Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Have Knitting Will Travel




As George Clinton once famously said: if you hear any noise, its just me and the boys.

And if you were anywhere near the northern end of Washington's Kitsap peninsula this past weekend, there's a very good chance you understood precisely what he meant. 




Assuming, of course, he was referring to the sound of three wild and crazy guys traveling around, playing the banjo, knitting and generally carousing.





This past weekend was the inaugural voyage for the newest member of the TSMK family.  Her name is Lillian, and she is a 1975 Volkswagen Campmobile.  In a word, she is awesome.

In several words, she is also loud, slow, lurchy and smells vaguely of mildew.  Or rather she did smell vaguely of mildew.  Now, she smells more like a grimy 7 year old boy.

For our first excursion, Lillian carried me and the two older boys to the banks of the Hood Canal on Friday evening, where we were treated to a spectacular view of the Perseid meteor shower.


On Saturday, she brought us to a local state park, where we camped within 100 unobstructed yards of the shores of the Puget Sound.  That evening, we hosted another family at our campsite.  They are friends who know very well the sounds described by Mr. Clinton - for they have three boys of their own.  A campfire was built.  Hotdogs, bratwurst and hamburgers were cooked.  Marshmallows were toasted.  And a great time was had by all.


And after our friends had gone, and the two older guys and I settled in for another evening of Lillian's hospitality, I pulled out the knitting.  It was fantastic, and I didn't think it could get any better.  At least not without a scoop or two of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream.  But then morning arrived, with a brilliant sunrise shining through Lillian's windshield, and Mrs. TSMK arriving with steaming mugs of cocoa for the boys and coffee for me.  We finished our drinks, and took a long walk on the beach.


After Mrs. TSMK left with the boys, I tidied up our campsite.  Not wanting to wake the campers in the adjacent site, I took a few more minutes to knit, practice the banjo, and enjoy the scenery before firing up her mighty 1.8 liter air-cooled engine and heading for home. 

~TSMK

4 comments:

  1. LOVE your VW, especially the colour. We saw meteors too, lying on our trampoline and watching the sky.

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  2. Nicolaknits - Glad you got to see the meteors as well. It was a pretty amazing sight.

    Love Lillian - but not sure about the color myself. She was originally a cream white, and will need to be repainted soon. We haven't picked out a new color yet - maybe I'll throw that out to the blogosphere for suggestions when the time comes.

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  3. That's my idea of a great holiday! :) Lillian is wonderful. I miss our trailer days. :) samm

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  4. My VW van was named Scarlett. Guess what color? Anyway, so glad you got to enjoy the weekends out with her. I loved that you could put anything into it that you might imagine you would long for when away from home without issue and go. Kids, tents, multiple coolers, multiple tents, dogs and knitting and you're off! ~t

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