CHA....the end

It's over.  After 3 days of showing, demonstrating, and selling Clear Scraps,  CHA Summer 2011 is over.  I really only spent about an hour checking out other booths - just long enough to walk through the New Vendor section and reconnect with a few people that I hadn't seen since last year. The rest of the time I spent in the booth.  As strange as this may sound to people who have to do this for a living....it was a really, nice vacation for me.  No phones were ringing for me, my dishwasher wasn't needing unloading, I didn't even have to be Mom for a few days....a really nice break.

We finished packing up the booth in less than 3 hours I think....Just Susan & I.  And....we packed it in so nicely that there was room for more stuff....or room for me :)
 


The ride home from the show today was the funniest though.....we'd been taking this route down Lawrence ave in Chicago every day from the convention center to our condo.  And we'd noticed many hair salons...more than you'd expect to see in this short distance.  Today we counted them.  29.  In probably less than 4 miles.  And that's not counting the ones that would be just a few blocks off of this Avenue.  So strange.  We took a picture of this one and the lady who was standing outside (presumably to drum up business because the competition must be pretty steep), waved at us and gave us this big smile.
 I didn't get a picture of it but the best hair salon we saw (not on Lawrence) was called Nappy Heads.  Their slogan was "Come in Nappy, leave out Happy."  Yes, you heard me.


Also...there was a crazy amount of specialty stores - stores that just sold one or two items....including this:  our favourite that just sold socks, t-shirts and underwear.  I love that they had pictures of the underwear on their big sign outside.
And...I can't tell this story about CHA without telling you a little about this condo that I've stayed in 2 years in a row now with Jim & Susan (owners of Clear Scraps).  It's quite a distance from the convention but very nice to have our own space and get away from the busy-ness.  I'm not sure, even after 2 years of staying here, that I'd find it by myself except that I know we had to look for the Crafty Beaver store and that's where we turned off Lawrence.  Hilarious.  I think every town should have a Crafty Beaver.  And 29 hair salons within a 4 mile strip.

1 comments:

Maria said...

hilarious!!! so glad you're home - looking forward to coffee :-)