2021 Farmington National

2021 Farmington National Show Journal & Grand Canyon Trip by Christian Willis.

This was our first insulator show since COVID hit, and we were all more than ready to hit the road. The kids were especially excited to attend the National in Farmington, and Christian Jr. had been studying the price guide for months. On Wednesday, June 30, we departed from the house at 6AM on the nose and headed south on I-25. We stopped in Old Colorado City for breakfast at McDonald’s, and then took US 24 up to Woodland Park, to US 285 South, to US 50 West. The drive was beautiful and not very busy, but as we got closer to Montrose, we began seeing warning signs that US 50 was closed at Little Blue Creek Canyon due to rock slide mitigation. Suddenly we were now 2 hours behind schedule, as the only detour available was CO 92, which took us all the way up to Delta. The detour, while annoying, turned out to be totally worth the drive! The meandering scenic highway is called the West Elk Loop. We stopped at Hermit’s Rest, a vista point alongside the road with a breathtaking view of the Gunnison River and surrounding mountains.

We arrived in Montrose an hour late and stopped for lunch at Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli. Afterwards, we stopped along “antique shop row” alongside US 550. The collection of antique shops had grown since I last remembered going there with Maggi several years ago! They had dozens of insulators. While nothing was out of the ordinary, Christian Jr. did find a small porcelain U-61X in a dark brown glaze that interested him for $2.50, and I found a light straw CD 122 Maydwell among a bunch of clear Hemingrays which I also picked up for $2.50. Ethan was given a padlock and key from one of the antique shop owners, and I helped her load a large pottery planter for a customer into their car.

We continued south on US550 until we arrived in Durango and filled up for gas, then continued towards Farmington, now only about an hour away. We drove through Aztec and arrived at the hotel in Farmington around 7PM. We checked into our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express, and then walked next door to Blake’s Lotaburger, a fast food mainstay in New Mexico. We took our food back to the hotel room, ate dinner, and watched a movie before calling it a night.

Thursday morning arrived way too soon, and we got ready to drive me to the host hotel for the NIA Board meeting and breakfast at 7AM. I spent the day at the Board meeting, while Maggi took the kids back to the hotel for breakfast, and out to Brookside Park. At 4PM the Board meeting ended, and we headed over to the McGee Park Convention Center to unload the boxes from the car. From 5-9PM I had to man the NIA table. Maggi picked up BBQ at the Spare Rib and we ate dinner at the show hall. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.

On Friday morning, we got up early and headed over to the show hall to start setting up the sales table. At 9AM the show hall opened, and I manned the NIA membership table again until 10AM. After that, I was finally able to peruse the show hall. Right away I saw a CD 282 Hemingray No.2 Provo Type in a deep Hemingray Blue over at Darryl Wagner’s table—that was my first purchase of the show. Over at our sales table, we had some interest in the insulators and my signs. In fact, one gentleman purchased all the signs I had in one fell swoop. I walked around some more to look at the other sales tables. There were a few that piqued my interest, but nothing really stood out until I stopped by Ron Yuhas’ table. He had a CD304/310 Coolie Hat in a deep Hemingray Blue. Score a second power piece! Now if only I could find one in a true green...

Over the next couple of hours, I picked up a few more interesting insulators, including 2 different CD 1052 Hemingray 518’s. The first one was from Richard Case’s table—an unlisted variant without threads inside the pinhole and a small number “5” on the skirt below the wire groove. I showed it to Don Briel and it will be added to the next price guide. The other CD 1052 I found over at Joe Anzures’ table, and it stood out to me because the “Hemingray-518 / Made in U.S.A.” embossed around the pinhole was much larger than all the other ones I had seen up until now. The stamp size was the same size as the St. Louis Malleable embossed pieces.

Maggi, Christian Jr., Caitlin, Ethan and I walked around the show hall throughout the day, and the kids kept bringing over more and more insulators to add to their collections. Dwayne showed me a couple of glass floor tubes he had brought, including one with a one inch bore that someone had crammed a smaller, porcelain wall tube inside of it, wrapped in rubber, to seemingly make the bore smaller. While I thought that I already had both of these sizes, I did not have it in these colors, so I purchased them. He also opened a box and carefully unwrapped something which I had never seen before: a complete Hemingray “whimsey chain” in a rainbow of colors! At 4:00PM, the show closed and we had our general membership meeting at 4:15PM. I addressed the membership as the NIA Information Director. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel and ordered pizza from Pizza Nine, watched a movie and went to bed.

On Saturday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and then drove to the show hall. I bought a CD 1138 ice aqua johnny ball from Brian Riecker. I saw a lot of other pieces, but nothing really stood out to me. Dan Gauron had a wide selection of antique telephone equipment at his table, and I bought a couple of telephone bell sets to try hooking up to Papou’s telephone crank that he gave me when I was a kid. The kids continued to rake in the insulators, and I already knew I would not be coming home lighter! On top of that, Dale Huber dumped several boxes of historical insulator publications on the free table from Pat Patocka’s collection, and I had a field day. I picked up just about every insulator price guide that predated the McDougald guides, and a few other interesting publications I had never seen before. Kyle Donaldson brought over a boxful of Old Bottle Magazine issues which I was happy to take as well. Leslie Donaldson and Caitlin were as thick as thieves, walking around the show hall together and finding insulator after insulator.

I had purchased $50 worth of raffle tickets which got me 100 tickets. I put them in various buckets. We had the afternoon drawing, and I won a grouping of four insulators! A CD 162 Hemingray / Patented // Petticoat in Electric Blue, a CD 422 Australian AGEE in purple, a CD 143 Canadian Pacific in royal purple, and a CD 132 Dec. Pat. K mold in green. Not too shabby for $50! Elton Gish had put several raffle tickets towards a box of Pop Tarts in the auction, thinking it contained an insulator, when in fact it was actually a box of Pop Tarts. Disgusted, he gave it away and it was distributed to the kids to eat, who happily finished them off.

The banquet began at 6PM, and we had a table to ourselves in the corner of the banquet hall. We each had prime rib, with a Mickey Mouse insulator shaped cheesecake for dessert. The awards ceremony ended around 9PM, and we headed back to the hotel and crashed for the night.

On Sunday morning, we slept in a little and arrived at the show hall just after 9AM. I started marking down some of my pieces and put several inexpensive pieces on the free table to help offset all the new ones we were coming home with. To my pleasant surprise, they were snatched up pretty quickly! I managed to sell a few more pieces and even some Song of the South memorabilia items. I picked up a few last-minute pieces, including a couple of CD 128 Hemingray E.1.’s on Brian Riecker’s table.

As 3:00PM approached and the show was winding down, we packed up the table and headed straight to the Aztec Ruins National Monument, which was only about 20 minutes north. It was HOT! But it was really neat seeing and walking through the several-hundred-year-old stone structures. We were all set to go to the nearby A&W drive-in, but to our dismay it was closed on Sundays, so we drove across the street to the Aztec Restaurant for an early dinner. It was a typical 60s diner and was exactly the type of restaurants my dad and I would frequent on our trips. After dinner, we drove back to our hotel in Farmington and watched TV until it was time to go see the fireworks at Tommy’s Square B Ranch a few miles down the road.

We showed our show nametags at the gate and drove out to where all the collectors were already parked and waiting. Caitin & Ethan sat up on the roof of the van, and soon after the fireworks started. They lasted a good 45 minutes and were a combination of large and small fireworks being shot from up on the bluff as well as below. Around 10:45 we headed back to the hotel to crash for the night.

Monday morning arrived too soon, and we were up and packing. We had breakfast and checked out around 8:30, and were on our way to the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, the Four Corners Monument was still closed due to COVID so we were unable to stop there. The drive wasn’t too bad, and we stopped in Cameron for gas & lunch. Following the directions on my phone, we soon arrived at the entrance to the park around 2:30PM, and it was then that I realized we went in the East entrance instead of the South entrance which I had originally planned (oops!) It wasn’t a big deal, it just meant we would be doing most of the activities today that I had been planning for tomorrow as we were heading out.

We stopped along several lookout points, including the historic Desert View Watchtower, Navajo Point, Lipan Point, Moran Point, and Mather Point. The visitor’s center was closed, but we gathered information for activities the following day. We checked into the hotel at Grand Canyon Village around 4:30PM, and promptly went to the pool, which the kids loved. Around 6, we headed back to the hotel room and ordered pizza and pasta from a local restaurant, and ate it in the hotel room while watching TV. The kids played games on my Gameboy Raspberry Pi (GPi) and we went to bed. Everyone went to sleep pretty quickly.

On Tuesday morning we checked out around 7AM and headed back into the Grand Canyon. We took the shuttle up to Yaki Point and then to Pipecreek Vista, where we walked along the Rim Trail back to the Visitor’s Center. We stopped in the gift shop and picked out some souvenirs—Caitlin got a pink Junior Ranger vest, Ethan got a brown Junior Ranger vest, and Christian Jr. picked out a mini puzzle of the Grand Canyon. I was also “deputized” by the ranger at the register and was given three Junior Ranger activity books for the kids to fill out, after which they would receive their Grand Canyon Junior Ranger badges. After that, we walked over to Yavapai Point and the geology museum and the kids worked on their workbooks. By this point it was getting very hot (high 90s), so we walked back to the van and headed out of the park, east on Highway 64. We stopped for lunch and gas in Cameron again and then headed north on US 89 to US 89A, which took us through Marble Canyon and a beautiful view of the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.

We arrived in Kanab, Utah around 5PM and checked into our next hotel. This one was the nicest on our trip, with three queen beds. We went out to dinner at a local restaurant, Houston’s Trail’s End, which had some good food, but we were seated in a back room next to the contender for World’s Loudest Toddler. We ordered 3 slices of pie for dessert to go and ate it back at the hotel room. Looking at tomorrow’s forecast, I was dismayed to learn that the temperature at Zion National Park would be hotter than originally forecast, with excessive heat warnings — 108 degrees to be exact. Given that, it was clear we would need to alter our plans a bit. We headed to bed and planned for an early departure to beat the heat as much as possible.

On Wednesday morning, we left the hotel around 6:30AM and headed north on US 89 towards Zion, heading west on Highway 9 at Mt. Carmel Junction. There wasn’t a lot of park traffic at this hour, but by the time we got to Springdale around an hour later, the area was already bustling. It was a lot different than I remember from my childhood—we had to park in the nearby town of Springdale, then take a shuttle up to the drop off points in the canyon. Due to COVID restrictions there were only a few shuttle stops open, so we took the shuttle up to the Temple of Sinawava, and then hiked the Riverside Walk trail up to the start of the Narrows. The walk was lovely, shady, and about 75 degrees. Unfortunately, there were cyanobacteria algae blooms detected in the Virgin River, which had killed a dog last year, so the park was advising visitors not to allow children to come into primary contact with the water. Given this, we decided to not hike the Narrows this time — maybe we’ll try again in a few years when the kids are a little older. I definitely want us to experience it as a family—it’s an experience from my childhood that I will never forget.

We walked back down to the shuttle stop and rode it back down to the Visitor’s Center, where the kids worked on their Junior Ranger workbooks. We attended a ranger-led program on canyon geology (in the shade fortunately!), and all three kids earned their Zion Junior Ranger badges after giving the oath on the back of the workbook to the park ranger. By this time, it was around noon and the temperature had reached a sweltering 107 degrees, so we walked across the street to Subway and had sandwiches & chips for lunch, followed by ice cream. That air conditioning sure felt good. We then headed back to the car and cranked the air conditioning there too. It took pretty much the entire hour of driving back to Kanab to cool off (at least for me). We saw one antique shop on the outskirts of town, but unfortunately it was closed. We got back to the hotel and Caitlin & Christian Jr. went to the pool while Maggi did laundry and Ethan & I took showers. We watched some TV and ate dinner in the hotel room before heading to bed. It was going to be another early morning heading to Bryce Canyon National Park.

On Thursday morning, we woke up around 5:30AM to leave early again for our drive up to Bryce Canyon, which was about 1.5 hours away from the hotel. The drive was smooth apart from road construction right at the entrance to the park, which delayed us about 15 minutes. We arrived at the park entrance around 8:30AM, and it was significantly less busy than Zion. The weather was a lot cooler too, thankfully—only a high of 90 degrees or so, and varying amounts of cloud cover. We stopped in at the visitor’s center and picked up Junior Ranger workbooks, then took the shuttle to the Sunset Point campground. We made our way over to Sunset Point and then began our hike down into the Amphitheater via the Navajo Trail Loop. We hooked up with the Queen’s Garden Trail and took that back up to Sunrise Point. By this time it was getting rather hot, and we stopped frequently for shade and water breaks. The views were amazing, and we took plenty of pictures!

We then hiked over to the lodge, where we got to see a really cool old gas station from the 1940s that still had the original pumps and garage. While it was decommissioned in the 1980s, the bathrooms were still open to the public. By now it was a little after noon, so we walked over to the General Store where we ordered a pizza and sat out on the covered porch to eat lunch and enjoy some shade. We walked back to the car and took it back over to the visitor’s center to get some “I Hiked the Hoodoos” pins and stickers, as we had met the requirement of completing a 3-mile hike through the amphitheater.

We drove south on Highway 63 to the southern-most point of the park, Rainbow Point, and then drove north to stop at the Natural Bridge. From there we headed north to our hotel destination in Richfield. Along the way on US 89 we drove through quaint little towns, including Panguitch, which had an antique shop right alongside the highway. We stopped in to look around and managed to find several insulators to come home with us: two CD 155s (molds 4 and 10) over Made in U.S.A., a CD 122 with a yellow streak which I bought for Christian Jr., and a CD 145 W.G.M.Co. in purple with some base damage. The total was about $55.

We arrived in Richfield around 5PM and checked into the hotel. I went down to the pool with Christian Jr. & Ethan for about an hour while Caitlin & Maggi stayed in the room. After some much-needed showers all around, we headed next door to our favorite restaurant, Frontier Village. By this time it was around 7PM, and it was super busy. They were also understaffed, so we didn’t get seated until 7:30, and didn’t get our food until after 8:30. We ordered slices of apple pie for dessert and brought them back to eat in the room. We watched TV before going to bed.

On Friday morning, the kids were grateful to sleep in for the first time in several days. They headed down to breakfast around 9AM, and we checked out around 11. We drove into Richfield to visit the one antique shop in town. It was in an old house and every room was filled to the ceiling with antiques. There was a handful of insulators in the front hallway and in the kitchen, but they were all way overpriced ($25-60). We drove towards our next hotel destination in Silt, Colorado.

We stopped in Grand Junction and took the I-70 Business Route into old town, where we found a large antique mall on Main St., named “A Robin’s Nest of Antiques and Treasures”. There were 2 levels, and we found several groups of insulators. Towards the back in the basement there was a CD 145 H.G.CO. // PETTICOAT in light green with a nice amber stringer in the front and white clumps of junk in the glass for $3.50. I let each of the kids pick out an insulator as well. Christian Jr. got a light aqua CD 145 H.G.CO. // PETTICOAT, Ethan got a CD 145 H.G.CO. in aqua, and Caitlin picked out a CD 102 Star in aqua. Maggi went across the street to Bella Balsamic to pick up some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It was about 110 degrees outside, so we cranked the AC and headed back towards the freeway, stopping at an A&W to get some dinner and root beer freezes (of course!)

We arrived in Silt around 6:30PM and checked into the hotel. Our room was on the third floor and had a balcony with a nice view of the river in the back. Maggi took Caitlin & Ethan down to the pool, while Christian Jr. & I stayed in the hotel room and relaxed in the air conditioning. I sat out on the balcony for a bit to watch the sunset.

On Saturday morning, we departed around 10:30AM for our final drive home. We took I-70 east to C-470 to I-25. The drive was smooth, and before we knew it we were back home to unpack and enjoy our insulator finds of the trip!