Somehow it’s been a month since I last posted. It’s just been in the the last couple days that I’ve managed to catch up with my photo a day postings on Flickr (and Facebook, because some of us in the group are doing it in both places this year), so now I feel I’m finally able to write a few words about the two trips I’ve taken since the last one I did an entry about.

In August, I flew to Detroit, slept at an airport hotel, then drove to Toronto for nail polish fun at Indie Expo Canada. The expo was only one day, but there were workshops and other ancillary events to attend as well, and since I was coming so far, I went ahead and signed up for some of those, too. My favorite part was the polish making workshop; I’ve done them before but every time is different and there are always way more ideas than time to make them real. I wrote in detail about my creations on my nail blog. I liked the expo for sure, it just was a touch stressful for me as I’d agreed to be a “fairy” for three ladies who couldn’t make it, meaning they’d sent me money to buy them things available at the show, some of which were in short supply, so it was a lot of scrambling and texting back and forth when I found some things were sold out. It all worked out in the end but it was definitely not as much fun as just wandering around and seeing what caught my eye as I’ve done the past two years.

Given this is the third time I’ve been to the expo and it’s been in the same hotel each time, I’m starting to get comfortable with navigating to and from it (my budget doesn’t stretch to actually staying at the host hotel) but the parking always confuses me. Not getting to it—it’s right under the hotel—but paying for it. Depending on what day it is and when you get there and what else is going on in the area it may be anywhere from $8 for the day, payable to a machine, to $15 for the day, payable to an attendant, who after you pay tells you it’s only good until 7 p.m. and if you’re staying later (which I was) you’ll have to come back and pay another $15 for the evening, but if you’d told him ahead of time, you could have paid $25 for the day plus evening. (I did not go back and pay extra for the evening, just took my chances and it turned out okay.) I was hoping to see my cousin who lives in the area but when I contacted her on Facebook (because I’d seen her posting there), she replied (on Facebook) that she doesn’t have an internet connection at home so never browses Facebook anymore and could I send her an email instead but in any case she wasn’t going to be in Toronto when I was so we never did get together.

After Toronto, I went back to the Detroit area. I had a few days before the long weekend craft conference I’d signed up for; I spent one mostly relaxing at the hotel (it would have been more relaxing if my room key hadn’t stopped working when I went to the hot tub and pool and enjoyed having them to myself), recharging after all the peopling I did at the expo. Refreshed, I jammed in as many lunches and dinners with friends as I could, which was not enough, and visited The Henry Ford to see the Star Trek exhibit, which surprisingly made me feel emotional a few times, reading and hearing about the hopeful vision of the future portrayed in the show and then contrasting that with where it seems we’re actually heading. I wrapped up my trip with the craft conference, where I played with fiber all day and stuffed myself with as much shawarma as I could on meal breaks since I don’t have that opportunity at home. Then I flew home, laying over in Salt Lake City.

(Photo set from this trip is here.)

After I got home, we hosted family for the end of summer festival on the mountain. It was a fun time with beer and cider and live music and gourmet grilled cheese and lots of hanging out time. On the final day for summer season, Mr. K and I rode the lift up to say goodbye to the view from the top for a few months, checking on the progress of the construction of the new lifts one last time before we’d see them in operation.

After the lift stopped spinning, there was still a bit more summer travel. Mr. K headed east for a long road trip, while I held down our home fort, except for taking a quick weekend trip to Portland. I had some good meals, met up with a friend from the early days of the internet and a friend from my Flickr photo group, and wandered around IKEA before I headed home because I can’t do that up here, either.

(Photo set from my Portland trip is here.)

Since I’ve been home I’ve been playing with nail polish and trying to impose some order on the chaos that is the storage unit/studio space. I haven’t had huge success with the latter but have made some progress which is better than no progress. Soon enough it’ll be ski season, which means less time for other projects. It feels like ski season now, as the first snowstorm of the season is rolling through this weekend with high winds and low temps. I’m wearing layers inside and put the electric blanket on the bed last night for the first time since we took it off last spring—it was glorious.