CAMBRIA ARTS AND CRAFTS FAIR

Friday, September 17, 2010

The drive down here was typically non-eventful.  Left Hayward about 11:45 and stopped by the post office and dumped some mail off.  Next, I drove over to COSTCO and attempted to fill up my tank.  The pump stopped at $21.44 for no apparent reason.  I knew that my tank wasn't filled up, so I disconnected and started up the engine to see how much gas I needed.  It was around half-full or you can call it half-empty.  I inserted my cards again and began pumping.  The same thing happened.  Stopped at $21.44 again.  Some kind of electronic glitchmo going on here.  I'm not going through this again.  I disconnected and hung up the hose and drove out of there.  Next stop was Kaiser just down the street where I had to stand in line for almost 30 minutes for a prescription.  Of course, I should know better, this is noontime.  Had no choice though.

FINALLY ON THE ROAD and heading down the 880.  Made it out of the area with no traffic. Quite cloudy though and it was that way for a good part of the trip down.  As we passed by the exit for San Juan Bautista, I thought about last year's Chicken Pluckers Festival, which would have been this weekend.  However, I think that it has gone defunct as I didn't hear anything about it.  Every so often, I would wonder about Newark Days, which is this weekend and I could have been staying home today instead of driving down, wondering if I am going to fare better in Cambria.

WE ARRIVED AT MOTEL 6 in Atascadero, aka Bedbug Motel.  But we weren't able to enter the parking lot because there was a bus that had gotten trapped heading up the small incline.  Two lanes were coned off and there was a police car and tow truck there in front.  Oh my gosh.  Why on earth do these things happen to me.  I had to drive past and turn around.  I ended up parking in the lot adjacent to the motel and walked over to check in.  There were two other guys checking in, so it took me around 10 minutes to take care of business.  When I left the office, the bus was gone and I was able to park in front of my room.  We left quickly though and headed toward Morro Bay.

WE TOOK HIGHWAY 41 across and as we were approaching the town, I saw that the whole area was drenched in fog.  Oh my gosh.  Tell me something new.  I had checked the weather forecasts and saw that it was to be 61 degrees and partly cloudy.  Correct.

HEADED DIRECTLY OVER to Giovanni's on the Wharf.  Three people in line and a bunch of seagulls flying overhead.  Ordered a couple Halibut and Chips and we left in the van to head up to Cambria, where we planned to eat our dinner.  Usually we drive over to the Bay or ocean and sit alongside the water to eat, but it was so foggy that you couldn't even see The Rock.  As we drove up along the coast, we did encounter some occasional patches of sunshine.  We arrived at the America Legion Hall around 5:35pm and sat there and ate our food.

11:39PM AT THE MOTEL.  Some idiot outside in his car upping the bass.  Idiot.  Don't you think that people are trying to sleep, you idiot.  Jerry Springer guest #1.  Didn't get that good of a sleep but once I dozed off, I didn't wake up until we got our call from Tom Bodet at 5:45am.

Saturday, September 17

Probably would have been better to just stay in bed.  Left around 6:15 and it was still dark.  Drove down and picked up a couple croissants and a cinnamon roll and headed over to Highway 41.  It was a bit foggy and got worse as we continued west toward Cambria.  At times you could only see a couple hundred feet in front.  As we went lower in elevation we were able to see that Cambria was pretty much shrouded in fog and that's the way that the weather was most of the day.

WE ARRIVED THERE and immediately got to work.  We uncovered the sides and began unloading the remainder of our things from the van and started putting up our merchandise.  We were ready for business by around 9:15, but there were hardly any people around.  I guess we had approximately 17 vendors, as that is quite a bit less than the other times I have been here.

THE WEATHER WAS FAIR with morning temps in the high 50s to low 60s.  Not much wind yet but it did pick up around 1:15pm.

SALES STARTED OFF SLOW for me and just about everybody else.  Not much of a crowd throughout the day.  I imagined a big fat ZERO morning coming up, since there was hardly anybody around.  Surprisingly, I had some sales around 10:30 to break the ice.  I guess that I got a sale or two each hour which does not impress me.  My estimates of today's crowd is between 300-400.  When I went down to the end of town to pick up an Italian Sub, I noticed a decent amount of people walking around.  But for some reason, they just did not meander on over to the Craft Fair.  I really don't think that I stand a chance of catching my expenses for the trip. Booth fee+motel+gas+cost of merchandise sold.  Looks like there are a number of us that will finish the weekend as Non-profit Organizations.

THE MUSIC.  There was a Bluegrass group that played for much of the day.  They had located a huge speaker approximately 35 feet from my booth and it was too loud.  Could not hear my customers speak.  Sorry, but I am there to make money and this requires communication with the customers.  Well, actually when there are customers. (deduct 10 points for this)
 

Sunday, September 18

WE WOKE UP AT 7:55 AM, but that doesn't mean that I had a good night's sleep. Hard time getting to sleep.  Had to rush things a bit.  Opened the door and saw that it was pretty overcast and foggy out there.  ##)$@@$)#, I mumbled thinking that this was going to be like that all day long.  We hopped in the van and headed down Highway 101 over to Highway 46 in Paso Robles.  It was quite foggy the entire journey until we were coming down that last hill and it became sunny.  We continued over to Highway One and took a right and headed over toward Cambria.  I was expecting to see more fog, but it was clear and quite sunny with no wind.  Looked like it would be a nice day.

JUST BECAUSE IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY, do you think that there's going to be a lot of people at the Craft Show?  And everybody is going to get a lot of sales? Hmm.  Guess again.  First bad sign was that it wasn't hot out there in Paso Robles and other points north and south, so people weren't going to head to the coast to cool off.  We would have to depend on the tourists and locals, who do not buy much and pretty much stay away from the show.

THERE WERE QUITE A NUMBER OF BIKERS stopping by and I picked up some sales from them.  There was one couple that stopped by our booth and the guy was looking at our knives.  Let's call him Moondog.  He said that he was 'a collector of knives' and then pulled out one from the back of his trousers and snapped it open to show me.  He looked at my Fedora's and said that he has one and when he puts it on, he says that he looked like 'Carlos Santana,' and I'll agree with him. 

WE HAD A SMALL CROWD stop by and not many of them were buying.  With only 18 booths, there really wasn't a huge selection of items to choose from.  The show appears a lot better when there's a full compliment of vendors.  Couldn't have been more than 200-300 people stop by on Sunday and at times, the place looked like a ghost town.  The parking lot was pretty much empty at various times.

I DROVE DOWN to one of the local restaurants looking for sandwiches around noontime.  Round-up Pizza and Grub.  Ordered a couple, one of which was called the "California Steak," which was their version of a Philly Cheesesteak.  Not bad.  It was pretty decent.

THERE WERE A GOOD AMOUNT OF 'TOURISTS' in town and they surely didn't stop by the Fair.  There's a lot of shops and restaurants downtown and that is where they went and they stayed there.  I love the area and there is a lot to see and do. But this is a business trip and it just did not work out.