Week 26 - Lawrence Trip Fail

So this was the week Anne and I had planned to drive to Winnipeg. It started as a 4 day trip - driving day one, 2 days in Winnipeg and one day home. But we weren't finding things to do in Winnipeg so had dropped it to just one day there, which seemed ridiculous with a 9 hour drive on each end. So we came up with a plan B. We decided to plan a Canada trip to Ontario maybe in the fall to hang with our knitting friends and just go to Lawrence, Kansas for a day trip on Tuesday.

It rained on and off Monday and that broke the heat and humidity we'd been suffering through. We started out early on Tuesday for the 3.5 hour trip to Lawrence, not giving the weather any thought. Well, we drove through torrential rain on the way down there and when we finally got past the rain, we were on the other side of the front and it was blazing hot - mid 90's and so much humidity that it felt over 100. We didn't realize this until we parked on Massachusetts Avenue (the main drag in the wonderful downtown) and got out of the car just before noon. Brutal!

We went into a cute paper store right in front of where we parked and asked them where to eat lunch. The sent us 2 doors down to Terrebonne Po' Boys and told us to get the turkey club and the bread pudding. As we were walking in, someone walking by told us to get the bread pudding too so that's what we did. We split the turkey club, got poutine fries and the bread pudding. It was all delish and the decor inside was fabulous - full of thrift store art grouped by like items. The hallway to the bathroom was hung with vintage calendar towels, there were needlepoint, crewel, paintings. Get a load of the sea captain grouping in this pic! This place was SO fun. And it was the highlight of the trip.

We went into the fabulous fabric store and I got a fat quarter of Charlie Harper bird fabric and Anne bought one with flags of countries so I can make her a travel knitting bag. We went up the street to Yarn Barn, where their sock section was so lackluster that I bought nothing. Me not buying yarn - shocking! I told them they needed to step up their sock section and they actually asked me for my favorite sock pattern and my 5 favorite companies/dyers, which they wrote down. Maybe there's hope. We started walking back towards the car, going into just a few shops before giving up because of the blazing heat. It was too miserable to shop so we didn't even do 2 blocks. Bummer. We hit a Goodwill and World Market on the way out of town, drove through DQ for a treat and headed home. It was a complete fail. Next time we do a road trip, I'll pay more attention to the weather.

It was good to be home on Wednesday and I invited Ana for supper, which meant I did some cleaning. We had pork chops, sweet corn and watermelon and chatted for a couple of hours. Nice.

Thursday was another lymphedema appointment but Cindy had cancelled lunch so I ate at home and headed south. I hit some thrifts after my appointment, got a frapuccino at Starbuck's (my first one of the summer), went to Aldi and still had time to kill. I went to the park where swimming would be at 6:15, downloaded a book to my phone and ate a wrap I'd bought at Aldi. Swimming was good, as always, and I headed home.

I had to be home all day Friday to wait for Windstream to come fix my internet, which had been flaking out for days, sometimes dropping 10 times in 5 minutes. When I got a text saying they'd be there between 3:00 and 5:00, I headed out to hit some garage sales because it was Wahoo's city-wide garage sale weekend. I just went up and down all the streets and found some treasures including some vintage linens, a cool sewing chest on legs and a few other fun things. I spent $17 on everything and had a fun morning out and about before it got too hot. The tech came and said he'd call me when he was done but never did. My internet was some better but clearly not fixed. Monday maybe?

I had a quiet, relaxing weekend. There was knitting, streaming and lots of reading. My cousin had asked me if I'd read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and so I'd taken it out of the library. I was 30 pages in when it started seeming familiar so I searched messages and found that I'd read it in 2022. I kept reading it since I couldn't remember details and Helen wanted to discuss it. I read each afternoon and finished it after swimming on Sunday night. It was a nice weekend after a pleasantly full week. I'll take it.