herveus

We went. We survived weather. We sold stuff. We sold enough stuff, even. We met new people. We met old friends. We came home.

That's the executive summary. :)

Setup was "interesting". It had rained enough that the site manager was not willing to let merchants drive on the grass to unload at their spaces. We had to tote everything in from the edge. That sucked more for some than others. We managed.

Monday was windy. All day. Twenty gusting to thirty. All day. Draining. Regular checks to make sure the stakes were holding up OK. I also helped the folks across the way set up.

You may remember seeing posts about Mercy's trailer being stolen. They got the trailer back empty. (Hands of) Mercy were set up across the street from us.

Monday night it rained. With the rain came even more wind. It turned out that Mercy's tent couldn't take it and came down. It took them all day the next day to procure materials and repair the tent poles. By nightfall, they had the tent up.

I saw

scottishdm and

kyleri and Loiosh, with whose head I fucked around repeatedly to massive amusement. I'm not sure about any other LJ folks. Among other folks was a gentleman who looked familiar. He replied that he was Atlantian. *ding* "You must be Christian!" Yep. Sir Christian Darmody stopped by. Sir Keegan also paid a visit. Ryryd stopped by with a spiffy new hat. He and Anna are Baron and Baroness of Loch Salann. Cool beans! Nina of the Lost Caverns also visited.

After Monday, the weather did clear up and was much nicer for the rest of the war. Unfortunately, that did not translate into the kind of traffic and business we really hoped for. Saturday was a very nice day, but it was only our third best sales day.

Loiosh got to schmooze me up big time while I was helping Kate put up the tent. The next day, I came by with the pointy hat on. Loiosh looked at me with surprise and alarm. I have seen larger saucers. He actually took a couple of steps backward. Then, he studiously ignored me. He tried curling up with his head tucked in trying to look asleep. The problem was that I could see his eyes open. This simply fed the gales of laughter from Kate and I at his expense.

The marketplace at Estrella was set up the same way it had been the past two years, complete with the traffic flow problems. I had provided commentary to the Estrella staff in their survey on the issue, but they never forwarded any of that to the merchant autocrat. Deyv was approachable and accessible and open to suggestions. He had some ideas of his own on how to address some of the problems. That's really encouraging and probably assures that we will not skip Estrella next year (tempting as that was at times).

We got out of there without too much drama Sunday evening. We briefly convoyed with Basket Man then motored down the road. We actually made Willcox, AZ that night, three hours from Estrella. The next day, we got moving promptly and put 900+ miles under our wheels making Greenville, TX (two hours short of Texarkana). Tuesday, we motored. We made Nashville for dinner and then kept going. Megan was determined to make at least Bristol, VA, if not Wytheville, but got a bad case of get-home-itis, so we just kept going. It was wise to have stopped for a couple hours nap near Staunton. Otherwise, we would have hit I-66 at 0600, just in time to join the heart of morning rush hour. As it was, we still caught a bit of the tail end, but it wasn't bad.

...and we're playing poker tonight!