Ripley on Sale 2018

After 11 1/2 hours of sleep, I feel almost rested. Boy were we tired.

Not much planned for today. More rest is on top of the list. Sure was a fun time the past two days though at our booth at the annual Ripley on Sale event on the courthouse lawn of our closest town. It was hot and humid, so setting up and taking down was sweaty work, but in between we enjoyed talking to people seeing lots of friends as they passed through, and just plain people-watching The funniest thing, which I missed getting a photo of, were the children trying to eat the fake fruit I had in a wood bowl. They'd pick it up, feel it, squeeze it, and have the most puzzled look on their faces!

We heard so many stories, too. The lady with the turban talking about her cancer treatments, the lady with a cane who had such terrible luck with hip surgeries, the couple from Texas here for work on this major gas pipeline that's passing through our county, the stories about tattoos, dogs, antiques collections...the list could go on and on. Our favorite was this little guy:

A friend said that dogs scared the mother possum and she dropped this baby, and didn't come back for it. So it came to the fair in a soft sock in our friend's handbag. She's feeding it kitten milk. Lucky little possum!

The French pastries at the booth beside us were to die for. I'd never have expected to find something like that in Ripley. I tried the French Apple pie--individual small pies--and the chocolate chip brioche. Heavenly! The baker is from France, here with her husband who is an engineer at the aluminum plant in this county.

A rare quiet moment, no trucks passing by!

The Avon Lady selling Skin-So-Soft was a godsend when bugs started biting my legs, and my friends Sue and Krista has booths close by so we got a little visiting time. Another "Sue" friend (I seem to have many of them) Suzy came by and helped for a little while when Larry went home to rest, and we got in a good visit too. Several other friends were also selling at this event, so I got to catch up with them too.

The thing that astonished me was the amount of traffic in Ripley! Trucks, trucks and more trucks, lots of diesel noise. Unreal how much the town has changed in the 40 years I've lived in Jackson county. With this major pipeline construction, our county is fairly over-run with out-of-state workers, trucks, equipment, etc. It's a big change for a place that is usually busy, but not nearly this level of traffic and activity.

It was an a blessing to get home to our quiet porch with no sounds except birds and later a light rain. I doubt I could live in a busy place like our town has become, and am so grateful for this peaceful haven we call home. But it was fun to be part of and watch all the activity for a couple days.

Now to get some laundry going, breakfast cooking. And then back to the porch. I'll post some photos tomorrow of some of the things I bought. Because you know I couldn't come home without a few treasures.



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