Peddler Show

Day one started at 5pm and went till 9pm. Our start  was a little slow but gained momentum as the evening progressed. I learned real quickly how I missed not having the motorhome behind our booth like at Canton. What I'm getting to is this….just sitting in the back of our booth just doesn't cut it. I miss the ability to go inside the motorhome, lean back in my Lazy Boy and take a nap. Boy am I spoiled. I just can't imagine what tomorrow and Saturday are going to be like. Those show hours run ten hours each.

I don't do well selling a lady's purse insert.  No sir re.Let's see I find myself telling some women who are beyond the child bearing age  that the purse insert it will also work well in their diaper bag. The look I get just runs chills up my spine.

Or, how about “these sure helps you keep your purse organized where you can find things.” and their response is I don't want to be that organized. We’ve had men buy them for organizing their center consoles in their SUV’s or trucks. Had one guy ask if they came in camo as he would use it for organizing  his ammo.

The best of all is "it allows you to change purses fast and your husband doesn't have to wait long while you do the shifting”. Her response…. well he just will have to wait.
Just like what happened tonight I had given Sandy a break and a lady asking if we had other key finders ring and clumsy me says sure I reach back to bring out the third

fey finder and the rack slipped out of my hand and fell to the floor. The lady was real nice she just laughed and proceeded to purchase three of them.  Yea......We're in the money. Boy, if there was a way to bring the motorhome here I would but the Jeep will just have to do tomorrow for those little siesta's.

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.

Our Move to Arlington

Sandy and I both were up at 6am and made our final preparations for departure to Arlington. Our morning low was 43 dredgers. Trying to roll up the 50amp power cord was like trying to roll up a 50ft board. Took several attempts to get it tucked away.

An interesting point most of our counties are dry. You have to drive awhile to find a wet county to purchase alcohol. The small community of Winnoa recently voted itself wet. It  seems overnight they opened six liquor stores all within 50 yards of one another. Their draw is from Tyler and other dry counties in the area. We also learned from BIL James Lone Star voted itself wet in the past election and property on Hwy 259 through town has sky rocketed. He said the many empty buildings will be converted to liquor stores. It' a shame that the it takes the evils of alcohol to turn a community from a ghost town to a thriving business community again.

After getting up on I20 and headed west the winds picked up to 30 miles an hour so much for good fuel mileage. It wasn't long before we came across this accident that had just happened.

 

After getting through this we headed to Loves that has a  Carl’s Jr for one of their scratch biscuits.
What has happened to diesel prices $3.12cash or $3.17 credit card. Also look what they have done if you want to dump they now have a $5.00 fee.

Now tell me what has happened to that friendly attitude toward RVer's. Now that Pilot owns Flying J their fuel prices  are no longer the cheapest. Is all of this a conspiracy against RVer's. Enough ranting.

We arrived at Speedco where David our assigned crew chief directed Sandy into one of their bays. Before long three crew members jumped on the motorhome and did their PM service on the engine and chassis. They changed the oil filter and two fuel filters. The one on the engine was not that easy to change. JD finally won out and “got r done”. I was surprised to see the ISL 400 Cummins took 26 quarts of oil.

While here I had them change the oil, fuel filter and oil filter on the genset. Now this took some doing as it took one hour to perform this service. Most of the delay was due to not having the proper wrenches to undo the fittings of the fuel filter. While they backed Sandy out I went in to settle up. After paying them $254 I went outside and Sandy already had the Jeep hooked up. What a gal!

We arrived at the KOA at 1pm and was assigned to our spot #321. We loaded our displays and product into the Jeep and headed to the Arlington Convention Center where we set up our booth from 5pm till 9pm. We arrived back at the motorhome about 9:30 where we had a quick snack and settled down to some TV watching. Tomorrow the show starts and we hope their will be a good crowd.

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.

Been Awhile Since We Have Done A Peddler Show

Tomorrow we head out to Arlington, TX where we will do a Peddler show this weekend. We have not done one of these in several years. We use to do most of them held here in Texas but with aging parents and the slow down in our economy we quite doing them. Our supplier of the purse inserts asked us to do this show as she had a conflict with the dates of the show. 

We hope to get off in the morning pretty early as I want to get the oil and filters changed at Speedco in Dallas before we get into Arlington. We have reservations at the KOA of Arlington for Wednesday through this Sunday. This RV Park is about eight miles from the Arlington Convention Center. Also the Texas Rangers ballpark is nearby. 

For the past 33 years, The Peddler Show has offered shoppers a truly remarkable and one-of-a-kind shopping experience. Currently operating over 25 Peddler Shows annually, the Show's Jury Board is devoted to maintaining a fresh and unique marketplace – offering repeat shoppers something new with each visit. Shoppers will find a vast selection of unique items including personalized designs, home décor, hand crafted jewelry, fashionable clothing, gourmet treats, creative gifts and so much more!

The Peddler Show offers shoppers a one-of-a-kind custom shopping experience. A trip to the mall will never feel the same after you've seen the vast selection of unique items the Peddler Show has to offer! It's never too early to start shopping for Christmas!  Beat the crowds at the mall and find everything for everyone on your list this year at The Peddler Show!

***DUE TO THE DALLAS COWBOYS GAME ON SUNDAY, THE PEDDLER SHOW DAYS AND HOURS WILL BE CHANGED TO THE FOLLOWING:
Thursday 5pm-9pm (Sneak Peek-Stroller-Free Shopping)
Friday: 10am-8pm
Saturday: 9am - 6pm
Closed on Sunday

They normally go through Sunday but since the Dallas Cowboys have a game that Sunday and their new stadium is near by they need the parking space for the fans. lets hope they show up after their poor performances. Just maybe with there new coach Garrett they may be able to salvage whats left of their season. One would certainly hope so anyway.

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.

Fall Foliage In Northeast Texas

I don't know about your area but the Lord has been real busy painting in ours. Despite the rain fall defecate we experienced this summer our fall foliage are just magnificent. According to those who know this area better than we say one reason is the area has not experienced it’s first frost yet and the leafs have not fallen.. Also this just isn’t the best place for color anyway. It’s simple, this area lacks deciduous trees, trees that loose leaves in winter. Not based on anything scientific, but maybe half the trees in this area of Texas are evergreens and because of this those that change their color really stand out..

Sandy and I’ve been out driving around in Northeast Texas this last week and have seen some glimpses of color along the road. Not really solid color, just spots of yellow and red here and there. Hope you enjoy.

Hwy 259 from Lone Star to Longview.

FM1844 and Hwy 529

 

 

 

 

 

When we got back I suggested to Sandy that we pick up her mom and head toward Lake O’ The Pines and Jefferson TX. Unfortunately it was later in the evening and their was a cloud cover put we did get to see some foliage.

These are taken off FM 729 toward the lake. The colors were not as crisp as you can see but we fell her mom enjoyed the outing as she was good at telling us what trees we were seeing the different colors. Lets see dogwood, sweet gum,  hickory nut, any many others that Sandy and I had no clue as to what they were.

(Click on any picture to enlarge)

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.

What A Week…Disaster One…Diaster Two… Thing's Looking Up

Oh where to start???/ I guess we need to go to the positive things that happened last week. Sandy and I  spent the first weekend in November doing that annual purge…..if you haven’t used it in one year out it goes. We went through every drawer, closet, shelving and crease of the motor home and ended up with three piles. One to the trash, the  second to  Goodwill and third to our 18ft cargo trailer we used for storage and seasonal clothes. I also added some wood and metal shelving to one of her cabinets in the bedroom. With this purge she was able to gain two cabinets over my Lazy boy recliner her groceries, chips, bread and crackers. We were quite proud of our accomplishments.

It was the cargo trailer storage stuff that set off disaster #1. I had came from the shop after dropping off some items in one of our metal cabinets and the brilliant idea popped into my head and  I said…. “Hey it would be a good idea to pull the Jeep out of the storage shed  and back it up to the motor home where we could load up the Goodwill bags as well as those items designated to the cargo trailer.” Now mind you Sandy does not like me backing the Jeep from this spot as there is a 4” diameter pole there holding one corner of the shed up and you guessed it it happens to be on my bad eye side. But, shucks I can handle that I’ve done it many times before. Sooo I hopped  the Jeep   proceeded backing……. yep you  guessed it my turn was to sharp. The next thing I heard was crunch and the shed went to shaking. I didn’t want to get out and look to see what kind of damaged I did on that side so I pulled up and proceeded  to back deeper before my cut. After I pulled into the front of the motor home I slowly walked around to the passenger side  and to my surprise there wasn’t any apparent damage to the body. Whew how fortunate can one get then I heard this psheeeeeeeee,  looked down and the right rear tire was going down. I looked closer and yep there it was about a 4” gash in the tire and my aluminum wheel was ripped all the way across. What had happened is I turned into this  metal plate. Look closely and you see the rubber from the tire on the plate.
So now we have to buy a new tire. Why didn’t I listen. Yep, Sandy  was quite upset with my dumb move. So Tuesday morning off to Sam’s we go prepared to lay down about $150-$175. When I told the service tech what I needed he said let me go look at the tire and I’ll be right back. About ten minutes later he came rolling the new tire up to the counter and said lets see with the adjustment we will allow you owe us $70.00. Wow can’t beat that deal at all so we got our first lucky break. By the way had he not allowed for the adjustment we would have paid $150.00 plus tax.

Now this brings us to last Thursday and disaster #2. I was out at the cargo trailer helping Sandy rearrange the trailer and we started several Goodwill bags. To get them out of our way I placed them on the ground just outside the cargo doors so all we had to do was throw them into the Jeep and head to Goodwill. We had some shelving units in the back of the trailer and I wanted them out to gain more storage space. There were four units (we used these back in the days of woodcrafts) so one by one I proceeded to gather them up and walk around with them to the side of the trailer. Yes….. you can see it coming can’t you…..Disaster #2. It was the fourth unit that did the trick as I walked around to the side I tripped (yep on them bags for Goodwill).

The next thing I knew was I heard Sandy yelling to the top of her lungs …”What happened!!!!!1… What did you do!!!!!!.” Then I looked up and saw this black cloud that has been following me around all that week and I heard a voice …You Jack Wagon!!!!! there is just something about you that really ticks me off!!!!! I had tripped and fallen on my left side probably for a brief moment I was knocked completely out. As I tried to gather myself I felt this screeching pain in my left rip cage and the left side of my face was throbbing. I tried to get up and just couldn’t. After about ten minutes while I finally regained some abnormally I finally got up and heard Sandy say we need to go to the Emergency Room. After calming set in I decided that I wasn’t hurt that bad and saw no need for a trip to the hospital. So I was able to walk back to the motor home and that is where I’ve been except for today I felt good enough to go to Longview VA for my blood work.

My left eye and only good eye swelled just about shut where I had difficulty in seeing and reading. My left side hurt so bad I could not type on the keyboard, sleep in bed, dare not cough or strain. I remembered a horse liniment that my mom used for her arthritis called Absorbine Veterinary Liniment. This stuff really has helped my side as now I’m able to lift, walk, set and turn without a lot of pain.

I fell it will get better each day it just about has to as next week we are off to Arlington TX for a Country Peddler show the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Our set up is not all that time consuming but it will entail lifting and carrying out displays and product from the Jeep to the Convention Center. We also hope to sneak in a brief visit with Mark and Dortha.

Until next time….MtnAire Traveler's.