Menominee WI

Left Goodrich ND on Saturday August 8, 2009.  Had a nice visit with family while we were there, had a few days to crank some socks out on my antique cranking sock machine. (CSM) It is from 1937, although cranking sock machines have been around since at least the late 1800's.  Like the old time meat grinders, it has a round cylinder, a handle on the side, and fastens onto a table.    In the center is a round cylinder with slots for latch hook needles.  The cylinder has a hidden hill and valley in it,  as the cylinder goes around , it reaches the hill, the needles are pushed up, grabbing the yarn, then they go into the valley, as they do they close, making a stitch. The sock comes out of the bottom of the cylinder.  So it goes, but not always without stitches getting dropped or not knitting.  When that happens I have a little tool and a latch that I use to correct the mistake.  All this time I am supposed to be counting the rows, ( so both socks are the same size.)  If I lose count one can have a longer leg  or longer foot than the other one.  (just ask my nice Ariann about that, although she still put her socks on with a smile, a new pair will be in the mail as soon as I get a chance to make them.) That is the simplified version, there are many other things that factor into it, like weights, tension, a heel fork etc.  I'm still a beginner and the socks I make are far from perfect, but I have fun making them and giving them away.  I am still taking lessons and have much to learn.  It was fun to take my CSM along on the trip.  Since I am just learning, I didn't want to go a whole month without cranking.  I'm looking for a name for my CSM and I'm open to suggestions.  I'm think I want  a female name.

We were up until 3 AM the day we left Goodrich.  We were all having so much fun that we didn't want it to stop, but we knew we had a long day ahead of us so eventually we had to get some sleep.  We were on the road by 8AM.  At lunchtime we stopped at a rest area to eat and I took about an hour nap.  Sure was nice to be able to go in the Firefly and take a snooze on the bed rather than trying to rest in the car.  We got back on the road ,  had a few rain showers, and knew we had rain and storms from ND on our tail.  The radio kept telling us that severe weather was expected in Minnesota that night, so we wanted to make it to Wisconsin.  We pulled into  Motel 6 parking lot in Menominee at about 7:30 pM.  It was hot and humid, hard to get to sleep even though we were tired.  A little after midnight we were awakened by tornado sirens blowing.  They sounded like they were right next to the trailer.  We quickly got dressed, found a radio station, got out our map to see what county we were in so we could make sense of the weather updates.    We were quite a distance from the motel entrance and unsure what to do. Should we make a run for it, stay in the trailer, or go to the car?    There was no point in driving out of the area, as storms were in Eau Claire too. (about 30 miles ahead of us.) We prayed, asking God to keep us safe and decided to keep an eye on things.  Th radio cancelled the warning about 15 minutes later, but said severe thunderstorms that could spawn tornadoes could be expected through out the night.  At least things had cooled down, so we opened a few windows and went back to sleep.  Lesson learned, when parking in a motel parking lot for the night,  when bad weather is in the area,  park closer to the door if possible. We were glad the Lord kept us safe.