The day after the last day that we closed at Barnacle Billy’s, Etc., November 4, 2018, I wrote five paragraphs in this Journal on the highlights of the fall season. When I went to upload the text, something happened that I still can’t figure out. And I deleted the whole mess! Ouch! So I gave up until now.
After our summer season, the best summer we have ever had, the fall was, pretty much, the opposite. The fall didn’t take all of our gains but it wasn’t what I had hoped would happen. My hopes hinged on a beautiful weather fall. That wasn’t the case. The weather was not nearly as nice as the previous fall. And the weather forecast was even worse than the weather. The weather was particularly bad during the last two weeks that Barnacle Billy’s, Etc. was open. The air temperature was too cold for patrons to sit in the garden patio. And those who tried it often came right back inside to eat. We also had much more rain than we expected. October was cold with very few days over 60°F. The 4th, the 9th and the 10th were the only days above 65°F where, during the 2017 season, most days were above 70°F. In fact, last season (2017) was the warmest fall I can ever remember. The weekend of Ogunquitfest, this season, was also cold and windy. On Sunday, the day of the high heel race in the Cove, the high air temperature was 46°F. Only those running the race were warm! But it was still a good weekend overall for the closing of Barnacle Billy’s (Original). After Ogunquitfest weekend, it became windy on a regular basis. For the second year in a row we lost power at Barnacle Billy’s, Etc. That was October 27th. The wind gusted up to 70 mph for just a short period of time. But it was enough to take down power lines all over York County. We closed at 6:00 PM that night at Barnacle Billy’s, Etc. Power was restored at 10:30 PM that same night. Late October of 2017, we lost power for two and a half days! So our season still ended well, our best season ever. And a lot of good memories were made. We avoided all the hurricanes spawned down south. And we had no sustainable damage. My only thought was that I wished my father could have been here to witness it. He would have been very happy. So I’m looking forward to a great 2019. I’ve already got great plans and some capital projects I want to complete before the season starts. As my father would have said; “Winter Well!”