Road Trip to Quilting at the Monastery

Ruth and I packed our sewing things, quilting things, bags of stuff, and our mad money, into my 1997 Chevy Blazer, and headed out at 10:30 a.m.  I drove and she knitted slipper socks. We chatted all the way to Twin Falls, where we stopped for lunch at Five Guys and had burgers and fries. Burgers wrapped in lettuce to be exact; a perfect gluten free lunch.  We proceeded eastward toward Rupert, where we hoped to indulge ourselves with a visit to an exceptional quilting establishment.  About 30 miles from Twin Falls great big snowflakes began to squash up on the windshield. This is April 22nd! What is with the snowflakes?  We got off at the Rupert exit and headed north about 4 miles and turned right onto 6th Street and found ourselves in a mobile home park.  Ruth reread the address, "524 6th St. (on the square) Rupert, ID".  We kept going and found our way to the old downtown part of Rupert and found "the square".  Eureka! We found The Gathering Place.

As it turns out, Ruth and I both, appreciate old buildings.  What a delightful setting!  I know why they call it The Gathering Place.  I gathered a nice stack of fabric and had to make myself not look anymore. Yet, there were more places to look!  They have a ton of fabulous fabric.  As it turns out, we were not the only ones heading to the retreat, that were visiting Rupert on the way.  We saw two other quilters there, that were getting their fabric fix prior to the event.  While Ruth was having her fabric cut, I put mine in the Blazer, then got my camera and took some photos of the wonderful old buildings.  I drove us around the block to head out, and discovered we had come in on a one-way street!  I had briefly wondered why the angled parking was angled in the wrong direction!  Well, we drove back to the Twin Falls exit, where the sun was shining and on to the monastery.  We got the vehicle unpacked, our machines hooked up, and said some hello's to people we had not seen since last year.  Julia, our fearless leader, helped me to square-up a quilt top, that night, after the main room thinned out a bit.  I went to bed feeling as thought I had accomplished something. Smile.