Finally surfacing...

Hello faithful readers!

Seems the summer and much of the winter has gotten away from us as we have been busy doing life. I will attempt to update all on the past several months of our activities in this post and hopefully will do a better job at being current!

Our summer was spent housed in our beautiful hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado as we pursued livelihoods and attempted to keep current with friends and families nearby. Since our home was still under a lease, we were fortunate to secure a neat place up near the ski area for the summer. Part of the agreement included me doing some remodel work for the properties owner. That work included replacing the walkway and deck floorings with TREX, working to update his kitchen with new cabinet doors and drawer fronts, tiling two bathrooms, wainscotting a guest bathroom and refinishing several interior doors which had been damaged by dog scratching. As expected, this kept me quite busy during the work week and I enjoyed seeing the remodel take shape and how nice it all looked when completed. Suz went back to running her housekeeping business and it didn't take too long before we felt like we were "back amonst 'em".

Along with these "day jobs" we spend considerable time and effort marketing our Allergic to Cities products at several Colorado-based farmers markets and crafts shows. We especially found great success with the Steamboat Springs Farmer's Market (Saturday mornings) and the Town of Dillon Farmer's Market (Friday mornings). Although it put quite a bump in our schedules, we were very pleased to see the continuing progress and acceptance of our shirts and hats. As the sales receipts were good, the connections we made were even better. Meeting new friends and rekindling old relationships seemed to be the name of the game and we relished these personal interactions. From all of this, we decided to officially take the show "on the road" this winter.

So in September, we purchased a used 28' travel trailer, had our friend Matt Scharf put some great graphics together for wrapping it, and prepared to head to Florida for the Arts and Craft show circuit. We pulled out of Colorado righ after Thanksgiving, just ahead of an approaching snow storm, and headed to Texas to try a couple of shows there, along the way.

We arrived in Amarillo our first night out, to awake the next morn to about 6" of snow all over everything. The roads were icy and cars and trucks were skidding off the road everywhere. After checking the weather map, we carefully headed our rig south toward San Antonio for our next layover. We left the snow behind about 30 miles down the road and were glad to had dry pavement to pull our trailer. Arriving in San Antonio that night, we found the temps still VERY cold and were disappointed that our "warmer climate getaway" seemed clouded by cold weather, even as as we traveled south.

While in San Antonio, we braved the cold enough to do a couple of touristy things, like visit the Alamo, but were not happy to have to continue wearing out cold weather gear. Continuing south, we stopped over at some sailing friends home in Beeville, Texas for an evening. It was great reconnecting with them and although Karl was fighting a nasty cold, we all shared some fun remembrances of our time in the Bahamas together. The next morning, we headed off to Corpus Christi for our first scheduled show of the season. Upon arrival, we put up our tent and display and waited for customers. And waited. The weather was STILL very cold (spelled R-E-C-O-R-D C-O-L-D S-P-E-L-L) and attendance was dismal. We made a few sales to the brave souls who did appear, but soon decided to break camp, lick our wounds, and head off to a local seafood restaurant to enjoy some fine cuisine. Suz enjoyed some fabulous fresh oysters on the half-shell, while I gorged on peel-and-eat shrimp. Felt somewhat satisfied with our day, after all.

Next day we moved our rig toward Houston area where more great sailing friends lived. David and Vicky welcomed us into their beautiful new home and we enjoyed several nights of revelry with them. Leaving, we headed off toward a small town outside of Houston where our next show was to be held. Since the rain and cold continued to plauge us, we wound up canceling that show before we even put up our tent!

Did I mention the cold yet? Oh yes, it continued. Record breaking cold spells followed us all the way across the US as we moved east. Everywhere we went, people let us know "we've never seen anything like this" over and over! We headed to Savannah to see Suz' Pop for a short layover before our scheduled arrival in Florida just before Christmas. HAd a super time in Georgia with him and then begrudgingly headed off toward our rented house in Port Charlotte, Florida, just north of Punta Gorda. We arrived on Christmas Eve and, yes, it was RECORD BREAKING COLD SPELLS all over again. We were starting to feel like we were living in the movie Groundhog Day. Florida houses are not equipped for cold and are not insulated, the heaters don't work well and our patience was just about used up. For one entire month, we tried to stay warm while doing our scheduled shows during the month of January along the Gulf Coast of Florida. Some days were better than others, but mostly it was just lousy weather all along the way. We did 16 shows during the month, some better than others. Although the gulf coast show circuit proved somewhat successful, but not as good as we'd hoped for, so we decided to head across the state to the Atlantic side and try that coast next.

So we have now arrived in Key Largo, Florida, the northernmost of the Florida Keys, to do our first show on this side of the state this weekend. It is called the Key LArgo Stone Crab and Seafood Festival. The weather has finally cooperated with bring in higher temps and sunny skies but this weekend calls for 40% chance of rain. Sound familiar? We're troopers, though and the show will go on! We'll let all know how it went in our next blog.

Hope to be able to see some of you out there along our travels.

Back Home Again!

We're back home again in Steamboat Springs after visiting the eastern seasboard and enjoying sights of the region. We'll now settle back into our Colorado lifestyle for the summer and enjoy these spectacular high country vistas. We have a few shows scheduled around the region this summer and hope we'll be able to meet many of our old friends and make some new along the way.

Our local Saturday market opens this weekend here in Steamboat Springs. Its a terrific event every Saturday morning featuring a nice mix of traditional Farmer's Market goods as well as some homemade arts and crafts stuff. We are pleased to be included again this year as we find this market to be one of our best countrywide! We'll be at this Saturday morning show nearly every week until fall so make plans to stop and see us if you get in our area.

One Saturday attendance exception will be over the Fther's Day weekend. We will be in Salida, Colorado for the FIBARK River Festival for a four day show attended by some of the best and most ardent river sport fans around. This is the US' oldest river festival and should be a great time. We'll be there with some new shirt designs which should prove popular among those in attendance. Hope you'll be able to take the trip to this beautiful mountain community.

Until our paths cross...
GET OUT THERE!

Into the wild!

Currently, we're on Skidaway Island, Georgia, finishing up a week long trip here visiting the coastal region and enjoying the unbelievably beautiful squares of downtown Savannah. We've learned that the original town of Savannah was laid out by General James Oglethorpe in 1733 and the original 4 squares were designed as open space intended for the military to practice their drills. Over time, twenty more squares were added, making a gridwork of downtown beauty of lush plantings, spectacular water fountains, and outstanding Live Oak trees draping the squares with tenticle-like limbs draped with luxurious blankets of Spanish Moss. If you remember the famous Forest Gump movie scene where Tom Hanks' character delivers his "life is like a box of chocolates" line, you'll have seen one of these settings, as much of the movie was filmed in the Savannah area.

We came to the Savannah area to visit family as we were tired and had been "on the road" doing the festival circuit in Arizona and New Mexico since mid-February, when we sold our boat and became "landlubbers" again (if you have any interest in sailing the Caribbean, see our sailing blog: www.allergictocities.blogspot.com for those adventures). Then, in April and May we "set up camp" in Golden, Colorado, the home of Coors beer, for several weekend markets and shows in nearby Denver. Finishing those markets made us really feel Allergic to Cities, so we "escaped" to southern Georgia and the seclusion of this marshy island adjacent to the same stretch Intercoastal Waterway we'd traversed on our trip south two years earlier. This seems a to be working remedy for our current malady and we're feeling slightly re-fueled as we prepare to head off tomorrow for the high country of Colorado, and our home in Steamboat Springs.

We'll be basing from there this summer and doing shows in the greater Colorado area. We're really excited to be included in one particular festival: FIBARK, in Salida, Colorado over the long weekend of June 18-21. This is the US' oldest river festival and certainly one of the best. We'll have our Allergic to Cities tent set up and ready to go by Thursday and hope to see some of our new "allergic" friends in attendance. Stop by our booth and tell us you saw this on our blog and we'll have something special for you.

See you out there...

WECOME to the new "Allergic to Cities" blog!

Well lookee here... it seems we now have a blog space where we can communicate as freely and openly as we want. This space will also allow us to keep you aware of our doings as we travel around meeting and greeting some of you out there "on the road". We'll try to mention upcoming festivals and shows you'll be able to find us at, as well as news about new products.

We look forward to receiving input from you all and welcome comments which you'd like shared and passed forward. With these words of caution, we ask you use courtesy and decency when posting, as we hope to keep this blog appropriate for any age. We encourage you to submit your writing/ramblings to us for publishing consideration and we will add those which seem appropriate. Please feel free to discuss your "allergies" with us, whether severe or humorous and hopefully, you'll find someone else who can contribute to your posting with a remedy, some empathy or maybe even some sincere sympathy. We reserve the right to publish only those we find worthy and may edit, if necessary for brevity and space concerns.

Also, we love to see you wearing our gear in cool places, so be sure to snap a photo for our blog of you wearing something from us and let us know where you were when the pic was shot, and maybe where you bought the item, too. (Our retailers love the notice that they carry the coolest wear around.) By the way, the best photos,every so often, will receive something fun from our "wear-house" in the mail for their trouble... so feel free to snap away!

We really do look forward to hearing from you so everyone, get after it. Let us know what new "allergies" you've uncovered and what remedies you might suggest as a cure. Or, just let us know how you feel about some of the known ones we've already identified in our line of apparel.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Rick and Suz