Sarah and I (along with other family members) were in Spokane over the weekend to see Gonzaga Univ.’s production of Romeo and Juliet – my son Geoff played Mercutio (splendid performance by all!).  We found we had about an hour-and-a-half free on Saturday afternoon (by “found” I  mean it was the babies’ naptime and we ran off and left everyone chilling in the hotel) and so we headed off for Paradise Fibers (huge yarn shop – great and friendly service – great on-line shop too).  I had been there before, but Sarah had not.  And she had a project in mind (one of those long cardigan sweaters that are so hip right now).

Sooo, we headed off to Paradise Fibers – without Sarah’s Iphone (which has gps) since it was nearly out of battery power, but with the highway exit number, my memory that the store was in the industrial part of town, and a hazy familiarity with Spokane in general.  Well, we blew past the exit and had to take another exit and sort of feel our way along.  And then gave up and called George (on my non-Iphone) back at the hotel and he talked us in using his Iphone (gee, makes you wonder how anyone bought yarn before there were Iphones…).  We pulled up into the suspiciously empty parking lot and eyed the pink piece of paper flapping on the door with a not-so-hazy sense of foreboding.

Yep, it was closed.  In fact, we had apparently chosen to visit Spokane on the very weekend they were moving to another location (I think the Gonzaga theatre dept. could have chosen their dates more carefully…but that’s just me…and Sarah).  Rats.  We had used up a good bit of our stolen time, but decided to go to A Grand Yarn (a smaller shop that we had both been to before) and so get in some yarn-hunting.

Off we went – no exit number this time, but a certainty that the shop was near the very large hospital that we could see up on the hill.  And we actually found it without too much trouble (or losing too much time) – partially because it is cleverly located on “Grand” street.  Pulled into the parking lot and stopped in front of…an empty storefront.  It was gone.

But Sarah remembered calling this shop a couple of weeks ago about a yarn one of our students wanted.  Surely, then, it had moved?  She popped into the UPS store next door and, sure enough, it had moved a block down Grand Street.  We found it (with a little more trouble than one might of expected considering the excellent directions we were given and the fact that we could have hucked a ball of yarn and hit it from where we were parked, but anyway…).

Lovely shop!  We had 25 minutes and a mission.  Sarah’s design ideas did not include color, yet, nor specific yarn types, fiber, weight…so, we did a lot of scurrying about and hollering at each other across the store and holding up a ball of this alpaca next to a ball of that alpaca, and generally doing what we love best in a yarn store.  Sarah decided on greens and we ended up at the counter with a cheerful mountain of yarn (about 8 different types and shades) and then trotted ourselves off – me with wistful thoughts about yarn for another tam, but that would have to be for another day, another shop – and were not even (much) late getting back to the hotel (inspite of some difficulty getting back onthe highway — y'know, just because you can see it doesn't mean you can get there from where you are…).