Monday, May 18, 2009

Florence Rhody Fest 2009


This past Thursday we traveled to Florence for the Rhody Festival for our booth Mommy & Me Jewelre. We got there early enough to check into our motel prior to checking in with the Festival official. I think we should have seen the signs. On Tuesday we found out there was no security at all for any of the booths. Lovely. On Wednesday we found out that we had to check in between 5 -7 on Thursday. Oh goody, so now I have to ask for additional vacation time to leave by noon on Thursday.

Now we're at the motel and guess what? They have no reservations for us. They had it on the next weekend. Luckily, they have a room (small) that has three nights available. Oh and it's $6 more a night because it is Rhody Weekend.

We got checked in and like the room. Very small but cute. Now we're headed to the Festival check in. We're on time and one of the first to check in. After a lot of confusion, we ended up next to the Boardwalk. The view across the boardwalk looks out over the Suislaw River with the mooring of a few boats tied up. It was one of the most beautiful views we've ever gotten to look at for three days.

Bikers started arriving Thursday and by Sunday there must have been 500 or more Harleys parking on the street. Talk about noise! It was really cool to see them all lined up and see the many different styles, paint jobs, etc.

Friday we went down to the boardwalk around 8:30am and did our two hour set up and then waited for our customers. And waited...and waited...and waited. There were lots of lookyloos but not many with money burning a hole in their pockets. We finally shut it down around 8:00pm. Ok, so now one very poor day done and two better? days to come. Saturday was very busy and thankfully we did very well. Sunday wasn't as poor Friday but nothing like Saturday. We ended up not breaking even but it was a warm beautiful weekend in the end. Our booth was safe and we had a great time.

Oh, did I mention that a guitar playing 55 plus hippy type decided to plant himself right outside our booth on the boardwalk on Friday singing (croaking) to the crowds? He really did try but he had a voice that sounded like he had had one too many cigarettes. Luckily, on Saturday he moved down a couple of booths. I enjoyed the music but he obviously decided he should sing all his songs directly to me. Troy thought it was hilarious.

1 comment:

Jaimey said...

sad you didn't break even, at least it was lovely and you had a great view. Oh and "your" guy is hottt! :)