The Alpine Mountain Days celebration had finally arrived! Loading up our tent, tables and displays we
headed to town on Thursday and set up our vender’s tent. The Alpine show is one
of six shows we do each year, and last year we had enjoyed the new friends we
met and people that stopped by. Many complimented our work and some gave us
another form of a compliment by buying our work!
The first day arrived and started out slow, really slow.
Some of the other venders groused about this and that, nothing different here
as venders usually grouse, but the temperature reached ninety one degrees.
Between that and the slow sales we were a bit worried as,
for us anyway, it’s a numbers game with more people meaning more sales. Still
we are fishermen and so we are optimists. We did have some sales and several
people mentioned they would return, but they rarely do and it’s a way they can be
kind without buying.
It was so hot that three people were taken by ambulance, but
we fell into our old hiking rolls of being water buddies. In others words we
checked on each other all day and made sure we were staying hydrated. There was
little wind but the tent canopy’s shade made a huge difference and we stayed
comfortable.
Saturday arrived and we even had sales as we were trying to
set up. That, of course was fine, and the number of people stopping by stayed
steady all morning. The celebration also included a triathlon, mountain man events,
and an air show was for later in the day.
As the day wore on the temperature increased to ninety six,
but again we hydrated, hydrated, and hydrated! Molly did her best to attract customers
and kept cool by staying in the shade and on the thick cool grass. She wagged
her tail as people walked by and of course they stopped to pet her.
Renita pointed out an airplane performing acrobatics and
three jets thundered overhead. One a Russian MIg, (privately owned so don’t go
into your bunkers yet doomsday preppers), caused a sonic boom. Some people rushed
out, looking for a plane wreck, and I am sure the elk, deer, mountain goats and
all the wildlife jumped out of their skin.
The day ended and we went back to air conditioning. Renita
added our totals and we had had our best day ever! With Sunday usually slow, we
had already reached our goal for the show. Now if it would only cool off a
little!
Sunday was another hot day temperature wise, but at least it
was a short day. Not as many people attended but we did actually sell a pair of
Wyoming green jade earrings to a Chinese tourist. I had read an article that
they won’t pay the full price without haggling and sure enough I had a long and
difficult sale. At one point the husband pointed out that our stone was junk. I
then explained to them that Wyoming nephrite jade was better than the jadeite
being used in China, (it probably didn’t help much). Still we made the sale
after they left when the wife came back without her husband to buy the
earrings.
The show finally ended and we were happy with the results.
We had met two other rock hounds and they are going to come over to watch me
show them how to I finish rocks on our Genie cabochon machine. Now if we don’t
spend all of our profits on more rocks…….LOL.
Clear skies
Glad to hear your show went well, but your jewelry is so pretty, why wouldn't it. Connie
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