November 7, 2008

View of the day-We're from Canada, eh...this snow and cold weather don't bother us. Al meets some bundled up people on the way to one of the display halls at the toy show.

We didn't get up early enough to get in on the free breakfast so we grabbed a quick snack at McDonalds before heading over to Dyersville to pick up our passes and tour the huge toy museum, then it was north to pick up the cargo trailer. The wet weather had finally caught up with us, starting with fog, then rain, then finally snow. It came and went all day but was just warm enough that it melted...or tried to...once it hit the ground.

Marilyn was reading the program from the show in between giving map directions and Al was totally confused as to which way we were going, so it wasn't surprising that we took the wrong turn and ended up 10 miles west of Dyersville instead of 35 miles north...it was a nice drive through the snow flurries to see the countryside. We got the trailer hooked up and went back to Dyersville...the quick way this time.

They had a lot of tents set up for the outside vendors, amazingly enough one lady told us there hadn't been snow at any of these shows in the 17 years that they had been attending...and of course, they blamed us Canadians for bringing it with us.

We went through four or five buildings of vendors, with Al and Jeff getting some of the "need-its" on their toy lists...some hard to find and others with great resale value. A lot of people stopped to talk to us after checking out the back of Marilyn's harvesting jacket...someone who had hired another Canadian harvester for several years, friends from Alberta and even a couple from the Netherlands. There was no end of visiting and browsing to be done...and it was only the short day of the show, starting at 4pm.

We finally headed back to the hotel at Dubuque around 7:30pm and after a great supper at the Ground Round and a soak in the hot tub, it was time to rest up for the big auction sale tomorrow.

If Al and Jeff have any money left...