Hello from Junction City, KS

Hello from Junction City, KS

Friday Morning July 2, 2010 (eleventh travelogue of this trip).

The Fleetwood rally was both fun and rewarding. We did a little bit of touring of the small town of Du Quoin – mostly to go eat or have ice cream. The Du Quoin fairgrounds are well equipped and nicely landscaped. However, it is quite spread out, and not easy to walk to everything. They had tractors pulling passenger trailers and that helped. Some folks drove their cars or golf carts. It was pretty darn hot and humid, so most folks did not walk to the events. Indeed, the attendees at these rallies have a few years under their belt and walking can be a challenge. The huge building we were in was well equipped including good air conditioning. The building was large enough to have a dining area for over 1000 people, the vendor area and several display motorhomes – and not be crowded.

They had two nights of entertainment. The first night seemed way too loud and we left early. The last night of the rally they had a great group. It was three guys that played perhaps 20 different instruments. They played a wide variety of music and the drummer mimicked some famous artists with very humorous skits.

The fairgrounds are the site of the Illinois state fair. It has several barns, a horse trotting track and a full horse race track. We saw several trotting horses (with the carts) working out on the track right in front of the bus.

I was able to ride my bike quite a bit and that was fun. Daughter Judy wrote a comment to one of our blogs that she was glad that we were getting some exercise. I suspect that her idea of exercise and ours is a bit different {grin}.

At the smaller rallies, we set up a double booth. On one side we have our fire suppression products and on the other side we have the SilverLeaf (http://www.silverleafelectronics.com/) products. The SilverLeaf products take the vast amount of engine data from the diesel engines data port and display them in the form of an electronic dash. It is a top notch product that folks really love.

This was a unique situation where the owner of the company spent a great deal of time in the booth. He was attending the rally because Fleetwood is a significant customer. In any case, Martin is a great guy. He fits the description genius very well, but he also has a great personality. His being in the booth probably helped our sales.

Speaking of sales, we did pretty good. That was also true of the Fleetwood rally last year. Guess we will keep this on our “attend list”

In a recent post, I mentioned our '87 trip back east in our '56 Chevy. I am including a picture we took at the end of the trip. You will notice that Pat and the girls are in poodle skirts. The event we traveled to dedicated to the '50s era. Pat made the outfits and had each girls initial on the sweater (think Lavern and Shirley TV show). Of course, Lisa's sweater had an “L” and she got ticked off every time asked if she was Lavern {big grin}.  BTW, I still have the Chevy.  It needs a complete makeover, but it is still fun to drive.

Our Family and the '56 Chevy in '87

We departed Du Quoin Wednesday and drove a bit over 200 miles to a favorite stop: Isle of Capri casino in Boonville, MO. Yesterday we drove to Junction City and are staying in a Wal Mart (map)

That is all for now.