It's always the weather

Old Lyme was quite an adventure. I was about to head down to set up Friday evening when it started to drizzle a bit. I checked the weather forecast and it said some raining clearing out about midnight. I much prefer to set up the tent and display on Friday night for a weekend show if I can. It's less exhausting than setting up everything early Saturday morning and then start the show.

Anyway, I made the (fateful) decision to go down and set up. There were a few tents already set up and I quickly set mine up with the display panels (not the paintings) and headed home. Old Lyme is a little over a half hour from my home. The sky was already starting to clear up a little.

When I got home, I checked the weather radar and lo and behold a line of vicious thunderstorms was in New York and Pennsylvania and heading this way. They hit about 1 am, and slammed into Old Lyme about a half hour later. I was up all night watching the radar and wondering what was happening to my tent. I went down there the next am, full of trepidation. When I got there, there were dozens of artists setting up but I COULDN'T SEE MY TENT! Even though I had staked it down, it had blown over and all the panels were in a jumble in the parking lot. Believe it or not, the only broken things were two L-stiffeners from my display, which were supposed to be 90 degrees and were bent to 120 degrees. (Thank you, ProPanels!) I was setup and running by the opening of the show. A miracle! The locals said that the wind gusts that had come through that evening were around 40 mph. A few other tents had blown over or disintegrated.

Lesson to be learned: NEVER leave your work in your tent if there is even the slightest chance of thunderstorms. This is the first time in 16 years of doing shows that my tent went over, and I was lucky--nothing destroyed, no work inside. It's not thieves and vandals that you have to watch out for, it's Mother Nature.