Paige in New Mexico

Paige joined librarian Mary, her sister Laura, and her niece Aspen on a girls’ road trip to the 2010 annual SRS retreat for the Southwest Spinners.  It was held July 30 – August 1 in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico, and they took a little extra time to visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell.

The girls set out the morning of July 29, taking a break at the rest stop just the other side of Weatherford, where Paige, feeling a little frisky, checked out some of the plants.    Lunch was just a quick stop at a Dairy Queen in Clyde, and another quick stop was made near Lamesa.  At the end of a long day of driving, the quartet ended up at Carlsbad, New Mexico, for the night.

First thing Friday morning, they headed to Happy’s for breakfast, where the staff were more than happy to let Paige pose in their diner. 

 Another regular stop for the trip was the Cat’s Meow,   a Carlsbad thrift store where all of the profits go to help support the local humane group (even the rent for the store is donated by the property owner).

After purchasing a few items for fun and to help out the local animals, the group piled back into the truck for the rest of the trip.  They made it from Carlsbad to the camp near Weed, NM, in record time, and were among the earliest arrivals. 

 

  Some of the early arrivals put their extra time to good use, and Pat was kind enough to show Paige how to spin yarn on her spinning wheel.     

Paige decided that unless she could find a much smaller wheel she would just watch others spin.  Part of the time she kept watch at Laura’s table, which allowed her to see all of the other tables where people were selling fiber products and to watch the meetings and some of the classes held in Skipper’s Hall.

 When the noise and bustle got to be a bit much, Paige would take a short trip outside the building to admire the view.

 

  Even a thunderstorm couldn’t dampen the spirits of those who had come to share their love of fiber crafts.

Saturday morning began beautifully, and Paige got a little carried away taking pictures, finally deciding on sharing this one with her friends:

 

 Paige got an early start and took a look at one of the tools used by many spinners, a drop spindle:

 

She decided that if she’s going to take up spinning, this is much more her size than any of the wheels.  She continued browsing among the various tables and helped Laura and Aspen sell roving at their table, then took the afternoon off for a nice, long nap while the others took various classes.  On her first trip into mountains, Paige found it a little difficult to adjust to the change from 600 feet to almost 8,000 feet in altitude.

Sunday morning, Paige decided she would sit in on a class, so she went with Mary to a needle-felting class.  She met one of the models for the class

 

 and got very excited about learning how to make needle-felted ponies, but then got an up-close look at one of the needles used  and decided that was almost too big for her to handle.  So she sat on the table where Mary worked and critiqued the students’ work.

 

After a quick lunch, and sitting out the part where the truck was packed for the journey home, Paige took a few more pictures for her scrapbook

 

 

before climbing back in for the side trip to Roswell.  She just wished the ducks would have come out to say good-bye!

By the time they reached Roswell, all four were ready to call it an early night, so they checked into a brand-new hotel for dinner and an early bedtime.  But what a surprise!  Even Aspen, at 6’1” couldn’t sit on the side of her bed and touch the floor with her feet – so little Paige opted to sleep on the sofa instead. 

 

After a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast (and a picture with the hotel’s own resident alien),

the group set out for Roswell’s famed International UFO and Research Center. 

There, Paige had several photo opportunities, posing first with RALF (Roswell Alien Life Form), who doesn’t much resemble the alien at the hotel

and then with one of the exhibits about historic evidence of alien visitations to earth.

 

Faced with another 9 hours of driving back to Denton, Paige decided she’d rather nap, and curled up in the back of the truck.  Since she’d managed to nestle into one of the bags of goodies bought in Roswell, she didn’t make it back to the library until the following week, where she decided to let everyone know what a great time she’d had – and how much she appreciated the much cooler weather in the mountains!

Paige’s Cruise in the Caribbean

Paige was the guest of Kathy Strauss, Special Collections Librarian, during a cruise aboard the Grandeur of the Seas, May 31st-June 5th 2010.

Day 1 – We arrived at the port of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, stowed our luggage, and went through the boarding process. We posed for pictures, then made our way up the gang plank. Here I am getting on the ship. Our ship set sail about 5:00 PM, and it was fun watching all the boats in the harbor. We ate a yummy dinner, then went to an exciting musical show.

Day 2 – This was a day at sea. Here I am looking out my window at Cuba.

We went to the pool and soaked up some of the hot sun, and just hung out on the ship. There’s a lot to see and do on a ship! I had my picture taken on the stairs.

Day 3 – We arrived early in Grand Cayman and had to take a tender to shore. Here I made friends with a pirate, and had my picture taken.

We went on a tour of the island, stopping at a turtle farm, a rum cake factory, and we even went to Hell. We had lunch a Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville before returning to the ship.

Day 4 – We arrived in Cozumel. I went shopping, but I didn’t take any pictures. After we came back to the ship, I sat on the bed with a towel elephant.

Day 5 – Another day at sea. We packed up, said our goodbyes to friends and went to bed early.

Day 6 – Got off the ship, went to the airport, and returned to Texas.

Paige’s Thanksgiving Adventure, cont.

After my adventures in Oklahoma, I ventured back to Texas to go see family in Troup. Here is a picture of me and my .  I had a good visit with my family down on the farm.

Next I decided to take a short trip down to Galveston to see the sea. I have a little friend named Jacob who calls it the “shark ocean”.  I did not see any sharks, but I did see dolphins when I took a ferry across to Bolivar.  It was a little cold to go swimming but here is a picture at the beach.  Being in Galveston reminds me of one of my favorite books. Have you ever read Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson?   Check it out.

-Paige

Paige Makes a New Friend

Hello, everybody!  Paige, here. I just wanted to share my latest adventure:

 I went to hear Denton Reads author Gregory Maguire speak. He was amazing. He talked about his books and his writing process. I learned that the story of Wicked evolved from his childhood when he would play the “Wizard of Oz” with the kids in his neighborhood. When he grew up, he realized there more stories to tell from the land of Oz and he wanted to tell them. As you can see, we became instant friends.

Paige has a Folk Rockin’ Thanksgiving

Paige appeared with OKC folk rock band O Fidelis at The Conservatory, a North OKC venue on the night before Thanksgiving.  She assisted on keyboards and vocals, but her little voice was mostly lost as there wasn’t an extra mike to spare. A crowd of 100+ cheered Paige’s folk rock debut. She told me later it is her new favorite musical style. Her favorite song by O Fidelis is “Chickens Love Chocolate” as she has several chicken type friends back in the library puppet closet.

Paige goes to Las Vegas

Paige has been traveling again. This time, she spent a week in Las Vegas. Here she is in front of the Hard Rock Hotel. There are lots of shows to see and good things to eat in Las Vegas. She sampled a Frozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity 3 – YUMMY! She also went to see a show starring Bette Midler.

Paige–The Library Mouse

Hello everybody! My name is Paige and I am the Library Mouse here at the Denton Public Library. Occasionally they let me out of the library and I get to see the world! For my very first trip I went to see….Chicago!!! Well, ok, I only saw Chicago from the plane, but I did visit its suburbs.

The food in Chicago is just yummy! I tried all sort of new things. My first night there, I had the juiciest Chicago style Italian beef. Boy was that delicious. I also got to try a Chicago hotdog and a traditional Deep Dish Pizza.

I visited so many places on my trip, I can hardly remember them all! One of my favorite places was going to visit the elk in Elk Grove. They were all hanging out by the fence—but then one tried to charge me! Yikes! I also visited a Hindu temple in Bartlett, Illinois and went boating. Overall it was a very fun trip. I can’t wait for my next adventure.