Amtrak Knitting Circle

Another weekend. Another train ride on Amtrak.



This time, hubster and I went upstate to Albany, NY for a dinner. Since the train follows the Hudson River, this ride is exceptionally scenic. Here's one sight: (Photo was taken through a tinted window on a moving train. It's really much prettier than this.)



On the left side of the photo, notice the island. That's Pollepel Island. If you click on the photo to make larger--you'll see what looks like a ruined castle. That's Bannerman Castle. It was built around 1900 to store munitions.

On our return trip to NYC, there was a couple sitting in front of us. I was knitting my secret project, listening to an audiobook, enjoying the scenery when I saw the woman raise her hand above her head and in her hand was. . . YARN!

I looked at her reflection in the train's window and saw



Do you see what I see? A knitting bag, hands and dpns!

I scrunched over to the side so I could get a better look and the woman was knitting a sock!

I called out to her and held up my knitting. I asked and, yes, she's a member of Ravelry and so suddenly two strangers on a train became knitting buddies! Through the opening between our seats and window we had a fun conversation about yarn, needles, alpacas, NYC and upstate yarn stores, the 2009 NYC Yarn Crawl, Stitches East, Rhinebeck.

She held up her sock so I could take a photo --the yarn is Heritage. Very nice!



The train ride can be bumpy at times and I was quite impressed that the knitter didn't drop a needle or a stitch!

Amtrak being Amtrak, our trip was delayed by an hour. I can't say I welcomed this extra hour of knitting since I really wanted to get home. But knitting helped ease my anxiety about the delay. And, though I didn't ask, I'm sure the other knitter felt the same way. This is something that knitters just know.

T and U are for

The Albany Times Union—my hometown newspaper. ****

Back before there were 24-hour news channels and the Internet, the newspaper brought the world into our homes.

In Albany, NY the Times Union—the TU was our morning paper. It was the first newspaper I ever looked at—not read—looked at. I remember lying on the living room floor with the Sunday funny pages—the comics—spread around me. I couldn’t read yet—but I made up my own stories for the cartoons.

As I got older, I read the TU every day. National, local, sports, home, society, entertainment—I read all the sections. In the TU. I learned about politics—local and national. High school sports results; Hints from Heloise, stories about world events, local reporting on fires and car crashes were all part of the daily read.



That’s a photo of my Pop reading the TU. Note also the TU on the table folded to the racing charts from Saratoga.

The TU was also the newspaper where my hubster worked for 17 years. He started as a copy boy, became an award-winning reporter and ended up as city editor before he left the TU for another paper. I didn’t know him during his TU days, but I knew his byline.

These days, I read the TU online every couple of weeks for the local news, the obituaries. The online edition also has a Fiber Arts blog that’s frequently updated. It’s a great source of information about the Capital District yarn shops, fiber events and knitting meet-ups. But you don't to be from the area to enjoy the blog--the several people who contribute to it write about and share their fiberly adventures.

****Still trying to catch up. My ABCs for this year focus of NYC/NYS stuff.