Monday February 20th 2017

The temperature got into the 80s today. It was a very nice Presidents Day Holiday. I just can’t figure out what kind of a holiday this is.

I would categorize this as a declining holiday. At one time everybody but retail sales people had the day off. All of the business ran Washington’s Birthday or Presidents Day Sales. People flocked to the car dealerships to see what new car discounts were available. Furniture and appliance stores advertised elaborate sales. I haven’t seen any car advertisements on the TV and the dealerships I drove by didn’t have balloons, banners or other get out the customers paraphernalia. I did see a furniture store with a message board describing a weekend sale.

The fact that fewer people have the holiday off work seems to be the driver. Government offices, schools, most banks and some financial related business still have the day off. Manufacturing, Industrial, Computer and similar industries don’t have the day off. I recall losing the day as a holiday in the 1990s. It makes a long run from New Years Day to Memorial Day without a planned day off.

Empty sites at the campground this morning.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog this campground seemed to empty out yesterday. Several campers that didn’t leave yesterday left early this morning. At mid day the transient part of the campground had only a handful of residents. This evening much of it filled up with travelers.

One of the things I tried to do today was get a hair cut. I’ve never particularly liked this task and on the road it is even more of a pain. The last couple of times I’ve used a chain franchise. The similarity of the chains stores provides a measure of comfort, if not assurance of quality. This time there were no chain franchise in the immediate area so I tried a place suggested by the campground staff. It wasn’t open today. That’s probably what feed some of my rant about the holiday.

So I drove fifty some odd miles to the nearest chain hair cut joint. It had two people working two people waiting for cuts and a promise of getting to me in two and a half hours. The chain hair cut joints have joined the smart phone age. People are booking times using an app. I’ll try again another day. At least it was a nice drive.