This week so far has taken me on a good tour to see customers in the coastal region of North Carolina. First, on the way towards the coast, I saw a unique customer in a very small town of Grifton - a restaurant and home and garden store - a neat place where you can get almost anything you need and a meal to boot. They have recently added a tea room and some additional business with that. Our lace (along with other home furnishings items) has been moved around the store several times and is now in an admittedly not great place in the far part of the store, up some stairs. The owner's wife is going to move the lace over by the tea room and restaurant where it will be in a traffic pattern and get more attention. Her husband has been going through some pretty serious health issues and business has also been tough for them, so she really has her hands full. She enjoyed seeing all the new products and will be ordering when business is a little better - hopefully when garden season arrives. I found two new customers in Atlantic Beach and in Cedar Point, both very happy to have our line to supplement their current offerings. I went to see a customer in New Bern but arrived 30 minutes too late - they are a bakery/restaurant and have our lace at the cash register area in the front of the store. We had only agreed to meet that afternoon and exact time was not discussed. The restaurant closes at 3pm and I got there at 5 minutes past 3 because of two long running appointments in the morning. I did see the owner and also called his wife to apologize for being late. I asked for her 'ideal time' and she said 10:30am so I told her I would make a day soon when we could meet at that time - she sounded appreciative. I got the photo of the sailboats right at the end of the main street shopping district in New Bern. I did some prospecting in Washington and Edenton, but didn't come up with anything concrete - but a couple of neat photos of the sunset and the cypress knees under the trees in Edenton. I did make a Provinaire appointment back in Washington on my way back south which was today and went pretty well. I made it to a good customer in Duck who is struggling but opens her store in March and hopes to make it through the year. She loves our products and intends to keep doing a good job with them. I went by a customer in Nags Head whose store is closed yet, but it is good to get the visual and location down for later times. It is really hard to plan to see all the customers and allow time for prospecting too. I am having a little trouble finding that groove but hopefully I will find what works as I do this more. I do know now there there is lots of remote wilderness in the NC coastal plain!