Hello again, from the road. This I took today while driving (don't tell the law) heading down the road towards Roanoke, Virginia. It is always nice and uplifting to see a great sunset. Yesterday I had a great meeting in Madison, Virginia with Plow & Hearth catalog. The buyer is a very personable, knowledgeable guy and was very interested in many of our products - YEA! He wrote me an email during the day to say thanks for a great meeting - always nice to get when you finally finish the day and start your after hours second job of checking emails in the hotel to make sure all the other stuff you are responsible for is also getting done. After the Plow & Hearth meeting, I headed over the mountains into the Shenandoah Valley to see some other small customers and do a little cold calling and prospecting. I hit the towns of Elkton and New Market. On the way to New Market, I drove through the historic town of Shenandoah, with beautiful wooden signs pointing me to the historic railroad district. I turned left and headed there and running parallel to the tracks were beautiful historic store fronts with large front windows - the only disturbing thing was that they all were empty with 'For Rent' signs in the windows. It was downright eerie - you could almost hear the sounds of people roaming the streets, gravel crunching under their feet, but no one was anywhere to be seen. An interesting thing that happened to me yesterday too, was that on three different occasions, three different hawks came out of the trees (or maybe one hawk followed me all day??) and for a short moment appeared to be racing my Subaru, right above my windshield. Funny thing is they didn't even appear to be trying that hard - could it be that they were making light of my car? Or were they maybe saying, you can do it, all you have to do is keep flying? I may never know, but it was a wonderous yet brief sight that added an extra touch of joy to my day. My main activity today was seeing one of our better stores, a lace 'Gallery' store (actually two stores in close proximity) where I spent 5 hours with the owner, showing product, talking about updating the product and displays, and hearing her angst over the current economic situation and downturn in business. I know she speaks the truth, because in the five hour period there was but one customer who purchased one runner - a $34 sale for the day. That hurts. She is very excited about our new products and will be bringing them in - when she has some money in the coffers. I told her I believe in the independent retailer and what they offer the public - product differentiation and customer service, value and quality. She agreed, but kept asking 'when will people start spending again?' I told her that I believe at some point the pent up demand will break the dam and people will spend. She liked that.