ANOTHER GOOD SHOW AND BOAT IS COMING ALONG

We had our show last weekend in Bastrop, TX. It was a pretty drive there and we stayed at Bauscher State Park near Bastrop. We asked for a quiet spot so they moved us to a different circle. We set up as the park volunteer ran the leaf blower in our circle for an hour.

It was nice to be in the forest again, even if it was a Texan forest.

Soon, other people surrounded our site. Before we knew it, there were literally dozens of kids screaming while racing around on their bicycles. We ended up in the middle of a multi- family camp out. Nice and quiet, eh?

We discovered these beautiful purple berries throughout the campground. Gorgeous.

We walked to the office where we had checked in so we could get sodas and look around. We found out there were very poisonous snakes around that area (The Coral snake? They have a saying-"Red and Yella, You're a Dead Fella"

We tip toed back to the campsite.

The next morning we got up early and drove to the Art on the Bridge in Bastrop. They had numbers picked out for us and we were one of the last ones and had about one and half hour wait. When we got there, they had instructed a little honda to cross over the pipe that had blocked traffic from entering the pedestrian bridge for the other 364 days of the year. She drove over it and proceeded to get stuck. Finally some guys lifted her car over the pipe but Brett said that damage had been done to her muffler. I felt so sorry for her.

After sitting around for about a half hour, Brett took a walk down to our booth on the bridge, about 800 feet down, and realized that we were too wide to make it down the aisle. So we parked and got out our heavy equipment and walked it all to the booth. Someone lent us a hand-truck to get our totes but we had already carried the heavy tables all the way.

We got setup just in time, luckily we had gotten in there an hour early.

The show ended up really good. Bastrop was beautiful and had a lot of nice people in it. Apparantely Julia Roberts had filmed a movie there and visited a little cafe where we got coffee. We weren't expecting to make even the booth fee there during the one day show but we ended up selling a ton of inventory.

We stopped in Columbus, TX for a milkshake. After waiting for awhile for 30 people to get through the line at McDonald's, we gave up and headed to Jack In The Box. We parked and as we got out of the car noticed the thousands of black birds over the restaurant! It was absolutely incredible! The pictures don't even start to show all of them. They lived in the huge oak across from the restaurant and were all over the electric lines.

We decided to drive all the way home after the show (3 hour drive). During our drive home, I realized I didn't have enough inventory or supplies to do the show this weekend coming up. I had ordered all the supplies under the sun except the one supply I couldn't do without- Crimp Beads....

Monday, we packed everything up in the camper again and headed to Bay City to go to the bead shop and get the crimp beads. It felt forever to get there and when we did, we discovered the shop was closed. I cried because it cost so much money to drive there and took up so much time and it meant I had no supplies to make the inventory...

We decided that we would forfeit our booth fee for this weekend so we could work and rebuild the inventory up when I got materials. It had become stressful to do a show every weekend and without the supplies, it was very difficult.

This week we worked on the boat a lot. We bolted on the mounts for the two poles on deck. Brett built blocks for the spinnaker pole mounts out of a beautiful hard wood. I helped him through-bolt them and cleaned the calking. On Tuesday, we got the washers for the engine's fuel injector and Brett spent most the day installing them.

Brett also got paid so we had a chunk of money- we paid our bills and bought as much boat stuff as we could. We ended up getting a new toilet and a water heater as well as other misc items needed. Unfortunately, we had decided not to buy the starter. We thought Brett would have been able to turn the motor without it but he was not able to. It's so hard making decisons on such a limited income but we can only do what we can do... That starter has been a thorn in our side for awhile but we are concentrating on getting moved onto the boat and to do that we needed the toilet and water heater before the starter...

We made the decision to go ahead and install the engine next week. He feels pretty confident that the engine is in excellent shape. We always look at our worst case scenario and our worst case for this would be to have to pull the engine out again. So we decided, so we could keep working on the boat, that we would go ahead and drop it in the boat and get the starter from our next show.

After we put the engine in, we'll be able to start building the galley and finish the nav table area. These last two days, we decided to put the part of the flooring in. I helped Brett yesterday- We bought two sheets of pressure treated plywood for the subflooring and we had a scrap of Teak & Holly ply for the forward part of the boat. Yesterday we were able to get the subflooring and teak into the forward part of the boat. Unfortunately part of the teak ripped as Brett was prying it up to place the glue. Unfortunately I walked in right when he did it. Whew, sparks were flyin! We had to use the piece though since it was all we had. We finished prying the piece out and then I left to give Brett space. He was able to put the Teak down and he glued up the torn section. Luckily it is in the locker area and will probably never be seen. We are also putting a rug down in that part of the boat, too. It was heartbreaking though because you can't just go buy another $150 Teak & Holly sheet of ply from the local lumberyard...

We need one more piece to finish the salon area. We have to travel to Houston to get it so we are thinking we might get one during our next show in Galveston in November. It's so expensive though. ugh. But it will look SO nice... We had gotten this other Teak&Holly ply from Charl as scrap for free. These scraps covered the forward part of the boat as well as most the galley area! Very nice. It saved us from having to buy 2 sheets.

Well I am having a lot of problems with the internet again so I need to post this before I lose connection again... Enjoy!