Monday, May 26, 2008

Tough weather in Tahoe


May 23-26 Lake Tahoe, CA Craft show at jct of Hwys 89 and 50


Originally, we were pretty excited to be doing a 4-day craft show over Memorial Day weekend in Lake Tahoe, but I never could have imagined how severe the weather could be in late May. Anything goes, I must say!! However, this weekend turned out to be one of the biggest nightmares we have experienced since we have been selling our things at festivals, etc. The weather had been great up there, but weather reports showed that it would be cold and rainy.

It was snowing when we arrived. Didn't last too long though and we were able to set up our canopy, etc. in the parking lot. We were pretty tired and it was cold, windy and now drizzling, so we just closed up and headed for the motel. When we woke up in the morning, we were surprised to see a couple inches of snow on the ground. We drove over to the craft show and opened one side and continued to set up our merchandise. When it stopped raining around 10:00, we opened for business. Around 12:00, it became colder, more clouds came rolling in and it began drizzling. We had enough, so we closed up and left

On Saturday morning, it drizzled just a little and then subsided for the remainder of the day. However it was still cold and there were few people walking around. Sales were somewhat slow for everybody. A number of vendors had told me that they did really good here, but when he weather is as bad as this.....that's a different story. Around 3:30 we had one of the vendors at the Rib Cook Off at Horizon drop to purchase one of our popularshoulder bags. One of our customers had told her where she could buy one. She said that the vendors closed early because it was raining quite hard. Wow. Not even a drop of rain for us, just down the road.

My wife was becoming sick from the cold and rain. When things slowed down and by 4:30, it was pretty much a ghost town. After sitting around in the canopy covered in blankets all day, we anxiously closed up at 5:00, since it was now getting even colder. Temps were in the low-40's and that was quite cold for us, especially after having to endure 104+ degree temperatures the weekend before in Oakdale. On Sunday, I had to run 'the store' by myself because I left Lucy at the Motel all day. When I saw the dark clouds coming over the mountains and the weather becoming colder around 4:45, I knew that it was time to close up. After I got into my van and pulling away, the skies let loose with a torrential rain. Nice to get back to that motel room and turn the heater on full blast. Since my wife was still sick on Monday, we packed up around 10:30 and left.

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