Coffee and Internet

I wasn't sure where to start with the Minnesota trip and rather than post one long mind numbing travel entry; I'd do a little bit every day. So today I guess I will talk about Front Porch Coffee & Tea Co. We arrived in Ely around 4:30 p.m. on Thursday (after a 20 something hour drive between Wed. and Thursday). Friday morning I was up and ready to check out the new shops in town. I wondered how I was going to deal with not being able to check my knitting email and read the other blogs. I drove by and saw this place and was excited to check it out. Ely does have a few other coffee places but nothing like this, besides, the name was so inviting to me. I walked in and it was even better than St@rbucks! The atmosphere was so neat! You could tell it mainly catered to "city folk" getting their last coffee/internet fix before taking off for the woods. They had great pastries, a neat selection of hot/cold drinks and seemed to have an "organic" subtle theme going on. I was only able to go twice but each time the people were friendly, lots of conversation, and great coffee and food. My only regret is that I didn't get to try their chocolate turtle coffee drink. My sister said there's also a fireplace that just begs to be knit by when a fire is going. I seemed to miss the fireplace both times although there was always a group of people visiting in the corner where the fireplace was suppose to be. I ended up buying a coffee mug (the last one they had on the shelf!) as a reminder and everytime I drink from it will bring happy memories of the cool weather and fresh air of northern MN. I hope this place is still there the next time I visit.

I didn't get nearly as many fish knit that I thought I would. I found out I'm not much of a "car knitter." When I wasn't driving (DH tended to frown upon me trying to knit and drive at the same time :-)) the scenery was interesting enough I wanted to soak it all in. I didn't even attempt to knit on the way up, I did knit a little bit while we were there and was able to finish 3 fish and that was it. I did pull out the knitting on the trip back to Texas but found the quality of the roads also was a factor. It was hard to knit when you kept bumping along. The Kansas turnpike made for great knitting though-it was like driving on buttah. I am easing back into my knitting now that I'm back but laundry and so many other things need to get done before school starts my knitting time has started to dwindle.