► Sky has cleared ... north wind has backed off some, but still blustery ... temperature continuing to fall ... 25ºF/-3ºC @ 2:30 AM.
► We left the house heading down to Little Rock around 9 AM. Little Rock is approximately 120 highway miles to our south, a distance that can be driven in around three hours by me in our van. We take Arkansas Highway 65 down to Conway where we pick up Interstate 40 on into Little Rock.
► We made pretty good time during the first half of the trip, but then the stops began. We dropped Rusty and Bucket off for their weekend stay at the
Puppy Park. Just a bit further down the road, we stopped for gasoline. Next came a stop at the Office Depot in Conway. After stocking up on office supplies, we proceeded to Wal-Mart so Jo could buy some cut flowers for her booth display. However, Jo found Wally World's cut flowers lacking so we headed down I-40 one exit to a large Kroger's where she made her flower purchase.
► Once back on I-40 we made it all the way down to Little Rock without stopping again. As a matter of fact, we didn't even stop in Little Rock -- just drove through and headed toward Memphis. We were staying with friends who live about ten miles outside of town and wanted to get our personal belongings out of the van before unloading and setting up at the convention center. By the time we finished getting unloaded at our friends' house, it was getting close to two o'clock. Jo fixed sandwiches and we ate lunch before getting back on the road again. We finally made it down the the Statehouse Convention Center in downtown Little Rock at 3 PM.
► Setting up is one of those jobs that can ever so easily expand to fill the time allotted for it, especially when we're doing a show where we know most of the other exhibitors and can easily get side tracked into visiting with friends. When pressed, we can set up both our booths -- including canopies -- in a little over two hours. We stayed at the convention center until nine o'clock and still weren't completely finished setting up our displays. We had no problems, just spent a lot of time piddling around and checking out what everyone else was doing.
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Journal: Thursday, 12/04/08
The show closed at four o'clock. Jo and I spent the next three and a half hours or so packing and loading. Functional potters are almost always the last folks to leave a show. When a show site starts getting empty -- down to the last half dozen exhibitors or so -- and you look around to see who's still packing and loading, at least five of the remaining six artists will be your fellow potters. We have a lot of work that needs to be displayed and then packed and loaded. 
When the hall gets mostly empty, we are allowed to drive into the exhibit hall and park right next to our booths instead of having to park in an adjoining hall and dolly everything to our van. 
Convention Center which is owned by the City of Little Rock. Jo and I began exhibiting at the Arkansas Craft Guild's Christmas Showcase in 1987. Since that time, the hotel has changed ownership three or four times and undergone a major renovation. 
other artists stayed with a friend who was also exhibiting at Christmas Showcase. We usually all ride together on Friday and Saturday. I greatly prefer getting down to the show a little early as opposed to having to drive down and find a parking place for the van, especially on Friday. Of course, arriving at 8 AM made for a long day since the show was open until 8 PM on Friday.
► I suppose the big event occuring on Friday was the visit by Ginger Beebe, first lady of Arkansas. She and her entourage spent quite a bit of time going through the show. Ms. Beebe, her personal assistant and a couple of security guys were in our booth for a while. (A good thing Jo and I had a double booth and could accomodate the crowd.) Decorations at the governor's mansion this year included a "potter's tree", a tree decorated with ornaments made by Arkansas potters. Jo received a letter from the first lady's office several mouths ago explaining the potter's tree and asking her to submit an ornament. Jo worked on designing an ornament for a while, but the demands of needing to produce inventory for our shows eventually shoved this one-of-a-kind project onto the back burner and, eventually, completely off the stove. The gist of the conversation between Jo and Ms. Beebe was that the potter's tree contribution did not necessarily have to be a conventional ornament. Other potters had just sent small pottery items. Jo ended up donating a small creamer to the cause.
