Eileen Hull

Today is Day 4 of the #Papertrail. It was suggested by my husband that I write a post and let you all know how things are going… so here goes.

I left Virginia on Wednesday, March 26 at about 1:00 PM and had an uneventful trip to NY (uneventful is a very good thing!) I arrived at my mom’s at around 9 PM. The only thing that happened on the trip was I almost lost my little Scotty emblem which was hanging by a screw on the back of the camper. I must not have tightened the screw up enough when I reattached it after painting. Luckily my husband had packed me a nice tool bag so I took it off and decided to keep an eye out for a Home Depot where I could find another screw.

Thursday morning was just beautiful and I made my way to the home of my fellow #papertrailer Amy Bowerman. We quickly loaded up her stuff in the camper and made our way to the Great American Stamp Store where we were meeting Marjie Riordan Kemper for lunch. Lesson of the day (LOD)- always allow extra time because it will take you longer than you think to get somewhere. Also sometimes the GPS lies.

I was very excited to meet my new friend Orla Carey who was able to join us for lunch. While we were sitting there gobbling down our quesedillas in the nearby restaurant that looked like a barn, we were also joined by my good friend Theresa Cifali of Bella Crafts Quarterly! Thankfully we were able to eat in about 20 minutes and get next door to the store where we were greeted by a table full of ladies who were wanting to get their die cutting on! We met Judy, the owner of the store and she welcomed us and away we went! We had quite a crowd and remembered to get a group pic before everyone left. Many thanks to Amy, Marjie and Theresa for getting everything out of the camper, taking pictures, helping the eager make and takers to create their projects and joining in the fray. We had a really fun time and this store is HUGE! Lots of fun stuff here! If you live anywhere nearby you should try to get over and have a look. Marjie is teaching a cool melt art class there in a little bit and her samples were amazing.

Once we were done, we loaded up the camper and waited for word from Anita Houston, the last #Papertrailer to arrive. We were to pick her up in Bridgeport where the limo was bringing her from LaGuardia. There was some delay as her driver was not going over 40 MPH on Rt. 95. This did not sit well with Anita but she texted us updates and we sat in Big Daddy and caught up on our social media. I will say right now it is not easy to do the actual event and at the same real time post about it. I have a new respect for tweeters and FBer’s who can keep up.

I was honored to receive Norman the Gnome from Amy as a gift for the trip. He came with his own mini-camper which Amy painted to match Scotty. So cute! Little did we know that a few nights later Norm would be getting a makeover… He travels with us everywhere and joined us for pizza at Frank Pepe’s. It was excellent! (Norm is in the green bag)

I am going to continue this but first need to get some sleep and prepare for the day that will be starting in just a few hours. More later my friends. Thanks for following the #Papertrail!