these


and this
some incredibly idyllic scenes like this
and this
Seeing the famous wild ponies was just as neat as I had expected. They're just so cute and charming. You can't touch or feed them, but they are great to watch. It really was fun and fortunately one of the other researchers lent me a pair of knee-high waders so I could tromp around in the salt marsh. Otherwise, it would have been a lot less fun.

On drive back, I also used our cool new GPS device to find The Yarn Lounge in Richmond, VA. It was so cool to be able navigate to a place I wanted to go to in strange city I had never been to before. GPS devices like mine aren't perfect, but they are awesome for stuff like this. I really only went there to get a Perl Grey brooch for my Celtic Cardigan,
but there was such beautiful yarn there that I ended up buying this
and this
and I was lucky to get out of there just with that damage to credit card. That place was dangerous, and the whole part of the city where it was located looked like a great place to hang out. Lots of cool little shops and yummy ethnic restaurants. It reminded me of some the neighborhoods I used to explore in Portland, OR. Who woulda thunk I'd find that in Richmond.

I made it home at 9PM and was so tired that I had to spend the whole next day knitting on the couch to recover. What a shame :)

Spinning News: Darcy and I have set a date next Sunday for her to start teaching me how to spin...YAY...YAY...YAY!