Back home!

After a crazy week with way too much time in my car I'm finally home, hooray! By the time I got home Monday night my legs were pretty much threatening a revolt after we drove about 6000 kms in 8 days. I tell you, I really don't think it's all that good for the circulation. It really was an amazing time and I learned a lot. And I got to give my first talk at a conference :) On Robust Parameter Designs in the Split-Plot Setting! Something no one else at the conference knew anything about (it was a stats talk at a mainly math conference) but I did have some of the few other stats people out representing! And it was great because Simon Frasier University (where the conference was) is where some of the big researchers in the area are. My traveling sock just couldn't take the excitement as featured below:















I was giving a talk on a paper co-written by them. Am I not a total geek or what? And do you know how hard it was to get this picture without people seeing me? Lucky for me the math folk were too engrossed in their work to notice me literally a few feet away from them.
I must admit there wasn't a great deal of knitting done this trip despite all the best of intentions. It turns out that sleep took too much priority. But I guarantee that my Sockapalooza sock had tons of fun. Too much fun as I now have about a week to finish it. But I'm almost at the heel so it's all good. Here's some highlights:
Playing cards:


Being contemplated by confused conference go-ers:

Sleeping over night in a car in the parking lot outside a five star hotel (If you happen to be a concerned parent, read that last sentence as "Happily camping a tent in Protection Mountain that we arrived to in broad daylight with plenty of time for setup"):

Driving through the mountains:

Trying to be a bad influence:

Getting in touch with the "animals":But my favourite would be when we stayed the night at my driving buddy's father's place. Before we left I insisted I get a photo of the sock and his dad didn't question me at all and was all excited to find the best spot to show it off. A true friend of knitters!:

As you can see, it was quite an adventure for the sock. You can see the complete sock on vacation collection here if you like :) I sincerely hope that my sock pal will be able to convince him to lead a quiet suburban lifestyle after all of this excitement.
So yes, a great trip, lots of yarn was acquired, lots of mathy inspiration but I'm still not caught up on my sleep. Off to bed and more news on yarn, mystery stoles and perhaps some avelry-Ray news tomorrow!