Almost Heaven--West Virginia

Welllll, that may be overstating it a bit.  I'm a city girl after all.  But I wanted to catch you up on the trip we took last week.

First, a little background:  DH is an amateur radio operator and participates in various nets on the radio.  The founders of one such net decided to have a get-together at Beech Fork State Park near Huntington, West Virginia.  We looked at the park's website, saw that the cabins looked really nice, and decided to go.  It was a good decision because we had a wonderful time with a great group of people.

Here is half of the Southpaw Stitcher staff

on the front porch of our cabin.

It was the smallest cabin they had.

The stairs to the right lead to the back porch

which runs the entire length of the cabin.

Two bedrooms, huge living/dining room,

and a full kitchen complete with dishwasher!

All the comforts of home!

Actually, more than the comforts of home,

because we do not own a big flat screen TV!

Only one other XYL came to the get-together.

"What's an XYL?" you ask.

In amateur radio lingo, an unmarried gal is a YL -- young lady.

A married woman is an XYL.

So most amateur radio operators refer to their wives as their XYLs.  (sigh)

The other "XYL" had the same first name as me,

and her interests were...

...stitching and quilting!

What are the odds?

Both of us were glad the other had come.

One of the group activities was a trip to

the Museum of Radio and Technology.

No, it wasn't boring!

They had a lot of interesting old stuff

that a lot of us geezers used to own

and had fond memories of.

There was a large Nipper display--he's the RCA dog.

Lots of old radios, TVs and computers.

I even managed to find some hand embroidery there.

Those are tiny satin stitches with cutwork!

Our last morning there, we awoke to find

what appeared to be an entire herd of deer

outside our front door.

They were entirely too tame.

This mom and baby were no more than 20 feet away from us!

I, of course, started a small project while I was on the trip:

the third square from Laura J. Perin's

American Quilt Collection, Holiday Ornament series.

This is how far I had progressed by the time the trip was over.

Canvaswork goes fast!

To see the other two squares I made last year,

go here and here.

That's it for now.

I'll be doing my best to hermit and stitch this weekend.

To find out what that's all about, go to Joyce's blog.

It's not too late to join in on the SAL!

Have fun this weekend.

And thanks for visiting!