This Autumn was honestly one of the best we've had in a few years. The weather was wonderful! It got cold enough early on to just make the leaves turn and then it warmed back up, so we got to enjoy weeks and weeks of gorgeous glowing trees everywhere before the real cold zapped them brown.
Working down in the valley, I got to spend my afternoon breaks out on the bike trail, trying my hardest to meet a goal to ride the 7 mile trail in 30 minutes so I could do the whole thing during my break. I just could not shave off the last 5 minutes, but I sure enjoyed those sunny afternoon flying down that trail through the farm fields.
Also exciting for me in the valley was the progress on the construction site! The exterior walls went up and were painted, and the structural steel went on for the roof. As Fall progressed, we got a fair amount of rain that left great reflecting ponds in the building to catch some delightfully abstract snapshots. Have I mentioned lately how fun this job is?
The longer warm temperatures also let us have a decent tomato harvest before the hard frost! We tarped the plants early on and they pulled through with some beautiful red and yellow tomatoes. Yummmm.
We had an unpleasant surprise in the guest bathroom after all the summertime visits. The door frame swelled up and wouldn't let the door close, clueing us in to a water problem! It turned out the valve on the toilet supply leaked just a bit every time you flushed, and it had been flushed more than normal in the last couple of weeks! So, we got to learn all about how a bathroom is put together...by tearing it apart!
After consulting with Google and local contractors kind enough to advise us, we figured out what needed replaced or repaired and got it all cleaned up and put back together in time for our Thanksgiving guests! (more on that visit in the next post). I like how adding the white really brightened up that small room, and kept us from having to repaint everything.
The "Land" was harvested, so we could get back up there and work on a plan for developing it. We've been drawing things on the computer, as you can imagine, but it was so fun to stake out the buildings where we thought they'd go. We took a large tumbleweed and placed it where we think the house will go.
Then we stood on the land, looking at the topography we have to work with and the imagined views from certain rooms inside the house. This will likely be our new backyard view...
...This little spot definitely feels like home already.
We had a car club meeting at our shop, where the guys helped put the rest of the body of my Model A together, so it could be put back out to pasture for awhile. You see, I've signed up to take my 7 exams to become a licensed architect. finally ready. So, I won't be spending much if any time tinkering in the shop until I get these out of the way. It's time to hit the books again!
When hunting season hit, we got the treat of spending another weekend at the Coeur d'Alene cabin we went to earlier this Spring! Shannon and I had to study, and the boys had some hunting and fishing to do. Again, it was super relaxing and seemed to make the weekend last longer than 2 days. Hot tubbing, hiking to clear our heads, cooking deliciousness, watching movies by the fire... Pretty hard to find a better setting to study without feeling stuck inside.
The Derby Dames had a home bout again, at the Beasley Coliseum and we brought our cars again to park inside to show our support. This one was actually a double-header bout, with back-to-back action against 2 different teams. This sport is seriously so fun to watch, and our Dames won both!
Then, there was SEMA! The big event of the year for Hells Gate Hot Rods. Andyman worked his tail off to get ready to show his company and products to the aftermarket world. Then, Forrest, Andy, and I drove to Vegas for a week of marketing to the crowd.
We got to stop by Burley and spend the night with Janet's family. Tyler got the treat of two grown boys playing legos with him for hours! They ended up with some pretty cool hot rod tractors.
Once in Vegas, we got our booth all set up, and checked our New Products in to be featured in a different area of the show. They have it set up so distributors can browse just the new products and contact you if they are interested in carrying them.
We also featured them front and center in our own booth. These header caps are ingenious for people like us that drive our hot rods both on long trips and in cruises and shows where you want to show off and make a little more noise. Andyman developed the one on the left and Forrest developed the one on the right.
We were a tiny company in a sea of the big players in Hot Rod Alley. If you look closely, you can just make out our sign.
We got to meet a lot of great people, from our neighboring vendors who were very supportive and encouraging to magazine and TV Show editors and PR folks to famous fabricators, painters, etc. This was a lot of fun for Forrest, who was much better at recognizing and knowing them. He introduced Andy and I to them and whatever they were most known for, and we've had fun looking them up and learning more since coming home. One of these was the show Counting Cars. We hadn't heard of it, but some of the folks from the show stopped by our booth, and one of them even gave us a tour of their shop after the show one night.
The more we network, the more we realize the hot rodding crowd is a surprisingly tight knit group, even spanning across countries! And, what a fun, friendly, and inventive crowd it is!
Yet another treat to our week in Vegas was spending time with some of our favorite people who happened to be there too! Our friends from the Sunnyside hot rod shop were there, so we got to wander the Strip and have dinner with them. Birthday girl, Colleen was there too! And, she and I walked our feet off to see as much as we could between setting up our booth and going to her very fun birthday dinner - chatting all the while to catch up. I surely do love this gorgeous sisterfriend of mine!
