SAFF pictures

Here are pictures from SAFF. I decided just to put them all together instead of editing last night's post. (Yeah, I'm still waiting for the caffeine to kick in, and I'm going cold turkey by switching to green tea instead of my 50/50 blend of caff/decaff.)

Here I am with a couple of sitting alpacas. Keith gets cozy with one. Doesn't it look like Keith is kissing the alpaca?

These are Old English Baby Doll sheep. What you can't see from the picture is just how small these cuties are. They are teeny tiny and not very cooperative about having their pictures taken.

These are taken during the llama shows. Llamas are so expressive with their ears. I'm not sure how happy that one was because sometimes it takes Keith a long time to set up a photo to his liking. I actually think this one which is not composed was better than the others. I'm speaking, of course, of the photo on the left. The two llamas on the right had been just seconds earlier in a better position for the photo. The view was unencumbered and the smaller, solid white one was in front of the one with the spots. I still think they are too cute to be left out.

I didn't even think to ask to hold one of the angora rabbits and get a picture taken with it. Some other time.

We only stayed at SAFF until around noonish. Perhaps being around yarn every day has made me jaded, but after awhile it all starts looking alike, and I had gotten some very lovely sock yarn. We went to Target and Starbucks for refueling, and after a short break at the hotel to drop off the yarn, we headed into Asheville. We didn't take any pictures there.

We did go into The Chocolate Fetish, which is a fabulous chocolate shop with a name that brings up some disturbing things when you Google it. That was my first stop, then off to roam around the downtown area. It's filled with galleries, restaurants and pubs. As we wandered we went to Bender Gallery. (It's amusing, because when you Google that, you get my favorite booze guzzling robot.) The Bender Gallery is all art glass. Some of it is so amazing. There is glass there for every taste, but definitely not every budget. I can only look in awe at some of the glass art. We also have to think about what happens in our house since most of the creatures look at a table or a shelf as a challenge to get to, then lets knock it all off to sleep here.

After checking out the shops and galleries, it was time for refueling. Last year Aunt Bev and I ate at The Laughing Seed, so I wanted Keith to try it too. It's a vegetarian restaurant, and it's quite good. They have a bar downstairs that has live music, but we were ready to head back to the hotel after dinner. Remember, I'd woken Keith up before 6 a.m., and we'd had a full day of fresh air, sunshine and lots of walking.

Right after dinner Keith called Andy to make sure we were still getting together for dinner on Sunday. Here's where my own idiosyncrasies come into play. I had emailed Andy a month ago to make plans. We agreed, and I left it at that. Here's where the differences lay. I had it in my calendar. Andy did not. In fact, he knew we were coming sometime, he just didn't remember when. In the meantime, he made other plans.

Well, I was actually quite ok with that. Usually when I go away, I don't think about home or worry about the cats too much. However, after losing Brownie and Pixel this past month, not to mention the rash of break-ins in the neighborhood, I had been thinking about home an awful lot. I had done what I wanted to do, so we could come home a day earlier than planned.

Keith was wonderful about it. I thought he'd be a little mad, but he said he knew as soon as Andy said they couldn't make it that we'd be leaving. Yes, I do owe him for being such a sweet husband. He reminded me that his birthday was coming up. Later over the weekend he mentioned something about a pile of gifts.

I'll do the drive home a bit later. We have a few more pictures of waterfalls and changing leaves, but right now I need breakfast.