uh huh. interesting…

what did i do? oh, thanks for asking. well, i went to the demolition derby!

it was crazy fun. in fact, it was way more fun than it should have been.

the initial crash was disconcerting, but after that, it was just hysterical.
and inspiring to all the little girl derby fans in the crowd (the girl sitting in front of me was super into it):

a young woman came from behind and won the derby! yay!

the demolition derby was actually part of the cummington fair. so, tom, me and some friends spent the evening having a grand ol’ time wandering around before and after the derby.

the fair was pretty nice, and there was lots to be seen. totally worth an evening out. (sorry, jeffy and eileen, apparently we took you to completely the wrong fair! next time we’ll time it a week sooner and go to this one instead.)

but there was something slightly…off…about the whole thing. there were lots of ride and game knock-offs. for example, instead of whack-a-mole, there was:

instead of the scrambler, there was:

and instead of skee ball, there was:

the examples were everywhere!

another thing that was everywhere - super tasty carnival food.
among many other things, bill partook of jack’s buns:

snicker, snicker

as it turns out, you only need some cars being crushed, a cool summer evening, good friends and fried dough to have a fabulous friday night. who knew?

we live so close to new hampshire, the first state to hold their presidential primary (today!), that we had to go check out the campaign action. we, and a couple of friends, headed to the granite state and were able to get into both a john edwards and a barack obama stump speech/rally.

edwards was our first stop:

madeleine stowe and some guy from desperate housewives introduced him:

and there was a pretty good crowd:

but that crowd was about 1/4 the size of the group waiting to see barack obama. this was the group in front of us in line:

and the rest were all behind us. the line wrapped completely around this new hampshire middle school building. we waited outside for 90 minutes while the secret service swept the building and it was very cold. luckily gl and i had plenty of knitted goods to keep us warm:

that’s us trying to look pleasant in spite of not being able to feel our toes and being very very hungry.

once inside we figured we would hear a quick speech, take some pictures and head out for a nice meal. (tom and i hadn’t eaten since breakfast and gl and bill had only an early lunch. we had planned to eat before obama, but had to skip it to make it on time to the next event.) little did we know, obama was running late.

for two hours we sat on a gymnasium floor, cold, cranky, tired and with bellies grumbling. loaded up with dollars and quarters, gl ventured out to find some snacks within the building, but was only able to round up these two items for the four of us to share before the vending machine broke:

finally, he showed up. although he did not, as we had hoped, arrive with free pizza for all:

and the celebrity sighting at this event was none other than ken burns:

trust me, that’s him behind the blond lady.

it was a fun adventure, and i’m glad we got the opportunity to see some of the action in person. i’m sure that none of the candidates will be hitting the pavement and shaking hands in our state. it will be interesting to watch who comes out on top tonight.

it doesn’t matter to me who you vote for…if you are able, find your state’s date and vote this year!

have i ever posted a picture of how abby and grendel travel when when we go on long car trips?

with two layers of cushiness and one blanket each, by hour two i start wishing i was sitting in the back seat.

the cozy back seat has made all of the difference in how long we can drive without stopping. they have both made it the full fours hours to nj. it is now their people who sometimes call for a break.

in that picture, they are both pretty annoyed with me for waking them up from their cuddly nap.

we went to the infamous rhinebeck, ny sheep and wool festival on sunday.

seriously, words can not describe the huge amount of yarn that can be found at rhinebeck. it is actually overwhelming, and i found myself in a bit of a daze. so much in a daze, in fact, that i took no pictures of the yarn. i have to come up with a better plan of action for attending next year. yesterday it just washed over me, next year i will have to take control of it!

we met (but, again, did not photograph) knitting celebrities, such as stitchy mcyarnpants, ann and kay, and jess & casey of ravelry, who were so sweet and seemed genuinely happy to meet all of the people that they have sucked into the world of ravelry. we also walked right past yarn harlot, but decided to not bother her since she was heading toward the front of the tent where she would be speaking to the waiting audience. i did get to see the finished kauni sweater, as she slowly walked by me, and it is gorgeous.

in addition to the yarn and wool for spinning, there were other non-yarn activities.

we stopped by the festival of cheese:

i did not partake of the free cheese.

considered eating a deep fried pickle, but then decided to pass:

we missed the sheep-herding dogs, but we did see the pumpkin chuckin’ competition.

some of the chuckers:

loading:

launching:

the pumpkins flew too quickly to capture on camera, though i tried. the pumpkins made a fantastic sound when they hit the ground at that speed! we got to see one of the teams actually hit the target, that was a real crowd-pleaser. speaking of crowds, there were a ton of people at the festival, but even so, it was surprising to see the huge crowd for this event:

the people, they love the pumpkin chunkin’ enough to step away from the yarn. perhaps, like me, they just needed to take a breather.

tom’s sister, jessica, her husband, mark and their little one, adam, came for a visit last week. for wanting a relaxing time, they sure did pack in quite a bit of action. we caught a few of the adventures on film.

we went to salem, ma:

went back to college to visit uncle will:

ignored mark’s protests and braved the butterfly conservatory:

(he looks thrilled, no?)

went apple picking in the rain:

where i taught jess that, to get the good apples, you have to ignore the wet and really get in there. note the differences between apple-picking student and teacher:

she still has much to learn.

and debated the question, “which are more fun, toys made for kids or toys made for dogs?”

a lovely, exhausting, time was had by all. and i have so far gotten two delicious pies out of our apple adventure.

psychically send a few good thoughts mark’s way, he left for iraq on saturday. we hope to see him safe, and home, soon.

i went swimming this weekend with friends (my first swim ever in a lake! i’m a jersey shore swimmer.) and on our way out of the forest we encountered this guy:

he was trying to cross the road, but was surely going to get crushed. as we stood there trying to decide how to help and who to call, a guy drove up, jumped out of the car, picked up the turtle and carried him to the other side of the road, explaining that he had done the same thing many times where he used to live.

the turtle was none to pleased to be off the ground and demonstrated exactly why he is called a snapping turtle. let’s just say, i do not recommend that anyone attempts to move a snapping turtle! this creature could have done some real damage to the guy carrying him.

he had a super-sharp beak, was very strong, and just look at those claws:

in the end, mr. turtle seemed happy to be on the other side of the road and scurried off into the woods.