Jul 5

Jul 5 So I just got home from a road trip....

After nearly a year and a half of barely leaving the house, my partner and I were desperate to get out.

I hadn’t seen my dad nor been back home since 2019, and various health concerns in my family had prevented us from wanting to get together until everyone was fully vaccinated and cases had lowered. My partner had spent the last year working full-time and doing grad school full-time, both remote. I had been in and out of work as both music and yoga teaching had taken a massive hit. We had moved to a new state. So we started planning, thinking about how to combine seeing my family, doing some camping and hiking, and just being out and about. And of course, in the back of my mind, yarn stores!! I had only started working at my LYS two weeks prior, but my boss was gracious enough to let me go given that the trip had been planned before I got the job, and the primary purpose of the trip was to see my ill father. Our first day’s drive took us from Boulder to Salt Lake City, but we stopped for lunch in Laramie, Wyoming, where I got to check out Cowgirl Yarn, which I had heard many good things about.

Cowgirl Yarn storefront in Laramie, Wyoming

Packed to the gills with tons of great yarn, books, and spinning equipment, the entire shop was a blast to explore, even briefly. One of the things that really sets them apart is their dedication to stocking Wyoming-made products, including Brooklyn Tweed, Mountain Meadow Wool, Tronstad Ranch, Sweet Mountain Crafts, and Fibercation. I picked up some Saratoga from Mountain Meadow Wool in Lupine, a plied, 100% wool, light fingering yarn with a crisp hand and good body, but still quite soft. I’m thinking of making Lucy Hague’s cabled Nennir cowl with it; the yardage is close and I’m a tight knitter and tend to use less than is called for in most patterns.

Saratoga by Mountain Meadow Wool in Lupine

And then we saw a lot of salt.

Our time in Salt Lake City was brief, just an overnight blip really, before the long haul through Utah and Nevada to Reno. I was adamant that we leave early enough to get to the famed Jimmy Beans Wool storefront before it closed for the day. The salt flats were honestly better than I was expecting them to be given that it was hours of driving through flat, barely changing scenery. But oh my goodness, Jimmy Beans was incredible. It operates totally differently from other yarn stores. It’s essentially a showroom, where each yarn gets its own room/area, showing one hank in each colorway. You just collect what you want to purchase, and a friendly shop person gets your yarn from their warehouse. There is such an enormous amount there, and they don’t even have everything from their website on the floor! (Although you can get anything they have online in the physical shop). Plus, since they acquired madelinetosh, every single MT base has its own area with the Core 150 colorways all present for your perusal. My local yarn stores don’t stock much MT so it was really cool to see all these beautiful hand-dyed colors in person instead of online. I picked up a number of things, some planned, some unplanned:

Malabrigo Yarn Mechita (100% merino, fingering) in Blood Orange to be used for Svetlana Gordon’s Snood Barcelona. Still on the lookout for Indiecita.
Qing Fibre Yak Single (65% Merino, 20% Silk, 15% Yak, fingering) in Hurricane, leaning towards the Paris in Berlin cowl by Joji Locatelli
madelinetosh Tosh Mo Light (80% Merino, 20% Mohair, fingering) in Crewneck, considering the Jacques Cousteau Shawl by verybusymonkey
madelinetosh Euro Sock (100% merino, light fingering) in Snake, thinking about Lucy Hague’s Dunedin shawlette
madelinetosh Farm Twist (100% merino, DK) in Dr. Zhivago’s Sky for the Farm Twist Jacket by Joji Locatelli

Reno is a fun, weird place. We had some amazing food; seriously, Perenn Bakery might be one of the best bakeries I’ve ever been to, and that includes France, Italy, Germany, Greece, etc.

Into the mountains!

Next, we headed up to the Tahoe and Plumas National Forests for a few days of camping. We stayed at the Wild Plum Campground, which I legitimately questioned naming here because it is a well-kept secret and it was glorious. Near Sierra City, CA, a stopover for those backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail, it’s a lovely campground nestled in the woods by a river. We did two fabulous hikes: the Sierra Buttes Lookout Trail, where you just hike straight up a mountain to 8,500 ft to a fire lookout station with views of the entire valley, and the Round Lake Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and Silver Lake Loop Trail, an incredibly scenic 9 mile loop near many lakes (did you see that picture at the top?!).

I could have stayed there for a good while, given how relaxing our campsite was (hammocks next to each other for afternoon naps and reading, ease of afternoon dips in the river) and the total lack of access to technology, but alas, we had plans. We drove down to the actual Lake Tahoe so my non-Californian partner could see it with his own eyes, stopping in Truckee on the way as per the recommendation of some Ravelry friends. There’s a really cute little shop called Atelier there, though it’s worth noting that it is actually in the back of another shop. Google seems to indicate that it used to be a bigger yarn store, but at the moment, the craft part is the back room only, and has a nice selection of yarn, as well as a number of other craft supplies for macrame, embroidery, sashiko, etc. I’ve been eyeing the Sandoval sweater by This.Bird.Knits for a while, and fortunately they had the exact contrast yarn I’d been looking for: Spincycle Yarns Dream State (100% wool, worsted) in Salty Dog. I also grabbed a madelinetosh Tosh Sock (100% merino, fingering) in Gosia, because I mean, look at it. TBD on what it’s going to become.

Perhaps one of the coolest things in Truckee, however, was the Farmer’s Market! We literally stumbled upon it on our way out of town, but it was great. I dearly miss California-grown produce, and we consumed an enormous quantity of blueberries, peaches, and nectarines, but I also found a wool stand! Harvey Sheep & Wool had a ton of cool products, and I picked up a skein of hand-spun bulky Romney/Coopworth/ Rambouillet/Merino blend yarn in a lovely natural grey. (Pretty sure it’ll become a pillow, more on that later).

Back to the city

On our way to stay with my half-brother in Alameda, we stopped in Sacramento for lunch and to check out Rumpelstiltskin, a very cool yarn store on an artsy street. Unfortunately, it was nearly 100F and I had to be rather quick as my partner and dog were waiting in the car. I had a really nice conversation with the woman working there about favorite yarns, what makes a good yarn shop, sadness when a brand discontinues a good base. They carry a ton of my favorite brands, lots of local things, and a number of yarns I had always wanted to squish in person (looking at you, mYak). I’d been keeping an eye out for Emma’s Yarn fingering weights to make Lisa K. Ross’ Midwestern Afternoon shawl and I was so happy that they had a wide selection of colorways in both full and mini skeins. I ended up choosing the Super Silky base (80% Merino, 20% Silk, fingering) in Foxy Lady for the main color, and Practically Perfect Sock minis (80% Merino, 20% Nylon, fingering) in Raindrops, Heliotrope, Mom Jeans, and Navy Blazer for the contrast colors. I also discovered two new brands: Casual Fashion Queen, which does some truly cool-looking hand dyes (I chose the Plush Merino Sock (80% Merino, 20% Nylon, fingering) in Acid King), and Sea Change Fibers by The Dye Project, a Santa Cruz-based hand dyer that I have 100% fallen head over heels for. The tonal colorways are spectacular, with a depth and saturation I’ve rarely seen on yarn. I grabbed a Beaumont (70% Merino, 15% Alpaca, 15% Silk, fingering) in Lucinda with the intention to find more of it later in the trip.

Yarn Hiatus: Family Time!

The bulk of our trip was focused on seeing my family (and finishing up the last leg of my 500 hour yoga teacher training), and so we took a hiatus from visiting any yarn stores. It was so nice to be home after such a long time, seeing the beach, eating all of the wonderful food, getting to bake at sea level, hang out in the garden, etc.

Through the Southwest

The last leg of our trip took us through the Southwest. We drove to Valle, AZ, a small town south of the Grand Canyon to camp at The Fuzzy Punkin, a hipcamp on an off-grid property. It was so lovely and isolated. The night sky was otherworldly; I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many stars in my life! We got up super early to go see the Grand Canyon. Given that we had our dog with us, we were a bit paranoid about heat. You’re only allowed to stay on trails on the rim with dogs, so we did a bit of the South Rim Trail to Hermit’s Rest, which was quite stunning and highly recommended. The whole area is really nice. There is an amazing store called Hopi House, which contains Native American art of all types. I wish we could have afforded to buy some things there. Between the ceramics, jewelry, weaving, and basketry, it was overwhelming.

We then began the journey into New Mexico, camping for the night near Gallup. In Albuquerque we checked out Talin World Market, a place I had remembered visiting 16 years earlier and had always stuck in my mind. It’s an absolutely ENORMOUS international grocery store that has aisles for each country. If you’re into food in any way, you must check it out if you’re in the area. I promise you won’t be disappointed.