Sunday, May 10, 2009

Twig furniture and wedding cakes and Akio and a cowboy and.....

.... a long string of interesting and varied visitors today. Some folks from Ponca City OK with an enormous truckload of twig furniture which he made himself and was selling at a festival in Grove this weekend (he's going to give me a bench for Afton Station's front porch!).... a couple from Drumright OK who make wedding cakes and do wedding photography.....full-time RVers from Maryland ..... a cowboy and his wife from Westville OK ..... a family from Missouri ....a couple from Ames IA ..... a couple from Vinita OK ..... three local Afton folks who had never been in the Station before ..... a guy on a motorcycle from Columbus OH ..... and then, at the very end of the day, our Japanese friend Akio Takeuchi and his wife Yasuko. "Akkey" and Yasuko are annual travelers on Route 66, and although he speaks very little English, he has written two books, "The Tropic of Route 66" and "The Mother Road: The Native Road of America" which are popular best-seller among Route 66 fans. Read about them here: The Route 66 Pulse - Online Newspaper. It was so nice to see them, since although I've visited with them at several festivals, they've never been able to pay a visit to Afton Station. Not just a truck full of twigs. That's very nice twig furniture, and lots of it!
Here I am with Akkey and Yasoko.
They really loved the pressed penny machine!

It was a great Mother's Day. My daughter called and we had a nice long chat. She sent me a book I've been wanting to read, The Red Letter Diary: Amazon.com: The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal (P.S.): Lily Koppel: Books. Many of our visitors today were out for Mothers Day drives, and it was a pretty nice day for it. And one of the best things of all is that Ron M. is back from his travels in California and on Arizona Route 66, so it was great to have him back at the Station today!

6 comments:

Ken Riches said...

Glad you had a pleasant day :o)

Beth said...

Wow, what a fun variety of folks! Sounds like a great day. Did you accept the twig bench?

Trevor Hilton said...

I'd like to meet Akio-san someday.

Isn't it strange that so many foreigners have traveled the entire highway, yet so many of us (like me) live right on The Road, and plan to travel it "some day."

Trevor, quit talking about it and just do it!

Mike said...

I see Akio and his wife made it to Afton fairly quickly. We ran into him Fun Run Friday night (May 1) in Seligman.

Doug said...

Hi Laurel,
Do you happen to have Akio (Akkey) Takeuchi's Email address or website? We met about 10 years ago on Route 66 in Carlinville, IL and corresponded for a few years. I just wanted to contact him to express our concern after the terrible earthquake and Tsunami
Thanks,
Doug Brockhaus

Laurel said...

akiort66@ybb.ne.jp


Above is Akkey's email address. He has communicated with someone on our Route 66 message group to say that he and his family are fine and unaffected by the earthquake, thank goodness!

I hope this email address is current. I believe it is.

Come visit again some time!