The Barter Faire

I stayed there with John a couple of months. It was fall, and everyone gets ready for winter there all fall. There is food to harvest and put up, and wood to cut. It is a busy time.

One thing I kept hearing everybody talk about was the Barter Faire. This was a yearly event they had every fall, after harvest time. People would come and gather, and trade and sell, whatever they brought. It was fairly large, and people would come from other places other than just the Okanogan. It was a gala, hippie event. People would set up stalls, and go around trading each other, and selling out of their stalls. It was also a huge social event, and everyone camped there all weekend, and visited and partied sometimes through the night. There were lots of campfires, because the nights were really cold, and people would go from fire to fire visiting and meeting each other. It was a camping thing. There was no electricity so there was only acoustic music. Musicians would wander from fire to fire, playing with each other. That was one of my favorite parts.

So John took me to the barter faire. I had some hats to sell, and in his usual fashion he set me to work making pies to sell. It was all very fun. We woke up to snow on Monday morning. It can get really cold there.

After this I had to go back to Eugene. I had called my roommate and told her I was moving out. Then my friend went and cleared my stuff out of my room for me, and was storing it at her house. I needed to go get my stuff, and also I was low on money. I thought I could go to Eugene for a few months, stay with my friend, and sell at the market. So I took off. I planned to come back after my selling was done, and me and John were still together.

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