When you drive through the Story City, Iowa exit on Highway I-35 (I have been informed by a distant cousin) you are driving across what was once my great-grandfather’s farm, back around the turn of the 20th Century. I’ve been through that intersection many times before, but I hadn’t known that fact. So I had that to ponder as I drove through on my way home from Tivoli Fest in Elk Horn, Iowa last Sunday (Google Maps took me by a different route going south, for reasons beyond my ken).
Just another satisfaction in a highly satisfactory weekend.
I’m sorry I haven’t posted for the last few days. I was out of town starting Thursday, of course. I could have posted yesterday, but I came home very tired, and seem to be suffering another of my bouts of respiratory infection now. I’ll probably be running on low power until I see the doctor next Monday, but I’ve dragged myself to my desk to do my duty now, before I forget everything.
The event covered Friday, Saturday, and parts of Sunday, though I left Sunday morning. Friday was pretty quiet, but I got my tent and book tables set up, in the grassy area near the Viking house, instead of in the field across the road as in the old days. I did catch one high-roller who bought three books, and may God bless him. He confessed, in low tones, that he was a Norwegian in a Danish town and he welcomed the moral support.
I stayed with a dear family of Christian friends in a nearby town, with whom I had enjoyed one of those long, wide-ranging conversations late into the night, the last time I was down there, 15 years ago. We picked the conversation up, more or less, where we left off.
Saturday had good crowds, and I stayed pretty busy. Sold out my whole stock of Viking Legacy, and did a fair trade in my own novels. Credit card purchases were complicated by the fact that Elk Horn is in a sort of satellite black hole, and cell phone signals come and go. But I lucked out and it always worked for me. Greeted a few familiar Vikings, grown a little older now. Ate festival food (but in relatively modest quantities. My habits seem to have changed for the better). I didn’t get to see the fireworks, though, as I went back to spend more quality time with my hosts.
I splurged on one addition to my Viking kit, made and sold by Scott, the fellow pictured above. It’s this Viking traveler’s comb, based on a larger original found in a grave:
When you pull out the little pin, the comb comes out of its case, thus:
Isn’t that cool? Nice craftsmanship, too.