The final day of the energy fair ended with a brief rain and wind storm that toppled some vendor displays. We had to clear off our tables as the rain blew into our open-sided building. The storm passed as quickly as it appeared and we laid out the magazines and anthologies again, wiping off the rain with my T-shirt. It added excitement to an already interesting day of talking with BHM readers.

Annie and I are awaiting our flights at the airport in Central Wisconsin. We agreed to be bumped from our flight in exchange for two roundtrip tickets we can use within the next year. The bump will get us back to North Carolina only a half later later than our earlier flight would have, and it gives me time to upload this blog post. (Egad, no internet connection at the Wisconsin airport! … None at the Milwaukee airport either! … None on the plane either! I think I’m going into Internet Connection Withdrawal!)

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We finally landed and drove the two hours back to Annie’s NC home. Here are the photos of some more BHM subscribers who wore either BHM T-shirts or hats to the Fair. We’re thankful to everyone who came and said hello. It made the Fair very enjoyable. Now I’m going to bed.

Dust has become a problem at the Fair, with the wind blowing and fine dust settling on everything in minutes. It’s nearly impossible to keep the surfaces of the tables and books clean. But everyone is in the same boat, so both vendors and fair goers are coping fine.

We extended our offer of a free copy of my Stupid People book to people who buy a BHM hat. I’ve listed yesterday’s T-shirt and hat wearers below. Although we’re enjoying ourselves at the Fair, there is little time to do anything else, even make a blog post. We come back to the motel, eat, and crash.

Operating the computer at the Fair to post to this blog is dangerous for the laptop because the dust infiltrates every crevice of it. So we keep our laptops zipped up in their bags, except on the few occasions we have to look up a reader in the database to see if their subscription has expired.

We were kind of tired last night, so I waited until this morning to post yesterday’s photos of the MREA Fair. It was an exhilirating day, as Annie and I got to talk with many readers of BHM, but’s it’s easy to crash into your motel bed after an exciting day.

I’ll try to do several little side stories about the Fair during this weekend. There are all kinds of exhibits. A big “No show”, unfortunately, was the Toyota hybrid car display. The huge floods that have been in the headlines stranded the trains carrying the cars. I especially wanted to see the hybrid Camry.

Dust is a bit of a problem at the show, as this area features a fine dirt that kind of hangs in the air and settles on everything, including this laptop’s keyboard. You’ve got to wash yourself down pretty good at the end of the day. But it’s a very beautiful rural countryside with many small farms and mid-sized towns. Our motel is in Stevens Point, which the locals call Point.

For us, the show is all about meeting BHM readers, flesh-to-flesh handshakes, and letting each other know that we are real people on both the writing and reading side of this magazine enterprise. Here are yesterday’s BHM T-shirt wearers who got a free signed copy of my book, Can America Be Saved from Stupid People.