One last fest ...

In one last gasp to get a few more tourist dollars into the local economy, Wisconsin Dells has its Harvest Fest this weekend. It does look like the weather may be decent for the first weekend this month. Not perfect, mind you -- partly cloudy and a high of 49 (9.4 C). But that is better than the sub-freezing temperatures and scattered snow flakes we saw last weekend and part of this week.

I will be at the railroad, of course, but today I helped set up for the library's last book sale of the year. We do a sale at the beginning of the season around Memorial Day, one in September at the end of the summer and then a final wrap up at this October event to clean out what is left over from the other sales. I worked mainly putting out the older and "rare" books for a few hours this morning. None of them are what I would call rare, and many of them are old but I cannot imagine anyone buying them. For example, we had lots of dental books that are woefully out of date but not old enough to be antiques.

At any rate, the weather should bring us better business at the railroad than last weekend. Over the three-day Columbus Day weekend in 2008, we did more than twice what we did this Columbus Day weekend. Weather, the economy and the flu (schools were closed in the Dells due to flu last week -- widely publicized and probably discouraging tourists from visiting) pretty much did us in this time around.

Tom's eye continues to improve. He says he is now seeing the world with unnatural clarity.