I spent the day carefully packing all my stitched models for the TNNA show. I have found that having models really generates interest and sales so I take as many as possible. In the picture above you can see them on my work table awaiting packing. Naturally I never have the right sized boxes so that means at least one trip to the box store. And of course the box store never has exactly the size I want....hummm, I'm beginning to see a pattern here. I make my selection and then manage to get the flatten boxes inside my little PT Cruiser and race for home. Some of my models have wooden bases and those have to be carefully cushioned and placed upright so that they don't break. Heavier pieces on the bottom, lighter on top, everything wrapped and then placed inside a plastic bag and then put inside the box. Whew! All my canvases are stacked, larger on the bottom and working up to the smaller designs. I place these inside of a Space Bag and then using my vacuum cleaner I suck the air out of the bag. This keeps the pieces from shifting around and being damaged. Now in case this sounds like a bit much to any one of you let me tell you the story of our return trip from the summer show held in Ohio one year.
We had just bought our RV and we decided to take it to the show. The idea being that this would save us lots of money on hotel rooms and food. We also decided to make a family vacation out of the trip and show. My daughter came along with us and helped out in our booth. We drove slowly up to Ohio stopping in Memphis to see Elvis and we spending several days in beautiful Kentucky. We explored all the caves and got friendly with some fainting goats. I never could get them to faint but I really tried and we've have the pictures to prove it. The trip was fun and the show was successful, now we were ready to drive home. We headed straight down south and then my daughter said that she wanted to stop in Biloxi to spend the day at the beach. We had a lot of fun playing tourist for the day and were ready for the last leg home to Texas. I-10 takes you across several bridges in Louisianna. By the time we reached Whiskey Bay it was raining pretty hard. Just as we topped the bridge and left the protection of the surrounding trees a huge hurricane strength gust of wind hit us. The wind was so strong that it tipped our new RV over on its side, ripping the back end of our truck off as it tore free. My husband managed to keep his cool and kept us and the truck from plunging over the edge of the bridge into the bay below. And it wasn't just us, an 18 wheeler behind us was also turned over on that bridge.
Naturally this all happened during rush hour and it took forever for emergency crews to reach us. My husband was allowed to climb inside our destroyed RV and remove the few remaining items that were still good. Being the smart man he was the first things he went for were my needlepoint canvases and models which were stored under the bed. Because, and only because, we had vacuumed sealed everything inside of the Space Bags, absolutely nothing was ruined from the rain pouring inside the gaping hole in the side of our RV. Not a single piece. Lessons learned: always double wrap your canvases and models using Space Bags and always get replacement insurance for your new RV. Within 2 weeks of returning to Houston we had a check for a brand new RV in our hands. The End.
