Aug 11 2006
Away Away
It’s August. So, that means that nearly everyone is on vacation. Isn’t that how it works in Europe? We need that in the U.S.
I love to travel. Nearby or faraway: not quite the “anywhere but here” mentality, but more like a “fit it all in while I can” sort of thinking. I have seen much of the United States; my family moved about every three years when I was in elementary school, both in the east and the west, and north and south. It is easier to count the states that I have not been to – eleven – than the other way around. Of course, I hope to visit these remaining states someday soon.
And I have only been to one TWO other countries (I forgot to count that one day in Mexico – so TWO countries! oops, mis apologías) I need to visit more. I want to fill my passport with stamps stamps stamps. I am working on that one – maybe in 2008 when I finally finish school.
We try to take one big vacation a year, and a few small roadtrips in between. This year, we have been south (Alabama), north (New York), east (Maryland beach), and in November, we will go west (California). We will be in San Francisco for four days (one day we will be down in Monterey) and then up in Napa Valley for the remainder of the trip. I am so excited as I have only been to the SF airport en route to Hawaii, last fall. It is the perfect time for a getaway celebration too – two weeks after I take the comprehensive examinations for my MLS degree! 
If you have some CA travel tips (restaurants, museums, stores, etc.) please let me know! I should have some free days for lunch and knitting too if any Bay Area knitters are interested in a meetup!
… I am also putting together a little romantic get-away for our upcoming fifth anniversary this winter… Green Mountain state is at the top of the list. I talked to Megan (who recently moved from the NYC to VT) and it just looks like the perfect place for a long winter weekend…
I often look back through my vacation photos just to relive it all. There were quite a few neutral photographs in my albums…
North Shore, Oahu – October 2005
Avdat, Israel – June 2000
Qumran, Israel – July 2000 (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found!)
Ocean City, MD – June 2006
Have you been on your vacation yet? I would love to hear about it!
(In other words, help me satisfy my wanderlust with your stories!)
Oh … you are coming to SF? You MUST MUST MUST pay a visit to ArtFibers in SF … I don’t have the address here right now, but you can google it. And you must prepare to stay there for a longer time … not like me, I didn’t have time to try the yarn-tasting there!
It’s in downtown area, so if Kris is not willing to stay that long with you, he can always find some place to go … don’t worry!
Vermont is great in the winter. I don’t really know where would be a good place to visit. I grew up in the Champlain valley, and since we didn’t ski, I don’t know much about the more visited parts.
I miss Israel. I lived there most of my life and now I’m studying in Canada. The pictures of Israel that you show on your website are so heart warming..it’s like going home. I used to live in the southern part, in the desert and I visited those places numerous times and it never gets boring.
Thanks for the beutiful pics.
While we were visiting my in-laws in CT at the end of May, we went to New Hampshire, through Franconia Notch and the White Mountains. It’s beautiful country!
In 2 weeks, we’re going back to the Outer Banks in NC with our friends for a big 30th birthday extravaganza! I can’t wait to go back, my family has vacationed there for years. It’s changed quite a bit over time, become more commercial whcih I find a little discouraging, but it’s still beautiful, if you can look past the eleventy billion identical new beach houses.
Rafael and I went to the Oregon Coast a couple of weeks ago and Oh. My. God. It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. So much green everywhere! And I love the ocean.
Monterey is awesome! I miss living down there so, so much. I miss the ocean! You have to visit Big Sur. It’s just down highway 1 from Monterey. Not a long drive at all. Point Lobos is a state park just south of Carmel (which you should also visit) and has some gorgeous views! I am so envious! And San Francisco is the best city. I wish I was still there so I could meet you
We go up to our in laws cottage and stay for a week every summer. The kids love it because there’s a little beach with in walking distance. I love it because of all the beautiful mountains and at night it was wonderful to have all the windows open and let the breeze blow through while I knit. I wish we could go back! I love Vermont it’s a wonderful wintery get away.
Lolly, I feel the same as you…I have the traveling bug so badly (though the recent air travel news has been discouraging). We just came back from a week in Cape Cod, which has beautiful oceanside scenery and quaint little cottages with rose arbors. It’s fun to bike along the little neighborhoods and then stop for ice cream.
Last year my husband and I went to Bermuda and it was breathtaking. The water really is the color that you see in those coffeetable books — bright blue. All of the houses are pastel colors, dotted along the shores, with pretty gardens and unusual flowers. Everywhere you look, it’s magical. If you ever have the chance to go, I highly recommend it.
I haven’t travelled yet this summer but in 32 days I’m winging off to London and Paris and I. CAN’T. WAIT!!! I’ve been pre-traveling via guidebook for weeks now.
I was in SF about a month ago. If the weather isn’t too cold you should go down to fisherman’s wharf and take a boat tour. There are tons of little boats that go around the bay, we went under the golden gate bridge and around alcatraz. It took about an hour and was only 10 bucks. And it was really fun. If you get out to Berkley go on a tour at Schaffen Berger chocolates. It was fun and there was lots of great chocolate to try. I want to go back to CA already.
Well, since I’m not working, we could only afford a small get-away this year. We went to Cape May, NJ for a few days for our anniversary. But you know, it was just as perfect as a big trip away . . . . we had the most wonderful time!! Although we are hoping to make it to Italy – maybe next year.
Almost all Europe has their 4 weeks of holiday. In Sweden, the big holiday month is july! But I´m joining the rest of Europe with my August holiday!! This year I have my move, so I only take day trips around Stockholm. Check my blog/flickr for my trip to Vaxholm today!
Wonderful pictures!
We are off to an inn in Vermont next week! I’ll send you a review when I get back. (David has a work retreat there and Son and I are tagging along for the views of the water and the cool breezes.)
Vermont sounds perfect. We will be moving there in early 2008 – we’ve been planning it since we had our legal wedding ceremony in Burlington, in January 2003! It’s very romantic and it is wonderful for crafts and organic farming. Burlington has great restaurants, and of course, Vermont has the best cheese in the world, Cabot’s 5 Year Cheddar!
Since I live here – I have to vote for the White Mountains of New Hampshire…North Conway or Conway are beautiful…cute little towns, great restaurants and B&Bs. Actually, all of New Hampshire is beautiful.
But, then and again, we are on the Vermont border where we live and are often over there. It is beautiful…
And, Maine isn’t far either…from the western side of the state it takes about 2 hours to get over to Maine…
So many choices!!!!
I spent my vacation putting in a new wood floor with hubby. Not fun by a long shot. But oh so pretty!
Yay California! I’m from California, so if you have specific questions, I can probably answer them. However, I haven’t really “traveled” there for vacation (it still mostly feels like home) so I don’t know much of what to tell you off the top of my head, except that you are going to have a great time!
When you go to SF, you should check out Imagiknits! I loved the store. And kitty corner to the yarn shop is the Samover Tea Lounge. Nice nice nice! Very yummy food!
Email me before you go to Napa – I know the area very well!!! (That may be a good or bad thing…. )
Hello from San Francisco! ArtFibers is a must, it’s so unique because they only carry their own brand of yarn. It’s right downtown near Union Square. I’ve taken several classes there (including Beginning Knitting!) and have also done about 3 of their customized/computerized patterns. If you buy the yarn there, the pattern is done for you at no extra charge. They take a few measurments and voila! I did my first-ever sweater that way and couldn’t believe it when it fit.
How nice to live in walking distance of ArtFibers, ha ha!
I also agree about Imagiknits, it is a wonderful yarn store. So much in one place, really fun. Enjoy San Francisco!
We usually go abroad on vacation (I’m norwegian), but we have so many beautiful places to see in our own country….. This year we spent our vacation in one of my favourite places; Gaustablikk in Telemark. Way up in the mountains, beautiful scenery, especially our trip to Hardangervidda! Gaustatoppen is one of Norways highest mountins… I didn’t go but my hubby and my 11 year old son climbed all the way up
May I suggest Norway for your next trip abroad
Look at the new skinny Lolly picture! Check you out sister!
California’s going to be amazing!!!
I’ve been to SF, and Napa and Monterey…and Sacramento and other parts of the Bay Area… I’m probably moving there next year. That’s the plan, anyway. I think it’s my favorite area of the country. 
(Not that I have a lot to compare it to, but I’m in love!)
booo hooo, no vacation for me! whaaa! well, not entirely true … my mom called last week and told me that she put my name on a list to go down to haiti with some of my parent’s physician friends to do a week or two of volunteer work. bless mom! i’ve never been to haiti, but i look forward to it very much!
As a (former, but still in love with it) New England girl, I can vouch for Vermont. Personally, I’d rather visit in the summer, but I never was one for cold weather. HOWEVER, if you find the perfect B&B with a large fireplace, you are in for a great time!
I vacationed to New England this summer. I spent most of it on a lake in NH, but also spent some time in ME (where I’m from) and in MA with family. It was a great time, although the mosquitoes were awful. (ok….that’s a great reason to visit in the winter. No bugs.) There are a few pictures over on my blog. I think they’re somewhere in the July archives, if you’re interested.
Oh how I wish you were flying into LA instead of SF! I’d love the chance to meet you.
A family friend is sous chef at Butterfly in SF. Great Asian Fusion cuisine! Please check it out. If you are interested in the website, please email me at knitaholicsky AT gmail DOT com. Perhaps I could get in touch with him and let him know you’ll be visiting…
Those are great photos… My big vacation this year is a knitblogger’s tour of the west – I’m driving out to the Taos Wool Festival and Albuquerque, visiting bloggers on the way out and back.
Ooh! ooh! I love Monterey! I was just there. Try to find time to get to Monarch Knitting and Quilts, in Pacific Grove. It’s right “down the street” from the Monteray Aquarium which has an extremely cool jellyfish exhibit going on.
Oooo, you’re coming to SF Bay Area! I live there!! Monterey is fabulous, and there’s lots of knitterly things to do in the City and Oakland.
Love the pictures of Israel. Especially the arches.
I love Newfoundland. Beautiful countryside, the Atlantic Ocean, the easternmost point of North America (Cape Spear), history galore, watching the icebergs drift by in the spring, whale and bird sanctuary tours, hiking/skiing in the mountains, and the deepest inland harbour in the world (St John’s Harbour).
Not to mention the friendliest people you’ll ever meet. Stay in a B&B and you’ll have new friends for life plus more than likely get invited to a “kitchen party” or two. Plenty of “wobbly pop”, music, singing and maybe a dance or two.
Thanks for the birthday wishes! I appreciate it!
We vacationed at Lake Tahoe this year. I’d only ever been there in the winter before and enjoyed seeing the lake in the summer.
There are lots of great yarn stores in and around San Francisco. Imagiknit, ArtFibers, Article Pract in Oakland, etc.
Unless you’re getting on a boat out into the bay stay away from Pier 39/Ghirardeli Square/Fisherman’s Wharf – it’s a complete tourist ghetto. There’s so many other wonderful parts of the city – the Mission, SOMA, the Castro, etc.
Bring warmer clothes than you would think – it’s cold in San Francisco in the summer, especially at night.
And lastly, I live in the Bay Area and would love to try to get together for a meetup…
Hi Lolly.
I was in Brittany last week. Here are a few neutral pictures of my trip!
http://creatilfun.blogspot.com/2006/08/little-more-of-brittany.html
I have been to Lesbos, Greece and you can read about it at my blog: http://astridpersons.typepad.com. Although my homecountry the Netherlands is beautiful to camp out, the weather sucks over here: it’s mostly raining, windy. We do have good weather in summer but you can’t rely on it. My husband had only 1 (one!) week vacation so we went te Greece where we were sure about the weather. It was a wonderful vacation: relaxing, delicious food, nice people, great scenery.
Hubby and I are planning a trip to Barcelona in November (cross my fingers) to finally celebrate our honeymoon. I can’t wait! Then soon after that we are off to Utah to see my stepson for the Holidays.
When I was in graduate school I had the opportunity to visit Chile and Costa Rica. Oh, the memories! Both experiences were amazing.
Costa Rica is such a beautiful and fun country. You get to see the volcanos and eat the delicious food. YUM! And then there’s Chile…where you get to go to so many interesting places, from the very small, traditional towns…to the super touristy Vina del Mar. It’s just breathtaking.
Of course, you can’t leave SF without visiting that 4 story fabric store! I can’t remember the name, though. But you’ll find just about any fabric all over the world, plus buttons, plus gorgeous lace, etc. etc. It’s been there for years.
I live in SF so if you want recommendations as you get closer, let me know. I’m on Weight Watchers now, so I know where all the good food is….haha! I’d say skip Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 and go to the Ferry Building and Chrissy Field instead! Walk the Golden Gate Bridge! Have a cup of handmade coffee at Philz (Just across from Imagiknit) and some divine pastries at Tartine, Citizen Cake or Victoria Pastry. Have a meal at Greens and climb some of the hidden staircases in North Beach. The neighborhoods are where it’s at….
Sounds like a great vacation. We’re having two weeks off near the end of the month for a bit of pottering at home then exploring our bit of the UK.
Um, so, we go on vacation every weekend. We’re on the Virginia shore of the Chesapeake Bay. My parents literally “bought the farm” and we decided to build a house on it next to them for weekends and holidays. Right now I am watching a sailboat go out to the bay and a speedboat head in from the bay. Meanwhile on the front side of the house some horses are milling about on the neighbor’s farm and a black lab is walking through our field. It ain’t Europe but it’s good cheating for a couple Americans. Oh, and there’s an astonishing yarn shop here.
There’s a restaurant in SF called Squat and Gobble. They serve crepes like you would not believe. Yum!
It’ll be our fifth anniversary Friday .. ack! Friday! Happy Early Anniversary!
As for vacations, we went to the mountains of Tennessee this year in April, and last November we took a short trip to NYC. The trip to the mountains was nice. We rented a cabin with not much of a view, and enjoyed short little trips here and there, and just enjoyed being out of the house for a while.
We tend to go on vacations when other people aren’t .. we don’t like the masses of people that we would run in to other times, so our vacations tend to be in March/April/May and September/October.
You are going to have the best time in California! We were there last there in September. We stayed in Sonoma and it was a great location – close to Napa and the Russian River valley and the shore.
I love to travel too – I had a great opportunity to travel to Europe after college – I backbacked through Europe for 3 months and had a great time!
We try to go on a vacation once a year too. We go to London quite often – since I spent a semester there for school – it feel like my second home. We spent two weeks in Scotland in April – it was amazing. I highly recommend it!
Wow, you have a lot of vacationing on your plate missy! I’ve never been to the west coast myself, so I’ll be anxious to hear your stories! A good friend of mine just moved to San Francisco, so hopefully a trip out there will be possible in the next year or so. Napa Valley sounds amazing! For now, I’m just enjoying vacationing in my own home, since I still haven’t totally got it in my head that I *live* here now. I’m here for all the getaway planning assistance you may need – and looking forward to seeing you!!
Oh! Napa is fabulous!! You will love it! There is a culinary place called Copia (I think that is the name, it at least starts with a C) that is gorgeous. They have a great kitchen area and a fun museum, I think you can take cooking classes there too.
I LOVERMONT, or as I like to say ‘Vermit’. Are you going North or South for your trip later this year?
I have been in Sweden this summer… we drove for a while and slept in out newly bought tent. It is a fun thing to do when you have three boys (aged 3½, 5 and 6½)…
Like Bente B I’ll suggest Norway for your next long trip. We have lots of wonderful wool here…. and then you could meet Bente B and me… after all…we don’t live that far apart..
you’re right you don’t have the corner on rainbows, but i think they might have mentioned the project. i didn’t look too hard, but i didn’t see any mention in the spread. still i guess it is pretty cool to be inspiring the mags, even if you aren’t mentioned. imitation=flattery, right?
Ahhh, Monterey! It’s beautiful!! Dh and I got to go there a couple years ago on a free (business-related) trip. I can recommend the Montery Plaza Hotel & Spa, and the aquarium on Cannery Row. Get to the bay first thing in the am and watch the sea otters. Carmel is a short ride away and also gorgeous. Have fun!
I’m about to go on my fourth vacation this year, a road trip to Alabama with my sister and daughters to visit my grandmother. My other vacations were two wedding-weekends, one in chicago and one in san juan, Puerto Rico– two really amazing and wonderful trips– and a short stay at a Maryland beach with my dad and kids!
I love traveling too– there are still so many places on my destination list, like Costa Rica, El Salvador, Brazil, Ireland, Greece, Turkey, Japan, Australia, Russia, and more!
Vermont is really pretty (and they have great yarn!).
We just got back from our vacation – a week on Cape Cod. It passed too quickly, as vacations often do.
I was lucky enough to go to Italy (Tuscany region) with Debbie Stoller for Stitch N Bitch Tuscany. It is so beautiful there. Check out my June archieves for pictures. Cortona is a wonderful place for a romantic get-away. In Florence, there are three yarn shops including a yarn factory outlet!
There are many things about European culture that I think we should adopt here. A full month of vacation is one of them! I’d also like a 30-hour workweek. And more pastries. Definitely more pastries.
Sometimes living in Lexington still feels like being on vacation. We never seem to run out of things to do here. Which is good, because we never seem to go anywhere! I’ve been itching to run off to Mexico for a couple of weeks. Sit on a beach, be lazy, read trashy novels. Ahhhhh….
The 4-story fabric store in San Francisco is Britex. On Geary near Stockton. A whole floor of remnants last time I was there! It’s about a 5 minute walk from ArtFibers, by the way.
What a lovely blog entry. Vacations sound wonderful. My sweetie and I are going up to Tomales Bay to eat oysters, ride our bike and knit. Well, I’ll be knitting at least. And then Mexico for our honeymoon in November.
SF has some wonderful knit shops all over the place. Imaginknit is a great one that shouldn’t be missed. And a lot of people also like Art Fibers. I know you are not buying yarn right now, but still such fun to check out the different stores and such.
Britex is wonderful, but a touch on the spendy side, but you must go to the buttons store. It’s the perfect place to buy buttons for any knitting you might be doing in the near future.
Speaking of buttons, there is this other store called General Bead, which has beautiful beads, but a great selection of unique buttons as well.
Sint Maarten for me next February! Orlando for Xmas! I love to travel.
I love seeing your pics of israel.
Hey Lolly!
We returned last week from 10 days in Alaska. The state is gorgeous, and DH and I fell in love with it. I have pictures on my blog at http://www.irishcloverknits.blogspot.com. Honestly, 10 days is not enough time in Alaska and we are already planning our next trip. Have fun in SF! If luck is with us, we’ll be traveling to CA before the end of the year. Oh, and FYI, if you go to Canada, you have to ask for a stamp in your passport. They don’t stamp it by default, or at least they didn’t in Vancouver.
I live way up the coast from SF, but visit there often. If you are staying in the Napa area, be sure to visit Calistoga. It is a quaint town with wine tasting and spas. I went there for a mud bath once. I was skeptical, but it was terrific. Helena is also a very sweet spot for wine-tasting. There’s even a train ride you can take — do the lunch run so you can see the countryside.
Just got back from Europe. And I know what you are saying about filling your passport with stamps. That is my goal! And in France … they didn’t stamp me. I was so mad afterward. I didn’t realize it until I had walked away from Customs. So all I got was a stinking stamp from Amsterdam … since I flew home out of Schipol. Not one stamo from a country I visited on this trip. BOO!