Terrifically Quiet Tuesday!

So enjoying the QUIET of the bone yard this beautiful Tuesday morning. Maybe you are wondering how it can be quiet...because we left the bone yard in Hillsboro yesterday about noon and drove to Longview for our next carnival stop. The only ones here are Rob, Terry and us. We set up our motor home and crawled into bed after working 25+ hours straight...but I am jumping ahead of myself so let me back track.

Our week in Hillsboro was a very busy one. The weather was gorgeous all week. Never too hot but sunny and delightful every day. Monday morning I got up early and did laundry before we left Portland and headed to Hillsboro. You can read about our little adventure from Portland to Hillsboro two posts back. Monday afternoon Ron worked set up. I cleaned and organized the motor home for another week of work. Tuesday morning started by my giving Ron Happy Birthday wishes! He is now officially double nickels - 55! Tuesday morning I got up early to put pork ribs in the crock pot for dinner. I started work at 7:30 a.m. We started hiring people at 8:00 a.m. I think we hired about 50 people. Ron worked set up all day. We both finished about 5:30 p.m. After a delightful dinner of wild rice, bbq'd pork ribs, corn and green salad we celebrated Ron's birthday with our co-workers. They gathered at one condo and walked through the bone yard singing Happy Birthday to Ron until they reached our motor home. We all then had birthday cake and visited for a while. It was definitely a great day.

Wednesday was another day of set up for Ron and I worked in the office getting everything ready for Thursday. It was a busy yet not overwhelming day. In the evening we walked around the fair grounds checking out the different vendors and looking at the animals. It was kinda fun to walk around in the cool quiet of the evening watching everyone busy getting ready for opening day. We found a vendor that makes wood signs. We are thinking of getting a sign that says "The Wandering Workentins."

Thursday morning Ron and I discussed the sign for our names. He will order it today. We opened the carnival at noon on Thursday. It was wrist band day - a very busy day. We have eight ticket sellers here in Hillsboro and all were kept busy. We had two sessions of the wrist band. The first one ran from Noon to 5:00 p.m. and the second one went from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. The carnival stayed home till 11:00 p.m. Ron sold tickets in Kiddyland. The busiest ticket box. I worked in the office and sold tickets, giving breaks to all the other ticket sellers. It was definitely one of the busiest days we have had.

Friday and Saturday were busy days for the carnival. I had been told that Friday would be a pretty slow day but in the office that was definitely not true. Friday the carnival closed at 11:30 p.m but Debbie and I were in the office till 12:30 a.m. Saturday was another busy day. Busy days are good as it makes the days go by quicker. Saturday night the carnival closed around 11:45 p.m. Debbie and I finished in the office about 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning.

Sunday morning I started work at 9:30 a.m. We still had money to count, reports to be completed from Saturday. It was definitely going to be a busy day. Ron started his day about 11:30 a.m. He has to get the ATM filled and in operation before the carnival opens. On Saturday he had to add money to it twice during the day. Sunday was definitely a long day. The carnival closed at 11:30 p.m. Tear down starts right away. Ron first has to close down each of the ticket boxes. Here at Hillsboro we had five ticket boxes. The yellow ticket box, we call the "yellow sub." We had it set up for four ticket sellers. Then we had three white ticket boxes we call the "ottobockers" or as I called it early on the "ottoboxers." Two were set up for one seller and one was set up for two sellers. Ron has to pull all the monitors from each ticket box, close out the ATM and ready the ticket boxes for travel. This includes laying down all the chairs, closing the voice boxes and securing all the printers and scan guns. When we first started with the carnival it would take about 30 minutes just to close down the yellow sub. Now Ron can close down all the ticket boxes in about 45 minutes.

After doing the ticket boxes Ron went and changed his clothes, grabbed a sandwich and headed for tear down of the rides. He worked all night till 10:00 Monday morning. I worked with Debbie all night in the office. We had to count money, make deposits, do all the books for the show for the week and then do payroll. After all the money stuff and books were done we started payroll at 6:00 a.m. I stopped long enough to go with Rob to the bank at 5:00 a.m. Because we had such a large deposit to make we had to have two people go to the bank. Back at the office we started payroll. We finished transmitting about 8:45 a.m. and then did the quickest tear down of the inside of the office we have ever done. We were done in 15 minutes!

I had worked 24 hours straight! It is funny how tired I wasn't. I was amazed though at how giddy we both were by the time we were done. Debbie and I walked back to the motor home and Debbie got ready to head to her friends place where she had been staying. Debbie still had a long day ahead of her. She had to do laundry and then drive to Roseburg, OR about 5 1/2 hours south of us. She then hoped to sleep for a couple of hours as she had to then enter all the people that Althea and Jamie had hired and be ready for opening at 8:00 Tuesday morning. Kristy (Rick & Theresa's daughter) and I will be doing the office this week here in Longview.

After Debbie left I got the inside of the motor home ready for travel. Ron got off at 10:00 a.m. After talking he readied the motor home on the outside. We decided that we would drive to Longview then instead of staying in Hillsboro for the night. It was a good decision. We arrived here in Longview about 1:15 p.m. Talked to Rob and got our motor home parked and level. We then crawled into bed about 2:00 p.m. and slept till 7:30 p.m. We both felt much better once we woke up. We then set up the satellite dish, ate dinner and then I went back to bed around 9:30 p.m. Ron spent some time on the computer before he went to bed.

I woke up at 8:45 this morning feeling so refreshed and ready to start the day.

Today we start hiring at 1:00 p.m. Right now, the carnival lot is empty. I can look out the motor home window where the carnival is supposed to be set up and there is nothing but field. It is now 10:10 a.m. and people are starting to pull into the bone yard. Just spoke to Marva. So glad we left Hillsboro yesterday. She said she got woke up 4 times in the night due to people yelling for some reason or another. Guess I had better get off the computer and eat some breakfast before the work begins again.

I want to close with some good news. Heard from Theresa & Rick yesterday. She does NOT need chemo or radiation! Join us in giving thanks to the Lord for healing in her life. They hope to join us next week in Graham for the Pierce County Fair.

Bye for now. Hope to catch up with you again soon.

Alice