Good Morning!

You've heard the saying - "The best laid plans of mice and men, oft go astray."
Well, I've been planning to be in Houston, TX., for the International Quilt Festival all this year. My friend Adele was going with me. We were going to stay with my friend, Crayola, in Houston. Crayola was a victim of Hurricane Ike and went to Memphis to stay with her Mom and Dad to wait out the results of the Hurricane. She had no electricity. During her stay with her parents, her Father passed away. Of course, this was awful and very sad for my friend. Loosing a parent is a hard thing to go through, at any age. Crayola returned home to Houston to deal with the results of "Ike" and a couple of weeks after returning to her home, learned that her Mom had broken her hip. My friend Crayola is very sad.
At first I thought I would go to Houston alone, to be of comfort to my friend, but life stepped in and my Husband cleared things up for me. We (EC and Me) needed to visit our Daughter in Louisville, Ky. and Crayola needed some time to get her life calmed. The trip to Houston was canceled and new plans we made.
Adele was in New Orleans the week before we were going to Houston, and after talking to me about Crayola, decided to stay in New Orleans with family and friends. Houston will happen again next October.
So, last Thursday morning, about 4:30 a.m., we packed the Explorer with our stuff, our Dogs, Thelma and Mack, and left NLR headed North and East.
Louisville and our daughter are about 535 miles from here, so an early start was mandatory.
We made the trip without incident and arrived at about 2:30 p.m. We couldn't have asked for better weather. The sun was bright and in our eyes the whole way. We decided on and interresting route, we left here and got on Hwy. 67/167 to Newport, AR., got off a little south of Newport on a two lane thru Amagon, AR, Waldenburg, and on to Harrison, AR., the turned North to Jonesboro, and Paragould, AR., to Hwy. 412. 412 took us over to Missouri, at Cardwell, to Kennet and then to Hayti, where we crossed the Mississippi River into Tennessee just east of Dyresburg. This is a lovely expressway, except for about 8 miles of four lane up to Union City, Tn. We crossed into Kentucky onto the Purchase Parkway, which could take us to Paducah, KY. (Quilt City, USA) but we were on a mission to get to Louisville, KY. We swerved east and crossed the Tennessee River just above the two huge Lakes just east of Paducah and got on the Western Kentucky Parkway. Now there's a road! Absolutely no traffic! Actually, there was no traffic of any sort for the whole trip. Probably because there is absolutely nothing on this road. No houses to see, no farms, no towns to pass. Just trees, rocks and hills for 137 miles. What a pleasant change from I-40 from here to Memphis to Nashville! Then take a Left to I-65 to Louisville. Boring, boring, boring.
This other was is about the same distance, took about the same amount of time, but no traffic, and no Trucks.
The Western Kentucky Parkway took us to Elizabethtown, Ky. were we did have to get on I-65, but only for about 35 miles. Then we got on the Gene Snyder - I-265 - and cruised around Louisville to the east to get to our Daughters' home.
We had a good visit, got to see both Grandson's play football games, and both played well. You must know that sports, except Golf, hold no interest for me, but I did go and watch. I am nothing, if not a 'Good Sport'.
Now, for the good stuff!
Louisville has several really nice "Fabric Stores"! On Friday, after the Grandsons were off to school, my mission was to visit a couple of them. My Daughter knows Louisville, so she had to go to help me find them. My husband, EC, had to go - he said - to "look out for his own interests".
Anyway, I got to go.
I have been on the lookout for three particular families of fabrics. Reds, I don't seem to have any in my "Stash", Greens, I can never have too many, and Black and Whites. True Black and Whites. No grays and nothing that reads gray from a distance.
First Stop: "Among Friends". This Quilt Shop is in a strip mall setting. Here, in Arkansas, Little Rock in particular, our Quilt Shops are in old houses so I guess that is what we get used to. However, "Among Friends" has a great selection of fabrics.
I hit the 'jackpot'. I found a fabulous selection of 'Green' Batik's. I pulled a whole stack of bolts, Laura helped and EC was sweating. We layed them all out and I chose the ones I really loved. One stood out and has taken it's place as my #1 favorite Green. It is a beautiful Hoffman Batik. Tone on tone and yummy. EC let me get four yards. It is really wonderful! The rest, I got half yard cuts. I found a couple of reds and a couple of black/whites.
It didn't take me twenty minutes to find these fabrics. It doesn't take me all day to make up my mind. I know what I want and what it looks like. The ladies that cut my fabric were very nice. I am on their mailing list and have been since the last time I was in Louisville, a couple of years ago. They send out news letters and I enjoy hearing from them. After you buy 75 yards, you get a $25 gift certificate. I'm not there yet, but they are keeping track. Since I was from out of town, they gave me one of their cloth shopping bags with their logo. I used it for the rest of the trip, to store my new 'Stash'.
Sorry, I must cut this short. Will finish the rest of the trip later,
Carol Ann, Quilter