(Photos coming.) We decided to make it one last day of yarn-shop hopping for the official Crawl. We might actually pull off a Bingo on our cards that they stamped each time we walked into a new one–and we did.

I packed the snacks. Nina drove. Again. Patterns and all that.

Having wished again and again during the afghan that I hadn’t used up all of this shade or that previously, I had my eye out for the ones I’d wanted to replace.

When we called it a day after Royal Bee, our husbands met up with us on the coast for dinner. They asked us, So: did you buy any yarn? with both of them cracking up, like, oh, no, they would never do such a thing in such a place.

My answer was, it averaged out to a skein per shop. It was fun to find colors I loved in the yarn I wanted–but the point was to spend time with Nina.

She laughed as she was nodding yes to that.

We were at Barbara’s Fishtrap. Nina and I had compared memories of Ivar’s in Seattle so I had to try a small bowl of the clam chowder to see if it was as good as theirs. The answer is, I’d have to try them side by side to tell because Barbara’s was very very very good, too, enough to make it all that I’d want to order the next time. It’s a tie. Best I’ve ever had, both of them.

There were surfers in the famous Mavericks surf whom we passed coming and going, there was the point of land stretching around the cove behind us (if you click on their link and scroll down, we were by that window in the center of the building), and at the top of that hill was a bulbous–

–I said, “Looks like a baby rattle.”

They did a double take at the water tower off in the distance and cracked up.

Edited to add: the note on the sign says, “If you are Grouchy, Sullen, Ornery, Moody, or Just Plain Mean, There is a $20 surcharge for having to put up with you.”