TAFT OILERADO DAYS


Friday, October 22

MOTTO:  BYOTP.  Bring your own toilet paper.

Drizzled a bit during early morning but that was it. We left Hayward around 11:00am in our van which was totally packed solid front-to-back; top-to-bottom.  We headed out toward Highway 5 on 238 and 580.  After passing Livermore, we began climbing toward the Altamont Pass.  The traffic began backing up around 11:30 and it stopped.  We were stuck in traffic just sitting there.  Highway 580 had turned into a parking lot. After some ten minutes or so, we all began to move and I have no idea as to what had happened.  No tow trucks, no wrecked cars, no ambulances, no nothing.  We continued along and connected with Highway 5 and continued.  Smooth sailing until approx 143 miles from Bakersfield when the traffic began bunching up again.  I have no idea exactly where we were at; just passed the sign that said  Bakersfield 144.  A Highway Patrol shot up in the left emergency lane and soon after another one came flashing by in the right emergency lane. Traffic merged to the right very slowly. The cars in the right lane moved to the emergency lane while cars in the second lane moved to the right lane.

There was a silver trailer flipped over on its side along with the pickup truck that was towing it.  What a mess.  Must have swerved or something because there was absolutely no wind that could have blown it over.  Further down the highway, there was another silver trailer and truck waiting to see what happened to their traveling companion.  What a terrible feeling they must have had.  We continued down Highway 5 and a short while later we saw another accident on the other side of the highway in the north-bound lanes.  A mid-sized truck had also flipped over and was resting on its side.  The roof had come apart and merchandise had spewed out onto the highway.  Wow.  What a mess.


STAYED AT THE SUPER-8 MOTEL over in Buttonwillow. Actually the Buttonwillow exit.  Free Wi-Fi but there were no extra outlets in the room.  Had to unplug one of our lights.  Had coffee and a coffee-maker but no pot. Found out later that you make the coffee in the package. Duhhhh.  That's great.  Big mud bog in front of the rooms.  Other than that, the room was fine.  The cars and trucks on the highway weren't too loud during the night and got a good night's sleep.  I put a sign out front that said "No elephants or horses."

HAD MADE RESERVATIONS for Motel 6, but my friend told me that he read some reviews for it and it didn't seem to be in good condition and mentioned something about clanging pipes and that's all she wrote.  Stayed at a Motel 6 in Tucson two years ago and had to listen to their clanging pipes for three nights. I know all about clanging pipes let me tell you.  Could hardly sleep.  Every time somebody used the water I would hear clang-clang-clang all night long. It was quite loud.  No more of that.  So I immediately switched to Super-8.  Fifteen dollars more per night.  They do have two Motel-6s here but I didn't want to chance a couple rough nights.  One of my other friends stayed there and he said it was fine.

WE LEFT THE MOTEL AROUND 3:40pm and headed West on 58 toward Taft.  The drive took us through the town of Buttonwillow which wasn't really anything much.  We zig-zagged our way up and down some hills which overlooked a bunch of small oil rigs.  Continued onto Hwy 33 and went through McKittrick and over to the huge metropolis of Taft. 

SETTING UP AND FINDING THE SPACE.  Not really that easy.  Highway 33 was Main Street and I followed that through town.  Pretty good sized town, actually and it had the normal array of fast-foods, etc., just like any other normal city.  Kept going until I saw some booth on the left side and they were located on 6th St.  I hung a quick right and drove down  a couple blocks to the event.  Looked at my map and drove around in circles looking for the area where we were to set up.  Little did I know that we were going to set up along a sidewalk.  Gosh, the last time I set up along a sidewalk was for a Mother's Day show in Windsor.  The sidewalk was only 2-3 feet wide and if some ooooverweight person stood in the aisle, then that's all she wrote.  However, this sidewalk was much wider and posed no problems.  Booths were set up along both sides of the sidewalk and were 15 ft x 15 ft and we could park our vehicles behind.  Neat.

WE SET UP OUR CANOPY AND GRIDS and then covered it up.  We left our merchandise in the van and drove away at 6:10pm.

Saturday, October 23.

WOKE UP AT 5:30 and we were out of the motel by 5:51.  This time we decided to head south on the '5' and drive some 12-13 miles to the exit for Hwy 119.  There was just a sign for Maricopa and another town but I knew that this was the road to take, especially after heading down and seeing the Chevron with a price of $3.79 which I had recognized from yesterday..  Can you imagine that?  This guy is price gouging the people.  Nothing within 40 cents of him.  Should rope the bastard.

IT WAS DARK THE ENTIRE WAY THERE and I had to make sure I didn't miss the Taft turnoff from 119.  I kept behind a couple cars most of the way and that made it an easier drive.

DURING THE MORNING HOURS there was a distinct smell of oil blowing our way.   I guess these people in Taft have put up with it.  Only lasted for a short period of time, but it was very unpleasant.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT OUR SPACE:  It was 15x15, which is really great and pretty much unprecidented.  In some shows, we have to pay $300+ sometimes to get a cramped up 10x10 space from greedy promoters.  12 feet wide would be acceptable or having spaces set up in quads, which gives everybody two open sides.  Do you know that there are actually shows out there that will charge you extra if you want to open another side?  Like corner spaces and if you want to sell from the 2nd side they would charge you $100.  I have seen two promoters actually do that.

Another thing I like about these spaces is that we can park our vehicles behind us.  That makes for a quick getaway on Sunday and this allows the vendors to store some of their things and remove them later in the day.  There are a number of individuals that have their trailers parked behind.  I love that and I wished that I could have brought my motor home but that gas price is a real killer.



Approximately 20 feet in back of the booths is where the grass ends and you have hardened sand in the lot.  You can see the areas that had turned to mud recently with loads of tire tracks in it.  Reminds me of the lot in Chandler (AZ) in 2006 when the rains turned it into one hell of a mud bog and vehicles had serious problems getting out.   Could happen late Sunday afternoon since they are predicting rain for late PM.

THE SHOW STARTED AT 9:00AM and I had a couple quick sales.  Not too many people around until late morning.  Only had around $40 in sales by the time 1:00 rolled around.  I called this an 'In and Out' show.  The booths were located on the grass alongside a paved path.  Watching the people coming down the path, you can notice that they were arriving and were not interested in making very many purchases and you pretty much can realize that these people will not be making their purchases until they are leaving at perhaps 2-3:00pm.  Usually at festivals you have the booths clustered within a certain area where the people can walk around and browse.  However, they were situated in an area where people are either coming in or going out.  By 1:00, I think that a lot of us were in a panic mode because of slow, cheap sales and we wondered if we would make our space rent, motel costs and the gas also.  This show is way out in the boonies and most of us came from Northern California or the L.A. area.  I'll bet that 2/3 of these vendors had never heard of Taft until a couple months ago when they realized they were desperate for a show on this weekend and they saw it in Craftmaster or heard about it from Rick.



THERE WAS A PRETTY GOOD SIZED CROWD during the afternoon and my sales were somewhat decent. I had some good spurts and was able to breathe a big sigh of relief around 3:30-4:00, having feared the worst for awhile.



THE FOOD.  Took a walk down to the food area and picked up a "Jumbo Polish Sausage" and a Philly Cheesesteak.   The sausage was okay.  Three times the size of the one I had last week but can't compare to those Lockforde Brats.   Not enough onions and peppers.  Should have asked for more.  I like my sausages with the onions, etc., piled sky-high.  I had to wait a little longer for my Philly Cheesesteak and they gave it to me in a styrofoam container.  I was surprised.  You trying to hide the thing?  Both cost seven bucks which is a bit high.  When I opened the container, I saw a lack of onions also and it didn't appear too good.  A bit on the sloppy side and the ingredients were all mixed together.  However, it really wasn't too bad and would rate it higher than most of the other cheesesteaks I've had at shows.  Let's give it a 5.27 on the 10-pt scale.

Picked up some ribs at Willow Ranch BBQ Restaurant (hidden behind Econo Lodge).  Took the food back to the motel.  Not bad.  9 somewhat large pork ribs along with baked beans, salad and a baked potato.  The price was something like $17.49.

Sunday, October 24



STARTED OFF THE DAY with a Continental Breakfast at Super 8.  Went over to their 'lunch room' and picked up a couple muffins and  bagel.  I took a look around and they had coffee, orange juice, apple juice.  Also they had a couple waffle machines where you could make your own.  Didn't have time for them but an excellent item.  We then drove over to the festival and opened up.



THE STINKY STALLS aka Porta-Potties are out there someplace.  Take note of the parking lot.  This is around 1:30pm on Sunday.  Where are the cars?  Where are the people?  Where the hell are the porta-potties?

EXTREMELY SMALL CROWD during the morning and well into the afternoon.  Walked by the carnival area and only a handful of people around.  Virtually nobody on the rides at 12:00.  Few people in the food area.  The two porta-potties were filthy with hundreds of flies enjoying their lunch.  Of course, no toilet paper.  Called the lady in charge of the event and she told me they had called the company responsible for their upkeep earlier and they had not come out.  An hour later, they were still filthy and I called the company.  They said that they had received a call and they were on their way.  Around 2:00, I saw one of their trucks go by.  They had told me that they were on an 'as needed basis.'   This is just great, the show ends at 4:00.

MY SALES WERE ONE/HALF of what they were on Saturday.  I didn't do terrible this weekend but certainly didn't do very good. The local vendors from this area would be satisfied  with these sale numbers.  However, a lot of us traveled quite far and had motel and gas expenses to deal with.  The van sleepers were able to cut their motel expenses.  Fortunately I had items in the $10-range and those were selling.  Once again, not many sales as the people entered but my sales came as the people exited.

Began  packing some of our things around 1:15 because there was a possibility of rain later in the day and we were gone by 3:05.  Headed down Main Street out of town over to Hwy 119 and then down to the '5'.

As we approached Santa Nella, it began to sprinkle.  My windows on the van were pretty dirty and when I turned on the wipers they looked pretty much like pea soup.  Just so happened that we drove past Anderson's Pea Soup shortly afterward.  Amazing.  My windows were really smudged from the sand that had settled on the van during the day and the wipers just smeared the stuff all over the windows. 

I REALLY EXPECTED TO SEE some serious rain on he way home, but we only had sprinkles every so often.  As we drove up Highway 5, we saw many dark cloud formations.  There were occasional pockets of traffic and a lot of loonies and slow poke drivers out there.  Normal traffic flow was around 80+ miles per hour and we had loads of people passing on the right hand side and plopping themselves down right in front of you leaving about five feet between the cars.  Crazy.  I really don't like getting much closer than 50-60 feet, especially with the van being totally packed and it was hard to stop with all that stuff, but I had to close the distance because of these idiots trying to dart in front of me.  All-in-all, it was an extremely fast trip home and fortunately we didn't hit any hard rain or strong winds.

FROM WHAT I HAVE HEARD, last weekend was the better of the two weekends to be here selling.  Sales were a lot better and people were more willing to part with their dough.  So, run to your calendars and mark those dates for 2016.