Happy 2010

I found this card on the internet which conveys Sandy’s and my wishes to each of you for 2010.

Lord, as a New Year begins
We come to you and ask for your blessing
We pray that you would give us joy to fill our days
And peace to fill our hearts and love to fill our lives.
Thank you for the plans you have for us in the New Year.Thanking God for you and praying your new year is blessed in every way.

Tomorrow Sandy and I celebrate our 10th year of full timing. If you had asked us way back when would we last this long I feel we both would have said no. Not only have we survived ten years we are looking forward to ten more. We have met and made so many friends during this time. We’ve seen this wonderful country of ours which had we not chosen this lifestyle we would have missed. We have also established many friends over the internet. We have not personally met most of you but from following your journals we feel like we know you. Since we have not done that much traveling latley because of our ageing mothers we feel like we’ve been to the many places you have taken us through publishing your journals. We thank you for that.

We’ve had a light rain for most part of the day which I’m sure hampered our crowd. Tomorrow its suppose to be warmer and mostly sunny. The bowl games today were good and for the most part played in excellent weather. Lets hope tomorrow bowls will follow suite.

I’ve managed to meet the goal of publishing something everyday for the month of December. Glad that's out of the way and we can get back to normal again.

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.

The Eve Before New Years Eve

Our cloud cover gradually gave way to a sunny evening. We didn't get as warm as the weatherman predicted. Tonight is going to be a full moon and as I understand from reading one of Jerry’s recent blog it’s called a blue moon.

A blue moon is a full moon that is not timed to the regular monthly pattern. Most years have twelve full moons which occur approximately monthly, but in addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each solar calendar year contains an excess of roughly eleven days compared to the lunar year. The extra days accumulate, so that every two or three years (on average about every 2.7154 years), there is an extra full moon. The extra moon is called a "blue moon." Different definitions place the "extra" moon at different times. In Jerry’s blog with Our life On Wheels this is the second full moon for the month of December with the first occurring on December 3rd. This moon being the thirteenth of the year.

This is our blue moon here at Canton tonight.

It started out today looking like we were going to be scarce with vendors this month but as the day past they started pouring in to the grounds. Our rest of the week is suppose to be a little warmer with partly cloudy skies. With this being the last weekend for the deer hunters we should have a somewhat good showing of the wife's of the hunters. Now I don’t know about those that will be watching all them bowl games the next few days but our crowd we hope will make it worth our while this month. Usually the winter months are slow and we are happy campers if we make our expenses. Who knows maybe the blue moon will change all this and we end up with a good month.

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.

Right Now It Doesn't Appear It’s Going to Happen

Snow that is. We’ve had rain most of the afternoon and right now it appears that's all we are going to have today. One of the neat things  about posting blogs though is you can always cover events after they happen in your next. This is particularly true for a guy like me that seems to always have trouble coming up with something to write about. Now take Al with the Bayfield Bunch and Jerry with Our Life on Wheels, they always have interesting blogs and photos. Take today's blogs for instance they both have great stories from going shopping and traveling The Western United States.
If the truth be known most of you can tell…. now here is a guy struggling to keep consecutive posts going. Which is as close to the truth as one can get. In my posting I wanted to reach one goal and that was to make a post for every day of a particular month. I chose December. I have managed to bore you to death thus far with only two days remaining.

We had some of Sandy’s home made chili tonight which was just what the weatherman ordered. Wait what's this…. Sandy just pulled out her brownie cake pan. Oh! boy some homemade brownies maybe tonight before bedtime. This is the first Holiday season that I can remember in a long time that Sandy was unable to do her goodie baking. The trip to Houston and dealing with the MH issue just put a wrench into that. It want hurt my feelings if she wants to play catch up now.

My friends across the way surprised me with this USMC Devil Dog dressed in his blues.

I am Army but I was telling them about one of our RV Dreamer friends whose son had recently joined the Marine Corps and we had added his name to on our family prayer list. So, they surprised me with this “Build-a Buddy” bull dog dressed in Marine Corps blue.

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.

Bitter Cold and A Chance of Snow Tomorrow

Slept in till nearly 7:30 am this morning. Sandy was already up and on her second cup of coffee. She said “you need to hurry and get dressed as our neighbors wants us to go have breakfast with them”. After breakfast we returned and finished setting up our booth. The high today reached 43F and we are supposed to drop back to the mid 20’s tonight. They finally got around to turning on the water for a brief period to allow us to fill our fresh water holding tank.

Our neighbors from Lufkin showed up and we helped them unload and set up their booth. Did some on line banking and watched a little TV the rest of the afternoon. Presently watching/listening to a good    Independence Bowl game between Georgia and Texas A&M. So, far through the first half the Aggies have outplayed the Bulldogs.  Sandy’s sister Pam and her husband Mike are at the game in Shreveport and I bet freezing to death. Yea, I know stats doesn't always till everything.

           44      -       20

 

The weatherman is predicting a 70% chance of freezing precept and snow tomorrow evening. Then we should see a little warm up the rest of the week.

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.

Canton First Monday Trade Days

Here is an aerial view of the place Sandy and I travel to every month. I have placed a yellow push pin in the area (Pavilion 4000 Booth 4271) where we currently set up every month. There are approximately 7000 vendors that set up here each month. There is another six Pavilions know as Old Mill Market Place about 3/4 a mile from the main grounds where we are located.  This area for some reason though never caught on like the main grounds have. We even had a booth there for about two years before moving back to the main grounds. The area across from Old Mill is known as Dog Town. They primarily sell animals here. Dogs (puppy mills) being the most popular. There is a saying about First Monday which is “if you can’t find it here it does not exist”.

 First Monday Trade Days. according to various sources, the tradition began with district court meetings held on the first Monday of each month or with the monthly visit of neighbors in the Confederate times. The custom began with the swapping of surplus stock by barter and grew to include casual bargaining for or swapping of dogs, antiques, junk, and donkeys on a 30-acre grounds. It is so popular Canton goes from a town of 5,100 to a town of over 300,000 during the first Monday weekend, making it the largest flea market in the world. In the past, due to the success of First Monday, the city of Canton had no property tax, however, as of 2006, that is no longer the case. 

We have been coming to First Monday Trade Days now for about 23 years. We did take off for a little over three years and traveled the US selling our crafts and seeing the sites this great country offers. One of the greatest reasons we've come here for so many years believe it or not is not the money but the friendship one builds here with their fellow vendors. We are like one big family. In fact this is where we met our friends Joe and Sherri of Somewhere in Time. We had already met Mark and Dortha with RVing with Poppa earlier at a craft show in Tulsa OK. They too did First Monday. We could hardly wait for each First Monday to come where we would gather with our friends for fellowship, story telling, good food and popping  bottle caps of your favorite brew. In fact I learned a trait from Joe that's called “Back Wash”. I would noticed when around Joe he never drank his bottle empty. There was always some left in the bottom of the bottle. I found out that this was his  “back Wash’ and you just don't drink that. I figure since it was diluted with his saliva the alcohol was no longer 100% so why waste the effort.

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.