Home from the MId-Atlantic

Well we arrived home yesterday after 16 days on the road.  Was the trip a success?  I think so. 

This trip out we did a retreat and the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival at Hampton.  Hampton was an interesting show.  There seemed to be a lot of people there, the number of sales were not down, but the total sales were off the mark a bit from last year’s average.  Many of the folks who live there are in one way or another connected to a pay check dependent on the Federal Government.  Sequestration has scared many of them to the point they were willing to come to the show and look around but not really ready to spend a lot of money.  Oh well, next year is another year.  And sequestration starts tomorrow and the news cycle will start reporting the world did not end.

We left Hampton and went to Lancaster to check on a few details for our show there this year and of course of the next several years now that AQS has signed on for three more years.  The dates they choose happen to coincide with the week that many Pennsylvania school children are in Lancaster and soak up a huge number of rooms in the hotels.   Should make finding lodging an interesting problem, for example the Host is full for next year already. 

Leaving Lancaster, we started to hit rain in western Pennsylvania and the wet snow started in earnest in Mid-Ohio.   We were just inside the Indiana line when we pulled in to a rest stop and realized just how much ice had fallen.  We slipped back onto the Toll Way and then exited at the next exit to sit the rest of the storm out.  Well it was still snowing the next morning but the salt was working and the roads were in much better shape, plus everyone has slowed down a bit.  So we were home by 1:30 PM. 

Saturday it is off to Iowa for a wedding.