"Hey Mike, Maybe We Should Do A Craft Show?"

Those were the now famous words that I uttered back a couple of weeks. He didn't disagree (or if he did I wasn't listening), so I signed us up. And we spent the last two weeks getting our wares in order. Mike worked on mirrors and I made some tiles and a few more cards and such. We spent $10 on a display board of sorts and borrowed a table from a lady I met at water aerobics. We packed up the car on Friday night. We were ready.

Then, it was Saturday morning at 7 A M and the temperature was 25 degrees. We dug out our winter coats, poured coffee in our travel mugs and mumbled the 8 miles to the OUTDOOR location. When we arrived and located site number 75, we were one of two sites without a tent. To me, no tent sounded like a good idea since who wants to be shaded when it is so cold. We got busy unloading and Mike assembled out display.

(Note the guy in the upper left of the picture - he had $35 pens and after an hour had not sold any, so he packed up his card table and his pride and went home! One might say, he was the smart one since he left before the good padre came to collect the site rent!)

When we got everything all set up, it didn't look too bad, if I do say so myself. The display board held the mirrors,

the cards looked good in the suitcase,

and the borrowed table held all the tiles.

By 9:45, we were ready for the buying public... when we went home at 4:15, we were still waiting for the buying public!!! The weather had improved to a balmy 70, but alas the customers didn't materialize.

We received many compliments, but we didn't make our site rent that first day and Mike was ready to pack it up. I am kind of an optimist sometimes and so I believed the young gal next door who said, "The buyers come on Sunday." Now in all of our 20 some years of doing craft shows, Sunday has never been a good day, but what do I know, we have never done an outside show, nor have we ever done a show in Arizona. So, maybe...

When we got home on Saturday night, I called my mom. Now this is a lady who did craft and antique shows for 30 + years so when I told her about our lousy day, she says, "Did you make more than a quarter?" "Yes", I replied. "Did anyone die in a booth close to you?" "Good Heavens, No" said I. "Well then, it couldn't have been that bad of show." She went on to tell me about two shows that her and dad had done; one where they only took home $.25 from a two day show and the other where a vendor at a neighboring booth fell over of a heart attack. Somehow, that put our lousy show in perspective.

Ah, Sunday. It was tough to get excited and when the alarm went off, we both rolled over for a few minutes. But, heck, it was going to be good - the lady next to us had said so. When we got in the car, we realized it was already 32 degrees - maybe it was a good sign. When we arrived at

the place with the really big cross just down the road from our "home park",

the peacocks greeted us,

and the alpacas arrived not long after.

This has got to the be the strangest place we have ever done a craft show. It turned out that the sales were no better on Sunday but we did manage to make our site rent and have enough left over for a good dinner! By 3:30, we were packing it in with thoughts of beer and pretzels dancing in our heads.

Sure enough, when we got to the park, dropped up the display board for the office to keep and returned the table to Nina, it was time for happy hour at Bob and Betty's place next door. After that, 6 of us went for dinner and a couple more beers... turned out to be a pretty good day!

I bet you expect me to say that we will never do another show... wrong! I learn slowly, besides we have inventory... I already signed up for a show this Saturday here in Casa Grande at the campground. Sites are free and Mike said he would "help you set up but that is it" so what the heck!

More news later...