Union City Arts Depot

Made a long drive to Union City to pick up my handmade rustic willow furniture from the Arts Depot, headquarters of the Randolph county arts association. They have a Christmas gift open house over the last month. The train depot there has been lovingly restored and they have a new director, Vickie Vardaman, who I met for the first time. She has just started and showed me some of her photographs after I loaded up my unsold items. I did not expect great sales, and I was correct. This is the second year I have participated. I hate to make a long trip like this without hitting some secondary targets and I stopped by Summit Lake to see if today's heavy rains and high winds blew in any waterfowl. There were lot of coots, perhaps a couple of thousand, a few gadwalls and hooded mergansers. About the same as the last time I was there a few weeks ago. I then hit Sparky's Dog house for a couple of their ham sandwiches. I heard Dee, the bartender say that they had gone through 45 hams and she thought they would hit 50 before the year is over. I expect I ate at least one myself. Great place for lunch on a grey windy day. Today was like a late March day, and now the temperature has plunged and it is now snowing. Maybe I will be able to do a little tracking in the snow tomorrow.