What I have been up to

We are not usually spontaneous people, we like to plan. However we surprised ourselves and with only 4 days notice packed the camper, ATV and kayaks and took off to Wisconsin to hit some ATV trails. We found nice weather in the 70's and low humidity(important to me!). Three days of riding the trails. We crossed over many bridges, but man this one was a honey, long, wide and well built it spanned over the Chippewa River. 

We rode through lots of forest, if we kept going the bugs didn't bother us, but if we stopped watch out as they were ready for lunch, LOL.  We had to find a clearing so we could eat our own lunch without as many bugs.  And after lunch we came upon wild blackberries, what a delicious treat.

We did manage to get the kayaks in the river on the last day. Then another spontaneous moment...hubby found another trail about an hour away from our camp. Because we rode all the trails in our first area we decided to pull the camper with the toys to a different campground and ride that trail too. 
Then the next day, on the way home I visited two Mennonite fabric shops.  Brubakers and Pine Hollow, if you were looking for quilt shop fabric they had good prices on it.  I found these panels and well I had to support the shop right!!

This pumpkin one is really crooked! But I will work with it to straighten it out, cut it apart and make into three wall hangings instead of one. 

The cardinals were so vibrant I couldn't pass it up. 

And well the Blue Jays was such a pretty blue, I was surprised it was flannel, a very soft one. If I get time this year I will make them into wall hangings, if not they will still be here for next year;)

Now that I am home I am back at the long arm a few days this week. I put this one on the frame yesterday and hope to finish it today.  I might add it is good weather to stay inside and quilt as the temps are up there and it's very humid again, uggh.

Linking with Sew and Tell Monday, Monday Musings and Design Wall Monday.

17 Days of mostly fun!

 Seventeen days of fun in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  The first night we boondocked/dry camped at a place called Dude ranch on the Missouri River. Boondocking means no hookups, no electric, water or sewer. We don't need that in the camper, we have generators and tanks for water etc. It was so peaceful there even with 6 other campers, we were all spread out. 

Before we crossed the river, we pulled into the rest area and met Destiny.  Wow is she magnificent!  Even hubby enjoyed seeing her.  One just doesn't realize just how tall she is until you are standing at the base of her. 

Next stop was boondocking south of Lead, SD for 4 nights and riding some ATV trails in that area. We met up with hubby's cousin, wife and their friends to ride with. We had rain on Friday and we chose to drive the Spearfish Canyon in the truck.

 On the way to the Hills our truck had a warning light come on. So we stopped at a service dept. in Spearfish and they said to come in on Monday morning.  We then found a campground there and booked 3 nights. On Monday afternoon they said they had to order a whole new exhaust system and it would take 5-7 days coming by truck from Michigan.  WHAT...we hadn't planned on being in Spearfish at all.  We ended up there for 11 days.  What he hadn't told us was that was 5-7 days was after it shipped and didn't include the weekend.  We were lucky the campground could accommodate us that long.  We had a beautiful spot, the back of our toy hauler opened to a nearby walking path and a stream, yes we could see part of the stream and hear the water. 

The weather was gorgeous there too, no humidity and 70's and low 80's.  We now can say we know the ATV trails there really well, haha. That was our past time. It had rained there on that Friday so the trails were muddy, ummm not just muddy, there were cows all over there and you know what that means.  Our ATV got pretty dirty!  

Here are a couple sites we saw as we rode around on the ATV.

We were kinda upset it was taking so long to get the part in but we made the best of our time sightseeing.

I did get to a couple of quilt shops out there. I might have bought a couple more panels. I couldn't resist getting a Gnome one! And I found a red truck panel, one that I had made up last year and promptly sold it, looked for more then and couldn't find. This shop only had one left so I snatched it up!  I did have my sewing machine along and pieced 5 runners in our down time.  On the way home we were able to stop and see my old roommate from single days. She and her hubby live on a farm and let us camp there overnight. It was great getting to see them as it had been 14 years since we were together. 

My question for all of is have you ever been to the Black Hills?  We have several times and did all the touristy things then so we didn't really do that this time. So much beauty in this area. I highly recommend it.  Hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend.

A little trip and then sewing

Happy August!!

So last week the hubby and I took a little trip to Wisconsin to camp in a State Forest campground. And to ATV on three of the trails nearby.  The first trail wasn't very exciting, now I don't like a lot of excitement on the trails but there was none on this one. The next day we did another and it was better with a few mud puddles(that we went around). Pretty trees all around.

The third was even better with some twists and turns and lots more mud holes. The night of the third day we had a T-storm roll through, it really rained, but we were in amongst the trees and didn't think it was very windy.  We took a walk around the campground in the morning and there were lots of twigs/leaves scattered on the road through the camp.  When we got to the beginning of the camp road there was a crew working to cut and haul away a big tree that fell down across the road.  Further down the road in the camp was a tenter who had a scare, a tree fell across their camp missing their tent by a foot!!  Luckily no one was injured.

We decided to go kayaking that day because the ATV trails were closed due to the storm. The water in this lake was so clear and the lake is super deep, over 300 feet. 

The last morning we went for a walk on the nature trail. Pretty scenery for sure, plus we ate our way through by picking wild blackberries  YUM!

How crazy that a tree can grow amongst the rocks!

Upon arriving home a flock of 5 adult turkey and a bunch of little ones came through our backyard. I couldn't get all of them in one photo.  It's so fun to see them pecking and eating their way through the yard, they take a step and then peck, take a step and then peck. A few of them were taking a drink from our pond too.

Saturday was back to sewing, I mean I was having withdrawals as I didn't take a machine or any project with me!  I finished up these two runners. I have a tutorial for this round one under my Tutorial page under my header.

I hope you will stop back on Wednesday to see something new I whipped up, a little hint...it's orange!

Linking with:

Monday Making

Design Wall Monday 

Just letting you know there is an Accuquilt Live event tomorrow Tuesday August 3rd.  It is a "Die To Try" series.  You can learn more about the upcoming events HERE.