Estes Park

I’ve been visiting my friend Alison for the past week. She lives near Denver, and about an hour’s drive from Estes Park, so we went up to the Estes Park Fiber Festival this past weekend.

The first thing I discovered was that Colorado is not California. Surprise! It rains in Colorado! In June! T’aint natural, I tell you…t’aint natural.

You’d think, of course, that this should be obvious. But I’ve been living in California for almost 30 years now, and rain between the beginning of June and October is practically unheard-of. So every time I travel during the summer, two things happen: (1) I marvel at how different other places are from California, weather-wise, and (2) I get wet, because why on earth should I bring an umbrella?

So I was startled to discover actual, real live weather in Colorado. And not only weather, but hail! In June!

But there it was, undeniable hail, along with torrential rain:

Fortunately, the hail didn’t last long, and we were able to get back to the hotel without getting totally soaked.

Which brought me to the next hint that we were no longer in California:

I confess that being trampled by an angry momma elk had not occurred to me as a possible consequence of going to a fiber festival.

But we soldiered on, despite the ever-present danger, and arrived at the festival. Since I stupidly forgot to take pictures for most of the festival, I just have to tell you that I had a good time, especially in the vendor hall! But I did get a photo of the sheep to shawl contest, which looked like grand fun:

And we got back home just in time for some more spectacular weather:

(Sadly, videos do not appear in email subscriptions, so if you want to watch hail descending on a glass roof, you’ll have to visit the blog. It was quite spectacular!)

A day or two after getting back, we went to Schacht Spindle Co. for a factory tour…but that is another long blog post, so I will write it up in a separate post, I think. Stay tuned!