Good Morning from Talladega! Here's another quilt to view....

I don't have race pics yet. It's early and the sun is shining so everyone is up an at 'em, even if there isn't anything to do until a little later this morning.
(I'm Thrilled to see the sunshine!)
Anyway, I wanted to share a quilt from Paducah that I thought was interesting.
I was taken by the qilting....and I felt like I wanted to meet this quilter (if only for a minute) so I would know who had made it and what her inspiration was.

Tough to post today...

We are in Talladega right now. We had about 12 hours of heavy rains, with tornado warnings and watches all that time.
We were fortunate that we only had rain and wind.....we are safe along with the thousands of other that are here camping out.
Dissapointed that the race activities all had to be cancelled, but both races will be run tomorrow, weather permitting, so we will still have lots of fun.

Important Life Lessons....Part 1

This is the most important gauge on the motor home. It's more important than the gas gauge, more important than the oil light, and even more important than steam shooting out of your radiator.
This gauge tells you if your holding tanks are full.
(For those of you who are not aware of what a holding tank is, it's where the grey and black water are stored. To be more specific (and perhaps a bit more graphic) 4 lights lit would tell you that the shi**ers full.
I'll give you a moment to digest that information.


Now, when this occurs you should make plans to empty your tanks. You will know that you should do this when you see 3 of those 4 lights lit....You should not wait till you are ankle deep in water in your tiny little shower, with shampoo in your hair (and eyes) and no one around to hear you scream.
Fortunately for me, Tim heard me scream. He said "Oops".
It's sweet words like that, said by him, that that caused me to marry him. Really.

So Tim got ready. He put on his very expensive Clark's Driving Mocs and headed out to the side of the rv and got out the hose............
And discovered that the hose was too short.
Now...this is the point where, if you saw the Robin Williams movie RV...you know that you should start laughing.
Our very helpful neighbor who I called Wisconsin (cuz that's where he's from) came over immediately and saw that Tim had a problem and jumped right in to help.....Wisconsin is on the right....Tim is on the left.


Fortunatley for us, Wisconsin had an extra length of hose....and a COUPLER.
I thought that they had a hose spreader but I later found out that they had a simple screwdriver that they used to help slide the second length of hose onto the coupler (again...if you saw the movie you should also laugh here....

To Be Continued.....

Important Life Lessons...Part 2

So after lots of fiddeling, stretching, and more fiddling, and a little more stretching, the coupler was firmly attatched to the hose, the hose was fitted into the appropriate emptying place, and Tim flipped the lever to allow the grey and black water to exit the RV. I did my part by running water to help clean out the system, (and of course take pictures and laugh ALOT)
And after the valiant team effort of Tim, Wisconsin, and I, Tim was able to re-enter the rv to changed his clothes, laugh some more with me at the hilarity of the situation (and the similarity of our RV trips to that in the movie RV...).

Job well-done, Tim Grieser. You are The Master Of Your Domain!

World War 2 Quilts at the Paducah Rotary

And here you go chicks..........some more "Style"!

A few more quilts.................

Aren't these gorgeous?

Having a wonderful time.....Wish you were here!

Fashion Matters...............

These chicks have it going on. They've got style and they arent afraid to show it.

Yep........I love the Hawaiian Whole Cloth Quilts.........

I'll share more later.........We might head back to the show for a bit this morning...and then go to the local quilt show before we return our rental car and head back to the RV for the day.

There is a local racetrack that has a pretty big race tonight...so we might ck that out....and then we'll pack up, say goodbye to our new friends, and hit the road for Talladega!

More quilts!

Hexigons! Thousands of tiny hexigons!

We went to the museum the first day here. Not very big....not that many quilts (well, not as many as I was hoping to see.) Hollis Chateline (sp?) was there, speaking about her quits, and there was an exhibit of Sunflower quilts. Those were very nice. They made me want to go home and sew. The Beatles Quilt was there...and it was very cool to see that , indeed, all of the lyrics of all of the songs are written on the back of the quilt. Very Cool.

The Quilt Show

Yep. That's me. Posing in front of the goofy backdrop. I had a normal smile on my face until Tim said "Are you ready?" and then began a countdown. By then the smile had deteriorated and I was speaking through gritted teeth. Well, this is how I look when I'm almost mad enough to march forward and snatch the camera out of Tim's hands. My kids know this look. They saw it last Christmas when we were trying to take pics in front of the tree.

Loved this quilt....I think it's one of the few that were NOT made by a Japanese quilter (boy, there were LOTS of those at the show)

I saw the dots and thought of you first, Nancy. And then I thought of you, Faye (because of your current bom). Isn't this neat?

Here's a quit by one of my faves, Karen Stone. I sure wish that the colors were true in this pic...the quilt was really beautiful.

I can only load 5 pics at a time or my computer refuses to cooperate, so I guess you'll just have to wait for some more.

TTYL!

A Little Place We Like To Call Home

Yep. We are proud (temporary) residents of the Duck Creek RV Park.

This is our spacious camp spot. Shortly after this photo was taken we put the slide out about 6" out.....and rolled out the awning. Put down our rug (to accentuate the gravel) and unfolded our chairs.

This is Tim....seated in one of the gazebo's at the front of the park. Note the faux palm trees.

From this angle you can see some of the many, many potted plants.........real and otherwise.

Behind the main building is a laundry and a pool with a bath house. Haven't yet made use of either of those amenities yet, although this afternoon, after the quilt show, I did get a massage next to the pool. It was fabulous!

Gotta Sew Something....

Hey chicks!
I have stuff to post, but we just found out that there is a race at Paducah Speedway!!!!....and some of Tims fave drivers are going to be there. Gotta take a few minutes to plan that out (have to return the rental car....can we get there with the RV (i think so) & park for the race AND get back and pull into our teenie tiny camp spot in the dark?????)
So I need to work on that.
And I'm having a hot flash.
I've got to get out of this darn RV!

Hancocks of Paducah

They come from all over to go to Hancocks of Paducah....................................

The dusty lot was filled with cars from just about every state......

Some of the cars were filled with ladies....some were husbands and wives....Many, if not most,

had dogs in them.....(what is it with people traveling with dogs? Seems like a huge hassle to me!

But just about every one of those cars left loaded with incredible amounts of fabric.

Just not my car.

To tell you the truth, after the first few minutes of feeling overwhelmed when I walked in the door, I quickly became aware that this place, while HUGE, wasn't everything I had pictured it to be.

Yes, they had TONS of fabric...but it's everything you see in the catalog. Nothing more. Just rows and rows of bolts and bolts of fabric.

I didn't feel anything like I do when I walk into some of my favorite quilt shops and my heart sings and I get all excited about all the possibilities that are ahead of me.

I walked around the store twice before I decided to choose some solids for a small wall quilt that I've wanted to make.........and then I grabbed some scissors in case I wanted to start it before I got home (but I cant do that unless I go buy an iron somewhere)......

And that was all!

I spent less that $20 on fabric.

Hopefully I will find something different/unusual when we go to the show tomorrow.......

This afternoon we rented a car to get around easier, and we headed over to the Quilters Museum.

I'll tell you more about that later........................................

We Fought The Orange Cones....

And the orange cones won.
We were driving down the road...might have been on 71....when we came upon orange cones VERY haphazardly placed in the roadway. Some were placed on the line dividing the lanes...some were placed a foot over..some 2 ft or more inside the lane we were driving in. Tim did a great job of dodging those cones......the motor home moved smoothly along what I can only describe as an obstacle course....and the BAM! WE hit one that couldn't be avoided.
I screamed! (ok, I cursed).
Everything seemed ok. For a minute. That's when we heard the sound. Couldn't figure out what the heck it was. Some nice guy driving down the road put his window down and pointed at the side of the RV......and so Tim looked out the window and down toward the ground. The exhaust pipe from the generator was dragging on the ground.
Crap.
Of course, many people who drove past us also decided to point out our problem.
We saw an exit ahead and pulled off....just as the pipe let go and fell off, onto the roadway.
We parked the RV, and a Kentucky State Trooper, with great big smile on his face and a prisoner in back, pulled up along side of us to let us know that our generator exhaust had fallen off, and was just back aways......
We thanked him and got out of the RV.
Tim said to me "Go get that".

On the Road With Tim & Sharon

Hello from somewhere near Western Kentucky. Hanging out in a Holiday Inn Express, in a room across from the ice machine AND the laundry room. Don't be jealous...it isn't attractive and you know it.

The drive was very nice...Tim and I both remarked how easy the trip has been so far. I realized that it was because we didn't have a single unhappy child/teen/young adult in the car with us, making demands or faces or asking to go to the bathroom 30 mins after leaving a rest area or restaurant (Sorry Kids!)

My pics didn't load in the order I would have liked, as usual, but if you start from the bottom and work up you'll see Tim and I in front of the rig....and then various scenes of Ohio & Kentucky.

We stopped in KY and ate at Chipotle Mexican Grill. Never ate there but heard about it on Oprah. There is one near our home and I've never been there before...but I will go in the future because it was De-Lish! (Try it kids!)

Our room has in intoxicating damp smell (just down the hall from the pool), and although Ive tried to mask it by spraying Bath and Body Works Lavender Vanilla spray I'm not noticing much of a difference. Oh well. With a little help from my Bag of Tricks I'll be asleep in no time.......and since I'm only steps away from the breakfast room I'll be up bright and early, grabbing coffee & something carb-a-licious for breakfast.

I'll be back (hopefully) tomorrow to fill you in on the next leg of our journey, which should take us to Duck Creek RV Resort...which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Paducah!

TTYL Ya'll!

S