Tuesday, July 21

We awoke to a gully-washing rain this morning, but I managed to get a treadmill session and weights exercises in before it started thundering and lightening. I waited a while before getting ready for the day, though, because I didn't want to be in the shower in a thunderstorm.

We spent the rest of the morning gathering stuff for the camping trip, and then after lunch, Hubbie and I ran errands...to pick up complimentary passes to the county fair; to the health store for multi-grain cereal, and no-salt seasoning; and finally to the WDCS for incidentals and groceries. When we arrived at the store, it was pouring down rain, and it was still raining hard when we left.

After we got back home, we continued putting stuff in the camper for the trip. Mid-afternoon, we watched a couple of shows on TV, before having a supper of Salisbury steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy, and spinach.

We hoped that the rain would stop or at least ease before we needed to go to the fair, and it did, but it started right back up shortly after we arrived, around 6:00 p.m. Fortunately, we stayed nice and dry in the commercial building, where Mother and I manned a booth for the Caring Hands Hospice organization.

We walked around the commercial building three times, pushing Mother in the transport chair, before we found the right booth, because the exhibit had no large banner identifying it. Soon after we settled in, I called a Caring Hands worker to note that the space needed signage, because people were walking by, looking up, seeing nothing, and walking on.

Hubbie went with us to the fair, and after he toured the exhibits in the commercial building and other buildings, he sat with Mother while I went to the office and devised a makeshift sign from a strip of paper cut from a roll meant to cover tables. One of the ladies in the office loaned me a box of straight pins, and we used these to attach the temporary sign.

Later, another Caring Hands worker dropped by the booth to see how we were doing and said that a sign had been ordered from a sign-making company, but it had not been completed in time, and that it was supposed to be ready by Wednesday.

Only a few folks dropped by the booth anyway, since there weren't many people at the fair on this miserable-weather night. Our shift was from 6-8:30 p.m. When we were done, we toured the exhibit buildings and registered for the prizes at various booths. Instead of laboriously filling out all the entry slips, I took along a sheet of return address labels to attach to the slips, and then all I had to do is add my phone number.

We noticed that there were lots of empty spaces in the women's exhibit building, since Mother and I didn't enter anything in crafts, household arts, canned goods, baked goods, and vegetables and plants. Several fair board members commented that they missed us this year.

We were still sort of represented, though, because there was a photo of one of my great-granddaughters (whose name starts with "F") building a Christmas gingerbread house in the art gallery's exhibit, and one of my greeting cards was on display in the Caring Hands Hospice exhibit...both were a surprise to us.

We left the fairgrounds around 9 p.m., and by then, it had stopped raining, thank goodness. At home, I felt hungry, so Hubbie and I had bagels with cream cheese and strawberry preserves. He had milk with his, and I had a cup of hot chocolate, because I felt chilled after a cool, rainy evening out.