I do believe I’ll split this post up into multiples. It’ll be a little knitting, and a little vacation photos and stories.

First of all, I figured that I could get two stockings done during vacation. And, since we drove from NE to PA, I figured I’d post a photo per state. Keep in mind that I did half of the driving.

Iowa:

We loaded up the dog and our luggage into the car to drive out to PA to visit my family. I took some nice toys that Miss Bug has outgrown back for my nephew, and intended to pick up some stoneware from my grandmother’s estate. She’s been gone for more than 3 years now, so it was time to collect my items.

Illinois:

I drove through most of IA, so I didn’t really get very far on the stocking there. But I didn’t drive in IL at all, so the stocking saw a bunch of progress there.

We’d also take turns bringing the old dog up front so he could look out the window. I had him take a selfie or two.

He really seemed to be enjoying himself! He doesn’t mind the car at all, and was very relaxed the entire trip.

There are no pictures from Indiana, because I drove that state. But I do have a story! In Indiana, I walked into a restaurant bathroom, set my phone on the back of a toilet, and it promptly fell into the bowl. I fished it out quickly, and used the hand dryer on it. But, since that evening’s hotel info as well as the rest of the trip hotel info was in there, I ran back outside and told Mr. Ink that we had better get the info out of the phone immediately because I wasn’t sure how long it was going to work.

The phone then proceeded to get very ill. It refused to hold a charge, it wouldn’t charge, then it would change for a bit, but would lose that charge very quickly. The buttons would sometimes work and sometimes not. Siri would turn on at random times. I set it to charge at the hotel outside Toledo Ohio, and in the middle of the night, Siri woke us up talking to us randomly, with no way to shut her off or shut down the phone. The next day Siri had quit, I could still pull up info, but the home button didn’t work, so I’d have to shut the phone off and restart it if I wanted to use a different application. Then suddenly midday, it began working again. And, besides the fact that it doesn’t hold a charge as long as it used to, and using the charger is a bit more complicated, the phone is back to normal.

I’ve decided this is the phone that will not die. I thought I’d get a new one before we left on this trip, but due to the sick dog vet bills, I held off. And then decided I’d let this one die before I get a new one. I guess on the upside, I’d have been gutted if I’d dumped a brand new phone into a toilet in Indiana.

This is how far I got in Ohio. My goal was to make it down the leg of the stocking. I managed that.

And this is PA. At this point, I got very sick of knitting, and drove the remainder of the trip.

Stay tuned for vacation pictures this week, and the second installment of stocking evolution.