Art Street in Green Bay was a success for us. Nothing broke down. No one fell out of trucks. We sold some stuff. Got to meet some great people. There was a horrible night spent at a Motel 6, but we'll just ignore that. Had drinks with friends old and new. Had our hopes renewed! Thank you Green Bay!
Bayfield was a wee bit of a bust. We were excited to make our way to the Blueberry Festival in Ely, Mn to redeem ourselves. Had we known we were going to go through what we did, we would have stayed home.
I will make an attempt to shorten this up as much as I can. But I am a talker and it really isn't a strong point of mine. It started with us leaving on time, which is a rarity when living with me. We headed north up I35 in MN. Our first sign was having a car pass us on the left and when reentering our lane, forget to stop in the lane and hit the shoulder and then swerved back in front of us. Yikes! Brakes work though. Soon after, the Suburban shifts down to pull the camper up a hill, we get over it, something doesn't sound right, I am about to say something when Randy notices the truck is dead. We slowly pull into the shoulder and have a looksy. It is here that we come to the realization that people do not pull over anymore. I will be honest, being stuck on the side of the road with people zooming by at 80 miles an hour is terrifying! After some trouble shooting we come to the realization that something bad has happened and we are going to need help. I thankfully have AAA though and can not get a tow truck soon enough to get us off the side of the freeway! Yeah, so turns out my AAA expired like a week earlier. Some sort of error on their part had my address wrong and my renewal statements were sent to the wrong address. I was not pleased. I may have thrown the phone at one point, said some colorful words and informed Randy I was done talking to them. Anyway. So we got to pay for a tow truck. My first encounter with our driver involved him informing me while using many words that start with the letter F that people don't move over anymore. Ha. A State Trooper stops to check on us and I inform him that people don't move over anymore. He smirks and says "welcome to my world." We finally get the Suburban loaded and the camper attached to the back and are off to Cloquet to find someone who can hopefully help us.
We do. And the news isn't good. Bearing...lower engine...blah...blah...no oil pressure...$1750 to fix...blah...not sure it is really worth it...blah. Blah. After much discussion and maybe a few distraught looks on my part, the mechanic suggests we get a Uhaul and load it up and continue onto Ely. Brilliant. After phone calls he throws us the keys to his truck and says to go get it. Sniff....hold back the tears Lisa. So getting a Uhaul should have been easy right? Nope. Not today it wasn't. Computer glitches were the name of the game. After about 30 minutes she finally made it happen. Sigh of relief. Back to the shop and we get the Suburban unloaded and the Uhaul loaded. Back that bad boy up to the camper and....the camper won't fit on the ball. I think this is the moment I may have emotionally lost it. Seriously. I pondered things like, if this was God's way/the Universe of saying "Do not go to Ely!!". Or were we being tested? Should we persevere? Should I just cry? Well, while I was having my emotional breakdown the men of the garage and a couple friends and Randy took a maul to the tongue of the camper and started whacking it. A giant jar of grease was brought out and between whacking it with a maul and about one pound of some sort of grease, the camper finally fit. All we have to do is crank it down and SNAP!, there breaks the cotter pin. I pondered a tear running down my cheek earlier, but this is where it finally did. The son looked at me and I think there was a "don't worry sweetheart" and off he went and got a new one and fixes it and cranks that camper down and my goodness, the camper is on the truck!! Cue the celebration music!! With tears in my eyes I hug all those guys and by gosh, we are off!!
Back on the road with only about a 4 hour delay. It is at about this time that Randy's stomach started reminding him he had eaten a suspicious burrito earlier while waiting for the Uhaul. Thankfully only one bathroom stop was needed ;)
Back on the road again! Things start to settle down, nerves chill and I can start to think again. Sigh. If you guessed not for long though, you are right. There we were minding our own business when suddenly a car coming from the other direction decides to pass and is in our lane coming right towards us and oh my gosh....... Well, our brakes worked. As well as the car he was trying to pass and a few others that tried to get out of the way. It was close. I wish I knew what they were thinking? Wow. I am happy to report it settled down for awhile and we finally made it to Ely. Turns out we forgot the braces for our walls in Cloquet, but at this point that was nothing. We found some we could use in an old wood pile. Onto dinner and a beer to soothe our sorrows. It is then that my shoe broke. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal but I was emotional and they were my favorite pair of sandals. Sigh. Again. Dinner was good though. If you are ever in Ely, check out the Ely Steakhouse. Yum.
We headed back to our campsite with the thought of Smores in our heads. What a way to end our terrible, horrible, no good kinda day. Except, there was no fire pit. This was the preverbal straw that broke the camel's back. I was so sad. So exhausted. I just wanted a smore. I cried. Thankfully that man of mine is smart. He took the camp grill and set it on the gravel and cooked me a smore. Happiness.
I would like to say that Saturday got better. But to be honest, it didn't. Throughout the course of the day I found out a friend of mine died, another had gotten into a car accident and we came to the realization that the Blueberry Fest was not the right show for us. It was two long days and we were very happy to go home. We topped of the end of the festival with Randy falling out of the back of the Uhaul. Poor guy. Thankfully he wasn't hurt too bad. We spent the night in Cloquet at the Walmart. Apparently they sweep the parking lot at 2 a.m. and we got to experience lawn mowing morning at the buttcrack of dawn.
I will be honest, it was hard to find the good in all of this. But there was. And it was people. Our tow truck driver for CARS Towing, to the boys at T and N Auto and the State Trooper who checked on us, the lady who would not give up and got us that Uhaul, our festival neighbors Alan and Brenda, the painters down the aisle from us and I got to see my dear friend Wanda who just happened to wander past our booth. We ate some great food too. AND I got a moose bobble head for my car. I named him Mortimer. The weather was perfect and the scenery was nice. So there was that.
The Suburban stayed in Cloquet. Wasn't worth the fix. We did finally make it home. I don't think we will be going back to Ely anytime soon ;)
Normally Randy would be heard saying this to me while we are setting up or taking down at an art show. This time, it was me yelling it to him during a storm that hit while in Bayfield, WI over the weekend.
Let me try and tell the tale...
It started with us getting there for set up a little later than we really wanted to. So tensions were already a little bit high. You have to understand that Randy and I have very different approaches to setting up. He's very much "let's do this and do it now!". I am more, "let's take our time and look for butterflies". So yeah, complete opposite. But, we arrived, realized it was a very tight area for parking and unloading and knew we were not going to be able to do any of this with the camper attached. (We use our camper to haul art in as well as sleep in.) So.....off to find our campsite first as there was nowhere to park and ditch it for awhile. Got checked in, found our space, set up the camper and realized the extension cord was about 10 feet short. O.K. Off to see if I could borrow one from the resort. Nope. But, I could purchase one for $50. Fine. At least now we have an extra. Tensions get a little higher. We are now running later which irritates Randy and I hate spending money which irritates me.
We get back to the park, check in and go find our space for the weekend, #3. Right along the lake, what a view! I was so excited. We get to our spot and...what the? First off, it tilts right towards the lake, but then there is about a two foot ditch that runs horizontally right through the middle of it. How are we supposed to set up here? Not happy. There was no way we would be able to set up our walls and have them safe, let alone even remotely secure or straight. So I get to break the news to the already slightly irritated Randy. It went better than I hoped, as I was still alive (ha). I talked with the woman helping with the set up and she tried to find another spot. Let's just say, Memorial Park was not very even as far as ground was concerned. After going back and forth between two spaces and with every moment that passed Randy's vein starting to pop out his forehead more, we decided to go with #1. Just two down from where we were supposed to be, we were hopeful we could make it work.
So the back breaking work begins of hauling all the walls and the tent out of the truck. Since we are nowhere near our space, it is carrying and hauling back and forth. Let's just say we must have each reached our FitBot goals for the day within that 45 minutes it took. It is not easy work. We are sweaty. But I am excited for all the calories I am burning and ponder if my butt has shrunk any? We get the tent halfway set up, the walls are starting to be set in place and the vein is lessening it's pounding in Randy's forehead. Things are looking up and we might just do this! And then the nice lady comes back and very apologetically informs us the people she thought cancelled are actually here. (Insert a small stifled scream here and imagine every fiber of my body desperately trying not to scream out vulgarity.) O.K., now what?!? (Crap, the vein increases it's pounding again twofold!)
Long story short, they make us a new spot way on the other end. So we schlep everything once again to the other side. (Are you smaller yet butt?) The nice lady helped us and felt so horrible. Mistakes happen, what are ya gonna do. I am happy to report we did manage to finish setting up and came out of it still liking each other AND before it was completely dark. Bonus!
Saturday the weather was perfect. Mid 70's, partly cloudy, seriously a picture perfect summer day. We got set up and waited for the people to arrive. And waited. And waited....
So it turns out that the attendance was down by 50% or more due to 10+ inches of rain earlier in the week in the region that left many of the major roads closed. So unfortunately with no people, there are no sales. Bummer. Big, fat, bummer. Sigh. Well, let's just say it was a loooooong two days. It's hard when your livelihood depends on people and Mother Nature. And speaking of Mother Nature...
The show ended at 4 on Sunday and the rule is no breaking down until that time. We spent most of the day ticking down the minutes. At about 3 we noticed the sky getting pretty dark. Hmmmm, then glued to the radar. You could see the look of "oh crap" on most of the vendors faces. There we all sit with our valuables and livelihoods in tents waiting. Unfortunately in 2006 (blog post here with pics) the show was hit with straight-line winds and most every tent was destroyed and ended up in the lake. So, people are still a little jumpy. Also, I hate storms. At 3:30 we are given the word that the storm is headed this way, go ahead and tear down! I check the weather and it says it is severe with 60 mph winds and indeed looks to be headed our direction. We start to make a sorta plan in our heads. But really, everything we need to break down is in the Suburban and it is nowhere nearby. It is a mad rush! People running, cars being pulled up...yikes. We decided to ride it out and not try and break down until after the storm. We feel our walls are solid and we have good tent and it is weighted. So we grab what boxes we could out of the vehicle and get back to the tent and box up what we can and get everything in from outside and batten down the hatches and hope for the best. There is a building right next door and if needed will abandon ship if it feels like it is getting bad enough. Well, that seemed like a good plan. Anyway, holy carp, it hit. Wind, rain and hail. No time to abandon ship, we were stuck in the tent. My heart was pounding! At one point I peeked outside and saw people scurrying everywhere, a woman ducked under a tree trying not to get hit by hail. You could hear people screaming and what sounded like things breaking. I admit, I tear up a little when I think about it still. Then the wind picked up and I could feel the one wall caving in. So we held it up and hoped that the giant pine we were set up under wouldn't come crashing down. Normally I would have been terrified, but everything happened so fast, I didn't have time to be. As we were holding up those walls, the water suddenly came rushing in. And not just a little, a lot. Inches. As the wind subsided we let go and scrambled to get anything that was on the ground off the ground. I then peeked back outside and realized we had set up right in front of the storm drain. Well, that explained the rush of water. Yup, everything from the road and parking lot drained right next to us. Sigh. It finally stopped and we unzipped and checked out the damage. I was so happy to say, I saw none. Most people came through o.k. with no major losses or injuries. Thank goodness. It was the same for us, some minor damage but nothing too bad. Sigh of relief! We hugged and were thankful and decided to just take our time breaking down. So we did. We got our first load done and we drove to the campground.
We were met by a gentleman outside of our camper. Weird. Randy starts to unload and he, the man, proceeds to apologize to me and inform us that we had sort of a leak. Leak? Apparently the storm hit pretty hard at the campground and when the man came out he walked around and noticed we had water leaking, well no, rushing out of our camper. I'm sorry what? I have video, he says. I watch it. Yup indeed, there is water rushing out of the camper. Not a leak, a gush. Sigh.... He had turned the water off at the spigot so it was thankfully no longer doing it. I sent Randy in to check it out, wasn't sure I could bear to look. He informs me, yup, it was a good leak! and starts to toss out all of the rugs. So the guy again apologizes and I thank him again and go to investigate. We turn the water back on and sure enough it's a geyser under the sink. A hose had popped off and with the city water connected, it ran and ran and ran and ran. Not good. We fixed it. I am a very positive person and usually try to stay so, but I admit that while I was sweeping out inches of water, I cried. It was a tough weekend. So I cried, but only for a minute. Only because that's all the time I had anyway, we still had more work to do!
We were officially the last people to take down. But we did it just before dark. We are getting pretty good at that.
It was a rough weekend. I won't lie. But in the end, no one was hurt. We made enough to cover our butts. We met some fun people, like the couple next to us and the guy that video taped our camper. They were great. We also ate some really yummy food. Check out these places if you are ever in town; The Fat Radish, the Deli, Maggie's and Gruemke's (I think). Bayfield is also beautiful. The views are spectacular and the town quaint. So that was good.
And lastly, Randy and I got to spend time together and doggone it if we don't have a story to tell now! (I think we'll be back next year.)
Many people think as photographers we spend our days just hanging out and taking pictures. That would be so awesome, but unfortunately days like that rarely get to happen. Sigh... We have the show in Bayfield, WI coming up this weekend and so it is a scramble to ready ourselves. There is a lot that goes into an art show and taking pictures is usually on the bottom of the list. Yesterday we spent the day repainting the walls we use to hang the art on. Well, I did that job. Randy spent the day doing his favorite thing (most of the time anyway), making frames. Today I am updating the website and getting those frames onto it, writing this post and packing the camper. Excited for Bayfield, and as usual nervous. Fingers crossed....
We were very surprised to receive a Debbie Hart Award at Art on the Lake in Excelsior MN. This was the largest of the three shows we have done so far and did not even remotely expect to be a contender. We were able to find out more about Debbie and what this award means from the lovely couple in the tent next to us. She sounded like an amazing human being who did wonderful things for this art show and the community. Thank you so much to the judges for this honor.
Our first time at Rivertown Art Festival in Stillwater was a good time and we learned some things. Saturday the skies looked scary for most of the day, but generally we stayed pretty dry with the exception of a few times. Sunday was a perfect summer day, which brought the people out and about. This is a good thing when you do what we do.
We were again surprised with an award, this time Third Place overall. Sweet :)
We had the great pleasure to spend Memorial Weekend in Sturgeon Bay, WI located in the ever popular Door Co. This was also the first big art show of the season, and to make it more special...our first show together. Awwww, I know ;)
It also meant finding out if anyone was even going to like our stuff. And if we could work together. Yikes! Want to see something exciting? Take Mr. Type A "Let's get this done!" and pair him with Mrs. Type B "Oh look, something shiny!" and see what happens. Well, I am happy to say, we lived to tell the tale. Even after driving through torrential rain for several hours and setting up in the rain and wet grass, we still like each other.
Oh yeah...and people liked our stuff, we even won Second Place for Two Dimensional.
