Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments on the blanket! After the dazedness that comes right after finishing a big project, I am feeling very pleased. I have another FO too, and I am absolutely dying to show you, but I can’t…because it’s a Christmas gift.

Pretty pink clouds in the sky, but look at the one touching the ground.

I know–Christmas is eons away. It certainly feels like it, with the monsoon just hitting Arizona (exhibit 1, haboob, above), and highs around 110º turning soupy with humidity. But my usual crazed Christmas-gift-making time will be crazed wedding-planning time this winter, so I am hoping to get a jump on things and not (totally) lose my mind here.

Seaking of not losing one’s mind, Querido and I escaped the heat this past weekend quite literally, driving up north to explore Wupatki National Monument.

Destination: Wupatki National Monument. Although it’s only about an hour past Flagstaff, I had never been.

It was absolutely gorgeous, but also sad: several families whose ancestors had been living at the ruin for centuries were chased off park land when their presence was deemed too destructive. Living in the Southwest, where the nasty bits of history are closer to the surface, these uncomfortable moments happen pretty frequently. Although I’d like to say I came to some happy resolution on this point, I didn’t. Querido and I tromped around the park, where damaging residents and sheep had been removed so damaging tourists could take their place, and off we drove to Sunset Crater.

High Seas and volcanoes

Thankfully, knitting is just knitting, and I got a lot of it done. I completed 70 rows of High Seas (lots of car time!), which *fingers crossed* puts me at the halfway point!

The storm came to us.

A short drive, a passing rainstorm, and here we are again, back in the muggy heat. What’s your favorite summer escape?