Thursday's post on Friday

Hi there, I know I missed posting last night – just too tired and didn’t really care!! Thursday - our first day of ‘not moving on’ . How good did that feel?? This morning was a more leisurely start for most. The coach pulled out at around 9.45am. First stop High Desert Museum. Wow! What an amazing facility. It started life as a centre for injured birds of prey and just kept rolling from there. Today we visited a facility that showed snakes, badger, otters, eagles, chipmunks, pioneers, beadwork, quilts, native life and past life in general. High Desert Museum is funded totally with generous donations from local families and trusts that they have set up and partly manned by volunteers. Set in the wilderness this ‘museum’ includes many acres that includes a replica of pioneer life in the 1800’s (sawmill, cottage, barn, corral), a walk through the past – complete with sound. Horses were restless on the prairie, the bag pipes were squerling (actually, coming from a brass band family, we refer to it as cat strangling) in the sheep covered hills and the wagon wheels squeaked as the family made their way to the new land. Then there was the story of the native peoples and their beads. Teeny tiny beads that were stitched onto everything, just everything. Bags, papooses, waistcoats, head bands, clothing – just everything. I really though we were looking at embroidery, but no, it was all tiny beads. The hardships that many of these families were forced to go through were awful, but it seems that it has made the resolve of many much stronger. The exhibition that had drawn me to take the group there was of quilts. Pattern of the 19th Century. This was a small group of mostly appliqué quilts that were stored away until quite recently. Colours like Turkey Red, Cheddar, Indigo and those odd border style prints of that era were beautifully used. All of the quilts we saw were pieced and quilted by hand. Most of the bindings were just the back flipped over and whip stitched down. The lady that had made them was indeed a lady and would sit and stitch with her friends while the slaves and maids did all the work. Not bad in the light that most homes had available at that time.12 – 14 stitches per inch. After two hours wandering there we opted for the Old Mill district and its fabulous shopping and eating. Not many got back on the bus without shopping bag. After lunch we visited a quilt store (surprise, surprise) and then back to the Shilo Inn for an early night. Tomorrow it’s more quilts, more stores and more fun. (Actually, tomorrow is today)