Today there was still a little to be done to prepare for leaving, but we took some time off to do something fun.

A couple weeks ago when I was at LaVern’s house, she gave me a couple free passes to the San Jose Quilt and Textile Museum.  In spite of the fact that it had moved from the address printed on the passes, it was still within walking distance from where we parked.  The museum was initially called the American Quilt Museum because it was the only museum of its kind, but as the craze caught on, they changed their name to let people know where it was located.  They also added the word “textile” because their collection now includes fabric art as well.

Mark and I started walking through the various rooms looking at the quilts, and about half way through I heard a docent explaining things to a couple.  I guess that doesn’t normally happen, but she had seen someone she knew so she was giving them a tour, and when she saw that I was listening from afar, she invited me to join them.  It was really interesting.  They have one quilt top that was made by the wife of Francis Scott Keys.  She never finished the quilt, which was a paper-pieced quilt with hexagons.  The really interesting thing about it is that for her paper piecing, she used letters her husband had written to her!

There were quilts from the 1800s through current quilts.  One of the current ones was called The Odd Couple.  Each block paired up two people with the same last name, like John Brown (“John Brown’s Body Lies a’Moldering in the Grave”) and Sally Brown from the Peanuts cartoon strip.  Another was Karl and Groucho Marx.  It was very clever!

There was also a room with ethnic costumes.  One was a ceremonial dance costume from Uganda that weighed 30 lbs.  They had costumes from Palistine, Israel, Pakistan, a Hmong costume, and many others.  So much needlework went into each of them.  I was drooling!

Mark and I had one final friendly goodbye to make while we were down below.  Sometimes we haven’t had very good internet connection so we’ve gone down below to an internet cafe called Big Basin Cafe.  The owner is from Peru.  Her name is Elza, although her father was Castillion from Spain, so her name is pronounced Eltha (breathy th).  She has been very friendly.  She noticed Mark’s cowboy hat the first time we came in and told him that when she first met her husband (who was also from Peru but they met in Wyoming), he was a cowboy on a ranch and wore a cowboy hat.  After that, she always came over and talked to us whenever we came in.  When we went in this afternoon and told her we were moving, she gave us both a big hug.  We also knew her nephew Edgar, but she told us that he left this morning to visit his girlfriend in Peru.

So with all our goodbyes said and preparations pretty much finished for moving out, we plan to leave in the morning.  It had been our plan to spend tomorrow night at a campground in Weed, but there was a message on my phone when I was down below today saying the campground is iced in and suggesting we go elsewhere.  It seemed so odd because it was nearly 70 degrees here today.  Still, we’ve changed our plans and will be staying at the Mt. Shasta KOA tomorrow night.  Be praying for our travel through the mountains.