Day 84- Flood Watch

Sure enough, there are flood watches and warnings in effect for more than a dozen counties. The Susquehanna River and several tributaries are already at flood stage. We’re in Cumberland County which is laced with rivers and streams. In fact, so are York and Lancaster counties right next door to us. The kicker is the weather is so lousy, we don’t want to go set up today but if we don’t we may have to squeeze in tomorrow morning. So, we’re here in the campground peeking out the windows at all the sites around us, empty and flooded with massive puddles. During the day, we went over to the Hotel Carlisle, but didn’t set up. Probably a really good thing because it’s been really raining hard. The TV is full of NOAA emergency flood warnings, cancellations and they’ve even sheltered the children in school instead of releasing them and sending them home. Now, doesn’t that sound dire? To me, it sounds safer than trying to deliver them over flooded back road with questionable bridges. And believe me when I tell you there are a ton of bridges, concrete and covered in the counties in question. Also having driven some of these roads in the past week, I can attest to how close the creeks and rivers are in spots. We hit the Wal-Mart on our way back to the campground to get a couple of things we were out of and there was the Red Box once more. Tonight’s entertainment was a 2010 released movie called The Conspirator. It was based on the trial of Mary Surratt, one of the alleged conspirators, found guilty of the plot to assassinate President Lincoln, and hung by a military tribunal. I’m not guilty of spoiling anything to this point because it is a matter of historical record but the trial raised many questions and I highly recommend the movie. Now, I’m listening to the Red Sox against the Blue Jays. Wakefield goes for his 7th attempt to win his 200th game. Holding my breath and keeping my fingers crossed here.

Day 83- Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Our trip back to Carlisle can be summed up in just one word, “RAIN”. It was pouring when we left Easton and it was pouring when we arrived back at the camper. There are large amounts of standing water everywhere and the news and weather are filled with warnings for flooding. The rain from Lee is heavy and stalled over the area which doesn’t bode well for our outdoors rally at the Hotel Carlisle. Set up is for Wednesday but I’m less than enthused about the prospect of exposing my work to the dampness. Rain and paper based products do not mix well. Granted, we have a great heavy vinyl tent and my work is, for the most part, in plastic sleeves but the dampness permeates everything including my bones. And, on top of the whole dampness thing, I can’t imagine the participants, Honda Gold Wing owners, really enjoying this kind of weather. We rented a couple of movies from the Red Box at Wal-Mart, had supper and then settled in for the night. I’d like to say we were lulled to sleep with the pitter patter of the rain drops on our roof but that isn’t the case. We are under an oak tree and the heavy downpours have done a number on the acorns falling on our roof. And you know the weather is depressing when I didn't grab even one photo to post with the blog today.

Day 82- Travel Back To PA

I was only 25 miles down the road when I remembered the first thing left behind. I have shirts embroidered with my company name as well as our first names on them. I meant to grab a couple of them but they will spend the next couple of weeks in the closet in NH. I was further down the road by several hours when I remembered the other things I left in NH, my rubber boots, a spare pair of heavy socks and the umbrella. Does it sound like I was planning on bad weather? Well, you’re right. I’ve heard what could be a lousy batch of weather over the few days we’re at the Honda Gold Wing Rally. In fact, today, we’ve driven in and out of rain for more than 300 miles. I drove about 150 of those miles. As we’re paying our $1.00 toll to pass from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, I notice a very long line of utility trucks passing through one of the booths. The signage on the door read North Houston Pole Line, Texas. There were more than 50 trucks, bucket trucks, pickups, equipment haulers and even trucks with lots of ladders. I suspect they were returning to Texas after helping get the power back on where Irene had passed through. We’ve stopped for the night at the Towne Place Suites by Marriott in Easton, PA. The room was very reasonably priced and quite nice. And, there’s a Sonic at the end of the driveway. Now, don’t laugh when I tell you we drove to Sonic because it’s a Drive-In and kind of cool. You pull up to a flashy board, make your decision and then push the button. A voice asks for your choices and then they bring the food to the car. We could have eaten it right there but decided to return to our room. Now, it’s relaxation time. Weather permitting, we’ll be going to Hershey tomorrow. I am told the whole place smells good enough to eat.

Day 81- More Of The Same

Now, the work begins. I have to decide what to take to PA with us for the show. It’s been so long since we’ve packed for a show, I want to make sure we have everything we need, including enough paper and ink since I’m taking the printer with me for this one. And, it’s really muggy out so I don’t feel like moving. The only way it could be worse is if we were at a local show today in all this humidity. When I opened the door to the studio, I almost screamed. There were bugs and cob webs everywhere. I have to send in my exterminator before I can work there. Okay, so the bugs were mostly flies but where there are cob webs, there are spiders. I heard this trivia fact a while ago which says you are never more than 6 feet from a spider at any time. If that’s true, I’ll be lifting my feet from the floor quite a bit. It took quite a while before I made the decision on which photos to take and while I was repacking the blue plastic covered bucket, Carl put the racks, tables and tent into the truck. It took even more time to load everything else because my glasses kept fogging up and everything in the studio had steamed up too. The air conditioner in the studio works really well but we had to leave the door open for the loading process. By the time we were finished, the sky was black as night and we could hear the distant rumbling of what promised to be a whopper of a storm. And even before it started raining, we were drenched with sweat. I hit the shower which felt really good and spent another hour trying to figure out how to get a downloaded template from Avery to work on Microsoft Word. Avery uses the Word platform and I am unfamiliar with the program. I’d prefer to use Works which I’ve used for years. No go on the application so I asked Carl to come upstairs to get the printer which was the very last thing to be packed. I have one last thing to get tomorrow, ink. The photo was taken by my step-mom, Adena, while we were in WA state.

Day 80- Finally, No Techno Glitches

I managed to recreate a bunch of stuff so I could, at least, print some note cards and photo cards. It would have been the perfect opportunity to redesign my business card but, hey, I like the one I’ve got. We’ve had a couple of great conversations while we’ve been back with our daughter and Mom. They both hid health issues while we were away. Mom helped put together a new PA boxed set of note cards and I printed some of the best snapshots we took on our trip, grizzles, big mountains, cute fawns and an amazing shot of a monarch butterfly on a sunflower head. They look great. It was a productive day and best of all, the Red Sox won as well.

Day 79- Work, Work, Work

Well, that was the plan right up to the point in time where I discovered my desk top computer had a heart attack and a stroke while I was away. I tried every trick I knew to get it to respond to my key strokes but nothing I did made any difference. I even tried calling the shop who built it for me years ago. They were either all off for the long holiday weekend or some one forgot to shift the phone from fax mode to talk mode. I got that irritating squeal in my ear each time I called the number. So, I spent the better part of the day finding software install disks for my printer, card design and photo printing. Then I held my breath because they are all designed for Windows XP and my laptop is Windows 7. Have I mentioned how much I don’t like this platform? Sure enough, there were glitches left and right. When I tell Print Master to print a designed note card, instead of getting the 5 sheets I ask for, it decides to print 25. And my photo printing software will only print single pages even when I tell it I want 3 of the same. At one point today, I needed a serious technology break. Even my clothes dryer and I couldn’t see eye to eye for a while. I had to redesign my business cards, thank you pages and every note card I wanted to print. I needed labels for the backs of photos protecting my copyright and I’m sure by tomorrow, I will run out of ink because Carl had to make a trip to Staples because I was almost out of envelopes and matte paper card stock. It hasn’t been a very good day. I only hope tomorrow will be better. I need to finish printing everything and then get out into the studio to get things in order. We’ll pack up the truck on Sunday and head back on the road Monday morning. Carl was able to get the generator in to the repair shop and while they weren’t able to repair what’s wrong, they were able to tell him what the problem was. We just worked it too hard. It needed a deep cleaning and some TLC. So, Carl left it there for a much needed “spa treatment” and he purchased the companion model to the one we have. We’ll now be able to connect the two of them and end up with more electricity than two singles alone. Don’t ask me how it works, I just know it does.

Day 78- A Quick Trip Home

It’s weird that two people should be so in tune as to come up with the same idea at about the same time. It doesn’t matter who came up with the plan. What matters is we both thought about heading home a day early. So we did. By 9:30, breakfast was eaten, we’d collected the dirty clothes and recyclables, done up the dirty dishes and taken out the trash. And then we headed north. We stopped for gas twice, a pit stop or 4 and a quick lunch on the go. By the time we hit Northampton, MA, it was time to stop and eat supper and then it was back on the road. We did hit a bit of traffic around the Waterford and Hartford, CT interchanges and some construction on the Rte 91 corridor but we encounter few serious delays and arrived home by 9:30 PM. In some ways, it doesn’t seem as if we’ve been away. Not much has changed. Tomorrow, we’ll see about the generator, I’ll work on some photos to be printed and matted, we’ll load up the show tent, racks, tables and everything else I’ll need to do a show for the Honda Gold Wing Road Riders Rally at the Hotel Carlisle from Sept7-10th. Not sure what we’ll be doing after that. I have to be back to do the Littleton Art Show on September 24th… I know I’ll see some of you there.