Saturday, Sunday and Home

Jo: Talking and Drinking Coffee

Jo and I got up at five o'clock and were back at our booth in Covington by around 7:30 or so Saturday morning. Jo arranged her pots on the shelves while I displayed her tiles and got our “office” and wrapping area set up. The show officially opened at ten o'clock but exhibitors were supposed to be ready to go by 9:00. We finally finished setting up sometime between the two. Members of the public were already beginning to wander through. The weather was great and the crowd was large, though there seemed to be a lot of folks wandering around emptied handed. Our sales were steady, but we were hoping for more. (Don't we always?) Without Jo's ikebana flower vases, we would have been in trouble.

Saturday evening we attended the awards presentation event. Because we do functional work we're seldom burdened with having to accept those ribbons and cash awards, but enjoyed socializing and scarfing up more free food. Saturday's finger sandwiches didn't compare to the previous evening's feast, but were good nonetheless.

Sunday was pretty much a repeat of Saturday with about half the sales. That's typical for a Sunday.

Metal Sculpture

Based upon my conversations with a limited number of other artists, sales seem to be down a bit this year. Some returning exhibitors did well, but some didn't. Most of the first-timers (like us) were a little disappointed. Unless there's some obvious reason – like terrible weather – speculating on the ups and downs of an established show is an exercises in futility. Some artists suggested that that the LSU football game on Saturday and the New Orleans Saints game on Sunday may have hurt. Others blamed the fact that the show had expanded by adding another 30 exhibitors. Who knows? While our sales weren't great, we did well enough to return next year – if we can get juried back into the show.

Sunday evening we packed and loaded without any problems. Then, we drove back to I-55 and a little town named Amite where we stayed in an independently owned motel. It was oldie – so old that we had a metal room key and not an electronic card – but quiet, secure and reasonably clean, if you ignored the two pieces of chewing gum affixed to the bed's headboard.

Monday we came home, leaving Amite at 6:15 and arriving at the house at five o'clock, stopping only for gas, sandwiches and to pick up Rusty and Bucket at the vet's.

You never know when an art fair might turn nasty.

A few more photos taken in Covington here.

Saturday, Sunday and Home

Heading South for the Weekend

Motel 6 scenic vista

The past weekend in brief: Jo and I exhibited in the Three Rivers Arts Festival down in Covington, Louisiana. (Actually, only Jo's pottery was juried into the show; I just went along to provide a strong back.) Covington is a “north shore” community (i. e. on the north side of Lake Ponchartrain across from New Orleans), a fer piece from our Ozark hills. The show was good for us, but not great. Because it required a 1,500 mile round trip, the show really needed to be great.

The “When do we leave?” debate: We needed to be down in Covington Friday afternoon so we could get the van unloaded and the booth (mostly) set up. We could leave Thursday afternoon and drive all night. Or, we could head out early Friday morning. Both choices were complicated by needing to get our dogs to the vet's for boarding.

If we left Thursday afternoon, we had to get to the vet's office by five o'clock. Leaving then would put us down in Covington too early in the day. If we waited until early Friday morning, we'd have to make a special trip to the vet's Thursday afternoon. Jo and I finally opted for leaving Thursday afternoon, mostly because of my night owl habits. Leaving early Friday morning would have meant that we'd head out about the same time I normally go to bed, and that wouldn't have been good for my staying awake while driving.

The “Which route do we take?” debate: We could have driven south to Pine Bluff, AR, and then angled east to I-55, but since we'd be driving at night, we chose to stay on the Interstate Highways: Down to Little Rock, east to Memphis on I-40, south on I-55.

The sleeping navigator: Jo drove until we reached the outskirts of Memphis while I napped a little. I drove the rest of the trip because I can see better at night and because I'm more accustomed to staying up until all hours of the night. We didn't have any problems until near the end of the trip. I'd stopped and bought gas on the south side of Jackson, MS, a little after midnight. After that stop, my navigator did some serious napping, more serious than she realized. A few hours down the road, Jo woke up enough to ask, “When are we going to get to Louisiana?” I told her we were about 20 miles outside of New Orleans. There was a long pause while Jo cleared a few more cobwebs out of her head. Then, she informed me that I should have already exited onto Interstate 12. Getting back to I-12 required backtracking for about 25 miles. I really should start looking at the maps before we leave on a trip.

Scenic Slidell, Louisiana: Our ultimate destination for this leg of our trip was Slidell, LA., which is about twenty miles past Covington on I-12. Jo had spent much time online trying to find us a reasonably priced room in Covington, but there wasn't anything available for less that $100 per night. Spending that much for a place to shower and sleep cuts too deeply into our bottom line. Jo finally found a room at the Slidell Motel 6 for around fifty bucks.

We arrived in Slidell a little after 4:00 AM. There's not a lot – that I want to know about – going on in Slidell at four o'clock in the morning so we pulled into a truck stop parking lot to get some sleep. Sleeping in our van when it's fully loaded for a show meant remaining upright in the standard issue Econoline cargo van bucket seats that we'd been occupying for the past twelve hours, but that didn't bother me. I managed to get several hours of sleep. I don't think Jo did quite as well, but she was quiet and let me sleep.

We decided to give the Motel 6 a try mid-morning. The lady at the desk was nice enough to let us check in early, so I got a few more hours sleep in a bed. (Some friends of ours tried the same thing at the $100 per night Super 8 motel in Covington and were told they'd have to pay a $50 early-check-in fee.)

Heading South for the Weekend