Paducah - Day Two

Yesterday was a very weird day at Paducah. This is the first time in all the times I've done trade shows where the second day was busier than the first day. It started off slow and I think part of that is our location. We are in the dome and while there are a couple of quilt displays near us, the main building is the convention center and there are three different areas of vendors and all the quilts tucked under one roof.

But after checking our numbers this morning and talking to several vendors, they all agreed that yesterday was busier than the first despite the slow start.

Got to see a few more Canadian faces - hi to Nancy even though she doesn't read my blog.

I have a new friend - Victoria Findlay Wolfe!  Her quilt display is right in front of us and she stops by whenever she has a book tour.  No tour today as she is teaching all day, but we'll see her again tomorrow. I would have to say that her giant quilt is the MOST photographed quilt in the show.  Let me rephrase that - it is the most photographed backdrop quilt in the show. While people are taking photos of the other quilts, it's hard to get in front of them and you don't want to get in front of them. This one is so big that people are standing in front of it and getting group shots, selfies, panorama shots (OK, so that was Rich and myself as I tried out a feature on my camera phone - works very well!)

So what else exciting happened?  Not much - we were in our booth pretty much the entire day. I was still signing people up 15 minutes before the show closed which is not normal. I did sneak out for a quick peek around our area. There is one thing for sure that I want to buy, several that would be nice to have and don't need. I hope to get into the convention center later today because I'm sure that today will be slower than the other days. Tomorrow will be the slowest.

Yesterday we decided to take the back route into Paducah and go over the BLUE bridge.  Rich has been trying to get us to go that way but I didn't want to get lost and besides the way that we normally go, we drive right past Hancock's which we'll probably stop at tonight. We were almost at the bridge when the traffic was stopped. We were on a bit of a tight schedule so we ended up turning around and crossing the Ohio River on our normal bridge. On the way home, we took the BLUE bridge.  OH MY GOD - this is a scary bridge. It's high, it's long, it's narrow, it's very blue and the surface is an open iron grid.  No room for cycling over that bridge!  We'll go over that shortcut bridge this morning - it really is a shortcut. It's called the Brookport Bridge.

I do love our dinners out.  I was awake last night!  And we had a good chat - you know the kind - "let's save the world, peace to all" and all that good stuff. Very interesting conversation threads. We spend so little time in our hotel rooms, I'm thinking a tent would be just fine!

I must say that I had a better sleep last night because I brought in TWO quilts to sleep under. I didn't keep both of them on, but it was nice to have that weight.  Silly I know!

I must talk about the weather here. Weather seems to be an important factor wherever we go. So day one - we're in the big white dome and the sun is out, it's hot outside. There were times during the day when I thought we would all faint from the heat. It was HOT in the dome.  Then it would cool down and the temperature changed drastically in various parts of the dome. It wasn't consistent at all. Yesterday, total opposite. I wore my jacket (with a light sweater underneath) for almost the entire day. It was frigid in the dome. The sky was cloudy, but no rain, but the outside temperature was cold.  I'm not sure what the forecast is for the next couple of days - I'll wear what I was planning, but dressing in layers is a definite must!

Got to run - another crazy day is about to begin.

Have a great day!

Ciao!