Rock City and a Knitting Finish

 

Well, here they are, my cozy little bunnies. They are all ready for winter in their new sweaters. They must have been roasting in the July heat when I made them pose for this picture! This was a fun project and if I had worked on it more diligently, I am sure I could have finished it faster. I could make them some pants, but I'm not going too. I think they are fine just as they are. The pattern is the Christopher Bunny Pattern by Barrett Wool.

We decided to take a little trip to Rock City. We hadn't been there in many years. I remember being happily impressed by it. I had heard it was all trails and hokey gnomes, but really, it is more about the rocks. It is part natural unfathomably old humongous stones, and part man-made path and archways to connect it all together.

There's the feel of old tourist park about it, coming from the stonework on and along the pathways. There used to be some constructed cave like rooms with musty mouse-frayed gnomes and elves who appeared to be miners. Some of this was still here, but it has been overhauled. The gnome bits are is still pretty corny, though less moth-eaten.

When I was a little girl, my grandma and grandpa used to travel around in a camper. Rock City was one of the places they visited and they bought one of those iconic red and black bird houses, like this one at the entrance of the park. It was originally an advertisement that used to be painted on barns to entice East Coast northerners to stop in on their drive down to Florida, I guess.

My grandparents lived a long way from Rock City--way out in New Mexico. 

This picture (from over 30 years ago--yipe!) shows the rock garden in my grandmother's back yard. Rock gardens are not uncommon in New Mexico, but my grandma hand picked most of those rocks from her travels. It was like she knew each rock. I remember her saying, "Look at this one, he's a little turtle." And, "Now where is it? Oh! Here it is! Doesn't it look like a hamburger?"  She liked this Rock City bird house because it announced her Rock City, and was part of her treasure load.

There were so many great rocks there. My mom mailed some to my oldest son once, and we laughed about mailing a box of rocks! We still have those rocks around here.

I always thought I would be able to go back there and pick up a load of rocks and shells and other souvenirs that lay out weathering in that garden, but life is complicated and I never got back and the property was sold, and who knows what became of it all? 

I'm not too sad about all that. As they say, "you can't take it with you" anyway. This week, our trip to Rock City, was also a little trip with my grandma.