Sorry for the silence but we have been working and this (10pm on Monday night) is the first opportunity I have had to get everything down!

The rest of the Global Pet Expo went extremely well, with a lot of interest from both distributors and pet shops that specialise in natural pet care. We took several orders from existing stores who reported excellent feedback from their customers, along with a number of orders from new stores who felt our product range was just what their customers were looking for. Thanks to everyone who came by the booth and showed an interest in our product line and a special thank you to everyone who placed an order, in particular three new customers, Pennye from the Big Bad Woof, Deborah from the Holistic Pet Shop in North Carolina, and Diane and Maria (?) from The Healthy Animal in Massachusetts.

We are keeping our fingers crossed because during the show a company from Washington State, that showed great interest in our products in 2009, came back to the booth and asked us to go through our product range with two new members of staff as they wanted them to see the products and what we offered. In addition an organisation that represents a large number of independent pet stores has told us that many of their members have requested that Hilton Herbs be asked to supply the group. We are very keen to do this and are hoping to make contact with them over the next few days. This will enable us to distribute our pet range to independent pet stores right across the USA!

The show was busy and I have to say that by 5pm on Saturday I was pretty whacked, so when Bill Bookout, Chairman of the NASC (National Animal Supplements Council) who had a booth just up the aisle from us, offered to help us pack up I was not going to say no! Bill was fantastic and can have a job any time! He helped Tony haul the empty boxes from the back of the RV that was parked at one of the loading bays and cut our ‘get out' time in half so that by 7pm we were driving out of the Convention Centre loading dock and were on our way out of Orlando. We drove nearly 200 miles before stopping for the night at Camping World in preparation for going shopping the following morning for essential supplies. Unfortunately the shop didn't open until 10am on a Sunday so we were forced to head on without any doing shopping, Janice, our Accountant, will be thrilled!

Sunday night found us back at Big Bass Lake in Dillon, South Carolina, where Guy and his wife Julie, along with Henry the dog, made us extremely welcome. This is a great site and we will certainly stop here again next year when we return to the Global Pet Show. During the night a bad storm blew up and the rain was lashing down all night, however we felt lucky when Guy told us this morning that North Carolina has suffered six tornado ‘touch-downs' during the night. When we asked Guy what his evacuation plans were for such an event, his reply was that he would head for the bridge under the Interstate highway just down the road, as he reckoned this would be the safest place! Very reassuring!

"more wood, I'm cold!!"

During our 300 mile drive from Dillon to Fredericksburg we dropped into JR's, a shop at mile marker 97 in North Carolina, just off the Interstate 95. This is a great store offering everything from cut-price perfumes to Wrangler Jeans. I took the opportunity to buy two pairs of Wrangler Q Baby Jeans - these are jeans designed for cow girls and they are amazingly comfortable to ride in as well as being really fashionable. They usually cost about $120 but at JR's they can be bought for just $50 - fantastic bargain.

So now here we are parked in a Home Depot Car Park, off the Interstate 95, just north of Fredericksburg in North Virginia. The plan is to travel on tomorrow and reach Hatfield in Pennsylvania, which will be our home for the next four days. We will restock the RV ready to travel up to Columbus, Ohio, to set up for the next show which is the Equine Affaire.

"seemed like a good place to stop..not smart but its free!"

Happy Easter everyone just in case I don't get another Blog done before Friday.

Hilary and Tony