Jiggety Jog--Retirement Trip Days 13 & 14

The LeClerc factory closes each Friday at noon so our appointment was early--8:30am. We had broken camp and were towing LibraryAnn with us downtown. The route we'd planned last night worked despite lots of school buses on the road (I had totally forgotten about school starting). Mr. Brassard patiently answered our questions and demonstrated the answers on a Weaverbird set up in their show room. While he was finding some repair parts for us, I explored the yarn displays. Sigh.
It really did make sense to spend those Canadian dollars I brought in Canada. Did I mention mohair boucle and an alpaca/silk blend? Oooh, and a handy loom attachment to help keep selvages straight. Broke but happy, we headed out for Burlington, VT.

And the itch to head home hit. We got to Burlington early enough in the day we decided not to stop. And our Saturday night reservation graciously moved us up to Friday night despite being slammed with holiday travelers. We still enjoyed the beautiful mountains, lakes and river valleys booking down the Appalachian ridge but mostly we enjoyed thoughts of home. We pulled in late to Dalton PA, slept hard and were up and out early Saturday morning, and home by 7:00pm Saturday night.

As a bookend to the trip, we were back in rain, just as we'd started it. As we pulled into Randolph County, Asheboro was under a severe thunderstorm warning. We missed the storm and Ben snapped this dramatic picture of the clouds as they raced out ahead of us.

I have learned a few things from this trip. One is that I can trust my equipment. As rough as most of the roads were up north, I should have slung trailer parts all across the northeast, but we made it home in tact. I learned to respect the Planning Fallacy--things always take longer (and cost more) than you imagine when planning. I learned that about two weeks is as much as I enjoy being away from home--Coos Bay may not be in my future. And I learned that, despite all the news media would have us believe, it is still a beautiful world out there full of mostly really nice people. And on that note, Goodnight.