All right, so October isn’t exactly summer, but the Fall Festival in Sister Bay, WI (held Oct. 12-14) was my last outdoor show of the season. I had high hopes, hearing from many it is the biggest festival on the peninsula.
Husby and I arrived in Door County on Thursday afternoon and went straight to the site of the craft/art vendor area to set up our canopy and a few props that needed assembly. We figured getting a jump on the set-up would give us more time to prepare the displays the next morning before the show started.
After setting up the canopy and weighing it down with many weights on all four legs we set off to have a nice little supper of superb seafood chowder and breadsticks at the Cornerstone Pub. Then we crawled into our cozy little motel bed for a good night’s sleep before the opening of what would be my biggest and best show ever.
The next day we arrived on site at 8:00 a.m., two hours before the show was to begin. We were greeted by frantic vendor neighbors who were unable to set up their displays. Why? Because during the night the mighty wind blowing off of Green Bay took hold of our heavily-weighted canopy and positioned it in the middle of the road, after which someone had moved it into an open space two tents down from our assigned spot. (How they moved it I’ll never know – there was about eighty pounds of weight on each of the four legs of the canopy.) I’m grateful someone got it out of the road, but I was certainly surprised to see our canopy was the only one affected by the great winds of Lake Michigan. Perhaps being from St. Paul, MN we were naive to the power of the autumn weather of Door County and misjudged how much weight was actually needed to keep the canopy in its spot. Or maybe our assigned spot was really the Burmuda Triangle of Mill Street.
That ocean is Lake Michigan. That hurricane is the wind off the lake. That ship is my canopy. Burmuda Triangle I say!
With the help of our neighbors (craft show neighbors are usually awesome in their helpfulness to those in need ~ it’s a karma thing) we got the canopy back in its assigned spot and set everything else up for the day.
It was a beautiful autumn day. Sales were tremendous. Tune in tomorrow to find out what happens after our first very successful day of the Fall Festival.
A sunny street corner in Door County, WI
Auntie B's Wax 