Anacortes day 3: Not in Kansas anymore
Aug. 12th, 2015 08:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrIt's taken me a few days to settle down enough that I can post this. For two or three days, my heart would start to race just remembering...
Sunday dawns sunny and calm, so we head to the fair a little early, maybe stop at the Calico Cupboard for a scone. We get the perfect parking spot for load-out, just around the corner from our booth, get out of the van, and holy crap.
The booth is missing.
After yesterday afternoon, we're convinced that everything is shattered. What we see when we get closer is even weirder.
Shelves are empty. Pots are all neatly stacked, covered by the booth walls, held down by our sandbags. The booth frame is folded up and stashed at the curb in the empty space next to us. The freestanding shelf unit on the left is on its back on the ground, but everything else looks… intact.
It's at this point in the what the?-ery that one of our neighbors comes up to tell us the story. About an hour-and-a-half after we'd left for the night, a squall blew through. Wind gusts up to 30 mph, and remember, no sheltering booths or buildings around us. Fortunately, a couple of neighboring vendors were in the wine garden, listening to the band, and saw our booth swaying. They got the fair organizers involved, who got some volunteers as well, and repeated my afternoon process exactly: took down the walls, took down the grid panel, hung on to the booth frame for dear life. Even with 90 lbs. of sandbags on the frame, it was still thrashing back and forth, so they decided to lift it up, walk it into the next space and take it down entirely. Then they took all the pots off the shelves, laid the free-standing shelf on the ground, and covered things up as best they could. Two plates blew off of the grid panel during the affair, and one square baker either was hit or blown over, so only three pieces actually broke.
Fortunately, we'd come in early, so had pots back on the shelves by quarter to ten. We dithered a little about putting the canopy back up--"fooled me twice" and all--but finally decided we needed it for the grid panel, not to mention the sign. We couldn't bring ourselves to put the roof canopy back, though, so we jury-rigged a minimal sunshade from the smallest wall panel. And flinched with every wind gust.
Sales about 80% of yesterday, which seems normal for a Sunday, so all in all a good fair, except that my adrenal glands are all tapped out.
Sunday dawns sunny and calm, so we head to the fair a little early, maybe stop at the Calico Cupboard for a scone. We get the perfect parking spot for load-out, just around the corner from our booth, get out of the van, and holy crap.
The booth is missing.
After yesterday afternoon, we're convinced that everything is shattered. What we see when we get closer is even weirder.
Shelves are empty. Pots are all neatly stacked, covered by the booth walls, held down by our sandbags. The booth frame is folded up and stashed at the curb in the empty space next to us. The freestanding shelf unit on the left is on its back on the ground, but everything else looks… intact.
It's at this point in the what the?-ery that one of our neighbors comes up to tell us the story. About an hour-and-a-half after we'd left for the night, a squall blew through. Wind gusts up to 30 mph, and remember, no sheltering booths or buildings around us. Fortunately, a couple of neighboring vendors were in the wine garden, listening to the band, and saw our booth swaying. They got the fair organizers involved, who got some volunteers as well, and repeated my afternoon process exactly: took down the walls, took down the grid panel, hung on to the booth frame for dear life. Even with 90 lbs. of sandbags on the frame, it was still thrashing back and forth, so they decided to lift it up, walk it into the next space and take it down entirely. Then they took all the pots off the shelves, laid the free-standing shelf on the ground, and covered things up as best they could. Two plates blew off of the grid panel during the affair, and one square baker either was hit or blown over, so only three pieces actually broke.
Fortunately, we'd come in early, so had pots back on the shelves by quarter to ten. We dithered a little about putting the canopy back up--"fooled me twice" and all--but finally decided we needed it for the grid panel, not to mention the sign. We couldn't bring ourselves to put the roof canopy back, though, so we jury-rigged a minimal sunshade from the smallest wall panel. And flinched with every wind gust.
Sales about 80% of yesterday, which seems normal for a Sunday, so all in all a good fair, except that my adrenal glands are all tapped out.