Santa Fe: Not What I Had Hoped

So while I was watching my stocks take a nosedive yesterday, I thought I would save the environment and contribute to the local economy by taking a long walk and pouncing on a yarn store or two.  I made a bet with my stepmom the night before, saying there was probably a yarn store in the downtown area.  I won the bet (not that it mattered...Meg would have bought dinner, anyway).  There were, in fact, two of them according to Google, and Google NEVER lies.

I set out for my walk way, way before business hours.  Went left instead of right.  Went to the sprawl-side of town instead of the cute side.  Meandered my way back.  Headed toward breakfast.  I looked left down Galisteo Street, and there was a yarn store there!  The fun part is that it was not listed on Google, which meant there were THREE yarn stores within walking distance of each other.  Note to self, after Nutella crepes at the little French-style place around the corner.

After breakfast, I went into the store that was across Guadalupe, probably 200 yards from the one I happened upon two hours previous.  Disappointed...there was a shop dog, which is always pleasant, but the yarn selection was dismal.  A few minutes later, I met my stepmom, so we went to the place on Galisteo after coffee.  Another disappointment...both stores were lovely customer-service-wise, but between the two of them, the selection was not what I had hoped.  And here I am with a $75 birthday Visa gift card burning a hole in my pocket!  How in the world could I not feel like buying yarn?

The problem, I realized, is that I did not see anything in the two stores I thought I would see in my head.  For instance, I saw Plymouth and Kauni and Rowan, but no hanks with an index-card tag and some ink-writing, saying "Hand-spun by Little Squaw Who Feeds Berries To Her Toddler."  This was my fault...I let the feeling of Santa Fe get the best of me.

The good news is that I have a friend who was recently lamenting about the yarn store in Oak Park opening "too close" to the one in Forest Park, and how the owners of the Forest Park store would have advised her to open five to ten miles from their store.  I never made it to the third store, but there are three bona fide yarn stores, all within walking distance of each other here in Santa Fe.  I don't know exactly why the place in Forest Park closed, but if that was the cause, then knitters in Santa Fe are way less loyal to their local yarn store than they are up north.  I wish for no small businesses to close, but I feel like here is proof that this would have been only one of several contributing factors, if any of them are even measurable in the first place.

My goal is to finish the second shop sample on the way home today, even if I have to stay on the plane all the way to its next destination.  It's Southwest Airlines...I'm pretty sure I could end up somewhere cool like Montgomery, Alabama if I still have some knitting to do.