Being Afraid?

A few years ago I took a 2-week-long roadtrip for my vacation.  It seems that whenever I talk about it, one of the first questions I am asked is "Weren't you scared to do that by yourself?".  No, not really.  I drive alone every day!  Why should a road trip be any scarier than the freeways in SoCal?  I did charge up my pre-paid cell phone & add some minutes to it - something I don't usually do.  (Yes, I am the one that doesn't normally carry a cell phone!)  I didn't do much driving after dark & I didn't stop in deserted areas.  At that time I didn't have GPS either, but I had a plethora of maps.  I may not be very good at geography, but I AM very good at reading a map - even a topographical one.  I only sort of got lost once.  I say 'sort of' because it turned out that I was going in the right direction, but the road construction tricked me a bit.  Well, that, and the disappearing house at the end of that day's drive....but that's for another day.

It would have been nice to have had a co-driver, so that each day's driving could have been farther. Less of my pictures would have been taken through the windshield.  We could have stopped & looked around more often.  I think I would have gotten off the road in Texas where I saw my favorite sign - it was painted on the fascia of the roof of a gas station next to the highway.  It said:  "DIESEL     FRIED     CHICKEN".  Not sure I want to eat that chicken, but the sign just tickled me.  Oh, and I wouldn't have had to talk to myself so much either.
I'm thinking about another roadtrip, maybe next year.  Anyone want to tag along?  Try some diesel fried chicken?

Quilts for our Soldiers in Afghanistan

I'm not sure just how long ago I made this quilt top.  I am pretty sure that I made it as a mystery quilt on a one-day email mystery.  It had been languishing in my UFO (UnFinished Object, for any non-quilters who may happen upon my blog) cabinet for quite some time.  Then, one of my online quilting group posted a topic that changed that.
"Jan in VA" wrote that she had been talking to her daughter on the phone, and much of that call was about Jan's son-in-law, an Army Captain recently re-deployed to Afghanistan.  He had asked his wife if possibly her mom & some of her mom's friends could make a few small, colorful quilts for his men's barracks.  Jan, in turn, was asking us if we could send her some quilt tops (she would arrange for them to be finished).  I immediately looked at my UFO cabinet, got this one out & measured to see if it would fit the bill ~ and it did!
I got it mailed out & it actually turned out to be one of the first ones she received!  :^D
I'm not sure how many she's gotten so far, but on just the first page & a half of the post, there were at least 10 promised & there are many more pages than that.  Many of them are even finished quilts.  Her home quilt guild members are also contributing quilts & helping her with all the finishing that needs to be done. 
I was quite honored when Jan told me that she had sent my quilt top with someone to use as a visual aid in some fundraising for the project!  It may have already been layered & quilted by this time, and hopefully it will soon be on one of our soldiers cots, spreading a little (a LOT) of brightness in their desert.