Hey, not to state the obvious, but I think I’ll let you in on a little secret.  I haven’t been around much on the inter-webs lately. Socking Shocking, I know.  Heh, I have been doing quite a bit of sock knitting too, but I can’t talk about a lot of it yet, because it’s going to be coming out in a few different places in the next months.  Details when I can talk about them, I promise.

So what’s been happening?  Well, let’s just say this is a bit of a story, so I’m breaking this up into two posts.

Last week Michael and I went on a short vacation in honor of his birthday to Ashland, VA, and then continued on to Richmond, VA and finally to his parents who live outside of Chapel Hill, NC.

The common question I was asked when I told people where we were going was, “Why Ashland?”

Well, if you look at Ashland on a map, it doesn’t seem to have much going for it.  It’s small, the town history is rather brief, as there have been no real major events in the town.  No one famous was born or died there.  No battles were fought, no slave uprisings or protests.  It’s a pretty quiet town.

Well, quiet in one way.  In other ways?  Not so much.  Because CSX has a train line that runs right through mainstreet.

And that meant there were trains.  Michael loves trains.

Michael and I have a list (we actually have many lists) of places we see when going someplace (say his parents) that we would like to stop and see one day.  It can be a restaurant, an antique store, a town, a museum  battlefield, anything really.  Ashland was one of them.  We have passed through Ashland every time we take the train to Michael’s parents.  The reason we take note of it is because Main Street is bisected by the train rails.  So there’s one lane of traffic, the rails, and another lane of traffic.  It seemed like a quirky town, with a general store that’s been operating for 120 odd years, old architecture and a quiet southern feel.

It was lovely.  We spent two nights (three days) in the town.  We visited a coffee shop, used bookstore (I found a few gems) and model train store.  We went to the Iron Horse, which had some of the most delicious food I’ve ever had the honor of encountering.  Seriously.  I’ve been to some good restaurants in DC, restaurants run by chefs from shows on TV, ones that have been written up in magazines.  This place ranked above them.  There was this chocolate pave (I think the word was) that blew my mind.  Also, gnocchi that was savory and rich, but the serving was just enough not not be overwhelming.  The almond encrusted chicken I had struck just the right notes with the mashed potatoes and green beans I had with it.  Seriously good.

The hotel we stayed at, The Henry Clay Inn, overlooks main street.  And it has a southern style porch, two floors.  After lunch, we plunked ourselves out on the porch, and Michael watched trains go by.  Me?  I swatched.  I had originally hoped to get yarns from a few different companies so I could work on some design deadlines that I have due later this month.  (It’s going to be a rather frantic few weeks).  For good or ill, they did not arrive by the time I left, so that meant I brought yarn to dream and plan.  I swatched for a few different design calls, and then, when I was done with that, I got to work on my own stuff!

I’m working on a doily to go on the hutch Michael and I are slowly refinishing.  I’m doing something freehand, which is entirely wonderful.  There’s some things I do in my own work that I sometimes find to hard to describe to people who read my patterns, so when I’m designing for magazines I sometimes follow conventions instead of doing what *I* like to do.  When I’m working my own projects, I’m also free to brainstorm ideas that aren’t firm enough to become a design proposal yet, but I need to work out on a piece.  It’s a quirk of mine that even my swatches have the potential to become part of other projects, or part of samples for teaching lessons.  I like everything to have at least two purposes.

One of the best parts of the trip was just watching Michael geek out over trains.  One of the most lovely things about him is that he brings the mind of a historian and researcher to almost everything he does.  So taking a trip to a train town means I get a guided exposition about train history.  Any question  I could have about trains, Michael can probably answer.  If he doesn’t know the answer to it, he knows where to find it.  I love that about him, because it always makes it incredibly interesting to talk to him about what he’s pasionate about.  This trip, Michael had recorded all scheduled trains that were supposed to go through the town.  Then, he tracked in a journal if they were running on time, late, their engine numbers, and a bunch of other information (so he can report back to his train friends on the Amtrak Forums).

 Since I do the same things with yarn, I guess it’s fair.