Wednesday, October 9, 2013

From Michigan to Home and out again

September was a big month for us. We had two shows booked, one on the weekend of the 14th and the other on the next week, the 21st. Only one little problem, the first one was in Imlay Michigan, an annual gourd festival, and the second in Houston, a polymer clay retreat.
We left on Sunday September 8th before noon and by 5:00 in the afternoon our RV transmission quit.

One truly amazing thing, we broke down less than two miles from one of the two places in the state that could work on an Allison transmission!

We were pleased that Good Sam (RV tow insurance) sent a two truck in less than half an hour to tow us to the nearest place United Engines where we spent the night in their front parking lot. Even without a transmission, the generator worked just fine so we were comfortable.

The next day they said they'd try to get it in to see what was wrong so we stayed in the Ramada Inn, a fabulous hotel and very pet friendly Sunday night. On Monday they still could not get to it so we headed home and decided on the way to drop the fur babies off at Joe Paul's house and headed back to Tulsa and spent another great night at the Ramada inn.

The next morning we drove to the RV, loaded everything we could into the car, see pic left, and headed out for the 900 mile drive to Imlay.

One sad thing, we failed to get the samples for my class, the finished gourds.


The drive was beautiful and we passed farm after farm with corn fields and other crops ready to pick.

It is easy to see why this part of the country is called the breadbasket of the world.


Along the way we would stop for the night, sleep and pull orders the next day. If the hotel had a printer or office center we'd print out the orders and I'd write out the addresses, Joe'd take them to the local post office and we would be heading north again.

We arrived at the Michigourder Annual Festival the night before it opened.

Polyform had donated the clay for my classes and shipped it to the director in Imlay so my clay was there when we arrived.

I taught two classes on Polymer clay basics and two classes on making a fitted lid for a gourd.

Everyone seemed to be having a great time learning and having fun playing in clay!

I had a great time and while we were there got a call that our RV was fixed and ready to go.  We headed home with many wonderful memories, picked up the RV and had a few hours to do some laundry before heading to Houston.

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