India Textile Tour Day Zero

Jinny Beyer Studio

One of many quilts displayed

Not sure what to call today.  Day Zero is as good and anything else.

Actually left yesterday and flew from San Francisco to Dulles via Las Vegas.  Not a bad flying day, but Virginia was a brisk 28° with a slight breeze as I waited outside for the hotel shuttle.  Today is a free day, so I rented a car and drove to Great Falls VA, not to see the Falls, but to go to Jinny Beyer's quilt shop.  Man, could I have spent money there!! but didn't as I would have had to ship it all home.  All of her fabrics are available, along with kits, notions and patterns.

After lunch at a nice Irish pub called Old Brogue I did go to the Falls.  Cold, cold day and I nearly had the whole National Park to myself---33° doesn't bring out a lot of sightseers.  The Falls drop only 76 feet, nothing compared to Niagara, but were a barrier to westward expansion in the late 1700's.  George Washington and others formed a company to build the Patowmack Canal which used 5 locks to raise boats around the Falls. Since the rocks are schist, a hard metamorphic rock, they could not be blasted away.  The Canal was finished in 1802 but by 1828 ceased operation, chiefly because the newly opened Erie Canal provided too much competition.

Meeting on of my fellow travelers, Newbie, tonight, then on to India tomorrow---when it's supposed to snow here.