Yet Another Dollhouse Delivery

In the afternoon on Labor Day, I set off on yet another dollhouse delivery.  You may recall that I have written previously about delivering two different dollhouses to grandchildren in California and then this past spring, I delivered one to my sister in Northwest Arkansas.  Having recently finished another dollhouse, this one for my oldest sister, it was to be my second delivery to Northwest Arkansas and my fourth out of state delivery.

On my prior deliveries, the dollhouses were so large, that I had to borrow my wife’s Subaru Outback to transport the dollhouses.  But due to this one’s smaller size, I decided to see if it would fit in the backseat of my Subaru WRX.  Sure enough it did!

As before, I used some of my wife’s yoga props to protect the dollhouse during its transit.

While I looked forward to seeing my two sisters, I approached this trip with a bit of trepidation.  On one of my trips driving over last year, I was caught in the worst hailstorm of my life.  It caused over $7,000 dollars of damage to my WRX that due to lingering supply chain issues from the pandemic, took over eight months to get fully repaired.

It seems I am typically driving over in the afternoon and close to Russellville, I often encounter a thunderstorm.  Sometimes it is not too bad but then others, it can be almost as severe as it was last year.  Since then, whenever I get near the spot where I encountered that hailstorm, I begin to feel symptoms of PTSD.

I set off from Memphis with sunny skies but prior to reaching Little Rock, I drove through a couple of mild rainstorms that I am sure elevated my blood pressure somewhat.  But after passing through Little Rock, it seemed clear skies were ahead.  But that all changed soon after driving through Conway (about 30 miles northwest of Little Rock).

Off to the north, I could see dark clouds and even lightening.  On this stretch of Interstate 40, the road follows a generally north-westerly direction but with many curves to the north and west, it was impossible to know if I would bypass this storm.  But as I got closer to Russellville, I could see once again I would be driving right through it.

You can always tell when you are getting close to heavy rain as the grey clouds obscure the road ahead.  Very soon, I had turned my wipers to their fastest setting.  As I drove further, the skies darkened even more and with limited visibility, all drivers significantly slowed from the 75-mph speed limit.  When I began to notice some drivers with their flashers on and others pulling over to wait it out, just like in that hailstorm, I thought “oh no, here we go again.”

But this time, thankfully it was only heavy rain although just the sound of heavy drops hitting my car got my heart rate racing.

As I cleared the storm, I began to wonder why I always hit rain there.  It is near a large lake which could certainly supply plenty of evaporative moisture to the atmosphere in the hot summertime, possibly making a “lake-effect” rain shower (I Googled and there is such a thing).  But when I saw the cooling tower of the nearby nuclear power plant belching out tons of moisture rich steam*, I wondered if it could be a combination of factors that makes this area the “Seattle” of Arkansas?

I was happy to encounter only sunshine the rest of the way.  Once I got to my oldest sister’s apartment, I was pleased to see that the dollhouse had made the trip over without any damage.  I shortly took it upstairs where my oldest sister had its special place ready for occupancy.

She then immediately moved in all the furniture that she already had.

After a delicious barbeque dinner, we all drove out to my other sister’s house.

I felt so welcomed when I walked into where I would be sleeping to see my sister’s usually filled art studio space converted to my own private B & B…

…complete with a touching hostess welcome.

We then proceeded to have an evening of dollhouse fun.  My oldest sister shopped online for some miniature furniture for her large first floor room, finding some perfect additions.  Then my other sister showed me what miniature furniture she had been making using her two 3-D printers.

I immediately recognized a miniature version of the iconic IKEA POANG chair which she had printed using her 3-D resin printer…

…and the colorful IKEA storage cubes.

The chair she had also printed with her 3-D resin printer and hand painted like the chair above but the cubes she had printed with her 3-D filament printer using colored filament.

The other pieces she showed me would one day occupy her miniature office, also printed using her 3-D printers.

The next day, we had some more paint-related dollhouse fun (more on that later) and then she explained to me how her 3-D printers worked.  She showed me the complexities of the different software programs that were used to print the miniatures and introduced me to the world of STL files that were the required input for the printers.  She showed me where you could purchase these STL files online, created by others that could be purchased for just a very few dollars.

After further explaining all the steps she had to go through to “print” a miniature, I told her I was absolutely amazed at what she had done.  I consider my sister a talented artist with hands-on artistic ability as well as savvy computer skills.  Mated with the power of state-of-the-art computer technology and sophisticated software, she is creating some incredible miniature furniture.

Sadly, it was a very short trip for me as I needed to leave Wednesday morning to fulfill some granddaddy responsibilities back in Memphis.  Clear weather on the way home gave me ample time to reflect on our visit.  While my efforts since the beginning of the pandemic had been on the construction of dollhouses, it was now my sister’s turn to crank out unique furnishings for these dollhouses that could not be purchased anywhere.

So, let the real miniature fun begin!

* After getting home, I researched and discovered by one online source that a 1GW nuclear power plant can put out between 12.5 and 12.8 million pounds of steam per hour (that’s about 6,000 tons per hour).