Hello from Chugwater, WY

Hello from Chugwater, WY

Sunday Evening   September 16, 2012   (Second travelogue of this trip).

We are back in Chugwater, WY (map).  We left Gillette this morning and made the short trip down here today.  It turns out that Chugwater is about half way between Gillette and Evergreen and is a nice stop as we have mentioned in other blogs.  Tonight we made it in time to have Chugwater Chili at the fun little store on main street.  When we came through last Sunday, they closed before we got to the store.

The rally was interesting.  I did not get my inventory until the second day of the rally and then it was not all that extensive.  Indeed, we missed two $1295 sales because we did not have the product.  The rally itself was pretty small. We were told that it was about 360 coaches.  The other problem is that several vendors skipped this rally in favor of a rally in Missouri.  We heard that some attendees left early. 

We were pretty busy in the booth.  Folks like to talk about the product and had good questions.  My seminar went well and Pat's went very well.  She got several great compliments and the ladies seemed to have a very good time.  She got a couple of nice orders and that is always a plus.

This is our booth at Gillette

Gillette is an interesting place.  They have a huge amount natural resources (oil, natural gas, and coal).  We are told that the economy for the area is very good.  Just across from where we parked, there was a great display of mining equipment that included a drag bucket that was as tall as the bus and an ore truck that was much bigger than the bus.  I would have liked to spend more time, but we needed to leave the facilities by noon (we left closer to 1:00, but they did not call the cops {grin}).



It will be interesting to see if SilverLeaf will ask us to do other rallies.  We hope so as it is fun to do a rally where you don't have to worry about paying the bills.

That is all for now.

Hello from Gillette, WY

Hello from Gillette, WY

Tuesday Evening   September 11, 2012   (First travelogue of this trip).

We are at the Cam-Plex multi-event facility (map) attending an FMCA area rally, representing SilverLeaf electronics (http://www.silverleafelectronics.com/).   When we were doing trade shows, we often represented SilverLeaf by purchasing a double booth as shows where they did not attend.   Over the years we got to know the owner of the company very well.  He is a genius at developing electronic equipment for the RV industry and is a wonderful person to work with. 

In the past, we paid the cost of the booth.  After we closed the business, Martin and I talked about our continuing to represent his company.  We reached an agreement where SilverLeaf would pay our costs and offered a commission on sales over an agreed upon amount.  We probably will not get the income, but we have the benefit of attending a trade show where we don't have to worry about how to pay the bills.

We have always enjoyed being vendors at trade shows.  It is fun to interact with the attendees.  You also develop a strong friendship with many of the vendors.  Even though this is a small rally, we have at least one vendor that we are glad to see.

The Cam-Plex is a great facility.  Indeed, the International FMCA rally will be held here next year.  A rally of that size demands top notch facilities.  We did a Fleetwood rally here a couple of years ago and noted then how wonderful the facilities were.

At this rally, I will do a SilverLeaf seminar and Pat will do a rubber stamped greeting card seminar.

The trip here is a bit under 400 miles.  While we could drive that in a day, we try to keep the driving to a more pleasurable number.  As has been the case in the past we stopped in Chugwater, WY.  We have talked about this little town in previous blogs.  Years ago when we belonged to a membership ranch, the ranch outside of Wheatland, WY,  they would pick us up in an Eagle bus (a model perhaps 15 years older than ours) and we would stop in Chugwater to pick up meat for the meals.  There was a great meat market there at the time.  Today Chugwater is a mere shadow of the town we used to know.  It is still fun to park on Main Street and see all the old buildings.  Most are no longer used, but there is something about this little town that makes us feel comfortable. 

That is all for now.

Hello again from Algodones, NM

Hello again from Algodones, NM

Saturday Morning March 27, 2010 (Fourth travelogue of this trip).

We wrote our second post of this travelogue from this same location last Saturday. As we noted then, it is a fun, convenient, inexpensive place to stop. We are staying here two nights to wait out a snow storm that is hitting Denver. Besides we need to relax after a rather hectic show!!

The FMCA rally was a mixed bag. For the attendees, it sounded like it was a royal pain. The show was at the fairgrounds, but the camping was at the Balloon Fiesta Park, several miles away. The ran large commercial buses between the two facilities, but that must have been a logistics issue for the folks in the park. On the last day of the rally, there was a rollover crash on I-25 that had traffic virtually shut down. We could really see the impact at the show, as there were very few folks in the vendor area and 3 or 4 ladies missed Pat's craft session (after they had paid for it).

In addition, Albuquerque is over 5000 feet in elevation and the aging membership includes many folks who have health issues at that altitude.

Albuquerque was our first trade show in 2004. It was a disaster for us, as we were not prepared and we were located in the Balloon Park. At the time FMCA said they would not be back. I don't know what changed their mind, but they again held it in mid-March when the weather is really iffy. I think the attendance reflected the lack of enthusiasm for the location by the membership. FMCA always publishes the attendance, but they did not this time. We believe they were quite embarrassed. We have a semi-official count of less than 1700 coaches. That is, by far, the lowest attendance at an “International” rally. Attendance has been declining over the past few years. We attended some of these rallies before we started vending and went to several that were well over 5000 coaches and a few that were over 7000.

In spite of the bad attendance we did OK. We had quite a bit of interest in our fire suppression system and sold a reasonable amount of other product. Probably not enough to pay for the total cost of the trip, but better than many of our shows. It might sound strange that we don't cover the cost of our trips, but our philosophy is that we are “paying our dues”. With our kind of product, people need to build their confidence that we are trusted vendors. We have begun to see a bit of an up-tick in system sales that we attribute to contacts at the shows.

The booth had potential customers in it almost all of the time. Often there were several at one time. That is the good news. The bad news is that we were on our feet on hard concrete for most of the three days of the show. We had to get up before 6:00 each day and often got to bed well after 10:00. Not complaining, as we know the “drill” going into the rally. However this rally was harder on us than most. Hence the need to relax here at the casino.

In the last post we had a link to the map of our location at the fairgrounds. If you look closely, we were a couple of hundred yards from Central Ave. This is the old Route 66. We have talked a great deal about Route 66 in the past. It was a highway that ran from Chicago to LA. It was first planned in 1926 and finished in 1938. It has been immortalized in music, books, movies and TV. One of the best sites for the history of the highway is here.

I would love to quote all of the page cited above, but the following excerpt will give you an idea of some of the compelling content:

“In his famous social commentary, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck proclaimed U. S. Highway 66 the "Mother Road." Steinbeck's classic 1939 novel, combined with the 1940 film recreation of the epic odyssey, served to immortalize Route 66 in the American consciousness.”

We have held off establishing a trade show/travel schedule pending resolution of the bus problems. Now that it appears that we are “back on the road” again, we will be firming up our schedule. The shows and rallies we are looking at are very exciting.

That is all for now.

Hello from Albuquerque, NM

Hello from Albuquerque, NM

Tuesday evening March 23, 2010 (Third travelogue of this trip).

We are currently parked in the vendor dry camp area at the fairgrounds (map). This is the sight of the FMCA International Rally. In the “good old days” these rallies would attract over 7000 motorhomes. In the last few years, that number has dropped to perhaps 2500 motorhomes. It is rumored that there are only 1600 motorhomes here. We will get the official numbers in the next day or two.

When we last posted there was a couple of inches of snow on the ground. By noon, most of it has melted and later in the afternoon, I was able to wash the bus and service truck. Since then the weather has been very nice. However, it is supposed to rain late tonight and most of tomorrow. There is some mention of snow as well.

Sunday we moved from the Hollywood Casino to the fairgrounds. The parking went very smoothly (not always the case). In the afternoon we got most of the work done setting up the booth. Yesterday Pat was at the welcome center selling tickets to her two craft classes (sales were not as good as has been the case in the past). I did quite a bit of running around and a bit of rubber necking of the new motorhomes.

Today was the first day of the rally for vendors. In spite of the reported small attendance, the vendor area was pretty busy. We had a few sales and several good contacts with customers who are interested in our fire detection and suppression system. Pat did the first of her two craft classes. There were 15 people in the class including one man. Tomorrow I will do my seminar and Thursday Pat will have here second seminar.

We have two more days of vending and then we tear down on Thursday evening. We will pull out on Friday and head back to the Hollywood Casino. We will then pace ourselves to miss some storms that are predicted for the Denver area. We do not have to be home at a certain date, so we will make sure we travel in good weather conditions.

Sunday we had dinner with Gary and Karen – great friends. We then went to the Kirkland Air Force base where they are camped in the “Fam Camp” for retired military personnel. They have a beautiful Prevost bus conversion that is new to them. It is an amazing bus!

One of our readers, and best friend, pointed out that I spelled Pat incorrectly in the first post of this trip I spelled it Par. I often spell her name Pay (I think that is a Freudian slip {{{big grin}}}).

That is all for now.

Hello from Shawnee, OK

Hello from Shawnee, OK

Saturday evening October 3, 2009 (Second travelogue of this trip)

I simply can't believe it has been so long since I posted the first travelogue of this trip. Lots has happened since then.

We left Goddard, KS on Monday 9/21. We are staying at the Holiday Inn Express (map). If you look closely at the map (zoom in) you will see a big building just to the west and that is a huge Wal Mart. That makes it very handy to do quick shopping (just like when we are in the bus).

Tuesday we started setting up for a regional FMCA rally at the fairgrounds. The actual show was Thursday through Saturday. We did just OK in sales, but had lots of good leads. If any of those come to fruition, our sales will increase significantly. Part of the issue is that the sales tax here is 8.5% and that really gets folks attention on large dollar sales. Several folks said that they would order on the Internet and pay shipping. I did two seminars that were reasonably well attended and Pat did two craft classes. Her first one was full, but the second one was at 8:00 in the morning and that was too early for some of the ladies. It was about half full.

Monday (9/28) we drove to Tinker Air Force Base (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_Air_Force_Base). It is a huge (9 square miles) aircraft maintenance facility and has over 26,000 military and civilian employees. There we met up with some good friends who were staying in the “Fam Camp” (map) Many military bases have campgrounds that are available to active or retired military. This campground was very well laid out and would look like a good commercial campground. The campers are charged a nominal fee (about $12 at this location for full hookups). That fee is about 30-50% what you would pay for a commercial campground. In addition, they have full use of the facilities including the base exchange which is like a fully stocked Wal Mart. The prices are lower than public stores and they do not have to pay taxes. Our friends barbecued steak and we had a great time.

Getting onto the base was a real challenge. We had to travel around the outside of the base to a check station where we had to show our identification, truck registration, and proof of insurance. We then had to drive back to the gate close to the Fam Camp and undergo a full vehicle search (hood open, all utility doors open, etc). At least we felt secure.

Tuesday I worked in the room and took Pat to a close-by casino. This whole area is basically Indian reservation.

Wednesday we went back to Tinker and toured the base with our friends. From there, we went to nearby Oklahoma City and toured the Oklahoma City National Memorial and museum (http://www.oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org). This is located at the site of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. This was the terrible bombing that killed 168 innocent people including 11 children in a day care center in the building. The remains of the building have been cleared and a beautiful reflection pool and “Field of Empty Chairs” that honor those killed. There are 168 chairs arranged by the location and floor where the people were at the time of the blast. The children who were killed are marked with smaller chairs. I will post some pictures on the next blog (too tired tonight).

The museum was very well done and extremely emotional. It included a recording made at a Water Board meeting in a building adjacent to the bombed building. By the time we left the museum we were emotionally drained.

We returned to Tinker and had another cookout.

I will continue our Oklahoma stay in our next blog.

Tomorrow we will head home. It is about 700 miles. We will probably take two days to get home, but we are wiped out and may take three days.

That is all for now.

Hello from Russell, KS

Hello from Russell, KS

Tuesday evening July 28, 2009 (fourth travelogue of this trip)

Our main purpose for this trip was to be vendors at the FMCA International Convention in Bowling Green, OH. The facilities were great, albeit spread out over a large area. The vendor building (map) was a great building. The official coach count at 2,725. That is up a bit from the past few rallies but far short of the “good old days” of over 7,000 coaches. The attendees seemed quite upbeat and were buying at a reasonable pace. Our expectations for the rally were not good. We are SilverLeaf dealers, but the company had a booth and did the seminar. In addition, our major fire suppression competitor was there. The main reason we attended was “defensive”, so that folks did not think we were out of business.

We were pleasantly surprised in that we sold out of an admittedly limited inventory of most items. The profit did not pay for the trip, but it sure helped.

When we finally made the decision to make this trip, we said that we were going to be tourists as well as vendors. In this post and at least one additional post, we will detail some of the fun things that we have done.

One of the thing we wondered about was what it would be like to travel without our bus. Most bus conversion folks call themselves “Bus Nuts”. Indeed, there are various organizations with that phrase as a part of their title. What would it be like to travel like “normal folks”?

Well, we can tell you that we really miss the old girl!!! Bus folks often say that traveling in a bus is the most economical way to travel. Tonight we went over some preliminary numbers and it looks like this trip cost about twice as much as it would in the bus. Certainly the fuel is much less, but motels and meals really add up!

Speaking of motels, we have had some experiences! We decided to try “lower cost” motels when possible. We have stayed in several Super 8 motels with mixed results. The difference in cost between the Super 8s and Holiday Inn Express (our favorite) is $30-40 per night. Some of the Super 8 motels were just plain bad. The so called “Super Start” breakfasts were a joke. In many cases we had to stop and get something with a bit of protein and that offset our “savings”. A couple seem to be less than sparking clean. Another hotel we stopped at in Greenville, OH had a nice enough room, but the Internet connection was terrible. The night clerk told us it was something with our computers. However, we found the room where the router was and had them let us work in that room – no further problems. Tonight we are at the Russell's Inn, a hotel that has seen better days. The room is OK, but we have seen several bugs that we hope are not cockroaches.

Speaking of Greenville, OH, that is where my dad was born. We decided to spend quite a bit of time doing genealogy research and we hit the jackpot. More in the next blog.

On Sunday 7/26, we toured the US Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH (http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/). This should be on everyone's must do list. I had on my pedometer and it said I walked 4.7 miles. I am not sure how calibrated the unit is, but I suspect it is close. There are four huge hanger type buildings with at least 100 planes, many of which are one of a kind experimental planes. A separate hanger has 9 presidential planes including 4 that you can tour. One is the retired Air Force One (a Boeing 707) that carried Kennedy's body home and where Lyndon Johnson was sworn in. The facility also has a great IMAX theater and we took in two great movies.

That evening we were completely worn out and only drove a short distance to Richmond IN.

While we will be home tomorrow, I will try to finish catching up with another post (hopefully in the next few days).

Hello from Quartzsite, AZ

Sunday morning January 18, 2009 (Fifth travelogue of this trip)

We are at the Eagle Bus Rally (map). Actually, this is a combined Eagle/GMC/Flxible bus rally (yes Flxible is spelled according to the company name). There are close to 100 buses here (33 Eagles). The space alloted is a bit small, so we are kind of close together, but it is not too bad. Some of late comers had to park a bit off site, but they are close enough that they can participate in all the activities (coffee and donuts in the morning and h'orderves or pot luck at night,plus nightly bonfires and our board and general meeting). I have attached a picture that shows some of the rally.

If you have been following our blog, you know that we came here from Indio where we did two trade shows. We need to catch up on the FMCA rally in Indio. There were over 1500 coaches in attendance and lots of activity in the vendor area. Talking to many vendors, I got the same answer: lots of interest, but not much in the way of sales. That was true for our booth. We think that we had good contacts – both in terms of quantity and quality.

After the FMCA rally, we pulled under the palm trees and camped for a couple of days. The weather was great, getting into the 80's during the day. On Tuesday we traveled a bit over 120 miles east to Quartzsite.

We have written a bit about Quartzsite in the past. It is a crazy place to say the least. In the summer the population is less than 4,000. However, in the winter that number grows drastically. I have heard that during the December/January time frame over 1 million people will send a few days in the area. Quartzsite is in a basin and when you approach from either the east or west, you will crest a hill and see a sea of recreational vehicles of every shape and size.

This time in January is the peak population period, since the huge RV trade show is in full swing. This is a huge tent with several hundred vendors (we do not vend there). In addition, there are acres of “swap meet” booths all over town.

When we are here, we dry camp (no electrical/water/sewage hook-ups). We have solar power (not too effective this time of year when the sun is low), a good generator and lots of water, sewage capacity. We could probably dry camp for a couple of weeks before we would have to dump and get water.

From here we head to Yuma, AZ to stay with some good friends for a week or two.

That is all for now.

Eagle Bus Rally in Quartzsite

Hello again from Indio, CA

Hello again from Indio, CA

Thursday evening January 8, 2009 (Fourth travelogue of this trip)

We are at the FMCA rally in Indio (map). This is just a few miles from the Polo Grounds were the dog show was held.

As we had mentioned, the dog show was very interesting. I wish we could tell you that is was profitable. That was not the case. Indeed, it was the first show/rally that we have been to where we were skunked! We did talk to quite a few folks and they all liked the idea of protecting their pets/investment. The way they set up their booths is quite a bit different that what we are used to, and as a result, our booth was somewhat hidden by adjacent booths. In addition, we observed that these folks are very focused on dogs, and if you are not selling dog related products, they just walk on by. We are convinced that this is a good market, but we have to figure out how to get folks to think about our product.

On Sunday we moved to the Indian Wells RV park for a couple of days. That allowed us to charge our batteries and do several loads of wash. I also finished an install that I had started quite some time ago. The installation was very complex because of the generator control circuit. The installation was quite troublesome for some very strange reasons, but I got it done yesterday after setting up the booth at this rally. Thankfully, the folks have been very understanding.

Today was the first day of the show. The attendance seems to pretty good. We will get the official number in a day or two. Lots of folks have stopped by the booth and seem interested in our products. With the economy in the toilet, we will see if this interest turns to sales in the next two days of the show.

Pat did her Stamping craft class today and I do my safety seminar tomorrow.

That is all for now.

UPDATE (Friday Morning): When I was writing this blog last night, we noted that the bus started rocking quite a bit. We saw at least on neighbor come outside and look around. It turns out that there was a 4.5 earthquake about 8:00 PM last night in San Bernardino. At the time we thought about the possibility of a quake shaking the bus, but the TV (LA stations) did not have a banner on the bottom of the screen. This morning, they have had a couple of news story on the quake. It shook things pretty good, but there was no major damage or injuries.

We talked about earthquakes, and decided that the big old bus would probably be a great place to be if the BIG one occurred (assuming you were not next to trees or buildings).

Hello from Branson, MO

Hello from Branson, MO

Sunday evening October 5, 2008 (First travelogue of this trip)

We have not posted since we returned from our trip to Europe. We arrived home from Europe on 9/8 and left on this trip on 9/21. During that time I thrashed on our new-to-us service truck. It is a 2002 Dodge ¾ ton tuck with a service bed. I then built a large topper for our product and show inventories. I have posted a picture of the truck. It was supposed to have the whole body “wrapped” with our logo and more flames. Unfortunately I did not get the body done in time to get the full job done. At least it shows our product. They will finish the wrap when we get home.

We had planned to leave several days before our actual departure date, but I simply could not get everything done.

Our trip Sunday was a bit short. We left in the early afternoon and made it as far as Pueblo (Wal Mart). We stopped there so we could get the antenna up and watch the races. The next day we stayed in a Wal Mart in Elk City, TX. That was almost 500 miles and I had a problem with my wiring that prevented the Jakes and cruise control from working. That made the day extra long. I got the problem resolved the next day and we made it to the Cherokee Casino in Roland OK. We have stopped there before and it is an OK (no pun intended) casino. The next day we arrived at North Little Rock where we would be vendors at a regional FMCA rally. We arrived on Wednesday, instead of Monday as we had planned and paid for. However, we got a great location (much better than those who arrived on Monday). We had the end position about 2 blocks from the show (much closer than most folks). The truck was in a good position to be observed by traffic.

The show was a mixed bag. They had planned on 500 motorhomes, but 1000 showed up. They really had to scramble for places to put folks. We heard that several people got upset and left. Others who stayed were not pleased as there were lots of problems where they parked people. We had a double booth that displayed our products and a new product line that we are dealers for (http://www.silverleafelectronics.com). This is a very popular product line that displays a very large amount of data that is derived from the engine computer. It can literally be the dashboard of a motorhome. We will represent this company at the smaller shows. The only problem was that we spent most of our time on their product and did not get to focus on our products. We will be doing another show on this trip and we have some ideas on how to divert the customers to look at our products. Or sales were only so-so.

While we were too tired to go to any of the entertainment (didn't sound all that good anyway), we were able to do a bit of sightseeing. Our last evening, we took a modern version of an old electric trolley across the Arkansas River from North Little Rock to Little Rock. We went to a fun restaurant called the Flying Fish. It was Sunday night and we took the last trolley. We were about a mile from the bus, so we walked home. Part of the trip was walking across an old drawbridge that has been converted to a walking path (drawbridge in the raised position). We strolled along the river a bit and then walked back to the bus. We also attended the “Taste Of Arkansas” event that had about 30 restaurants represented. Each restaurant had samples of their best dishes. Lots of fun and food!

We were the only people on the trolley and the driver talked to us quite a bit. It turns out he worked for the NFO in Corning, IA (Pat's home town) several years ago. He gave us his name, but we no longer have that information. Sure is a small world.

We left North Little rock on Monday 9/29 and arrived at the Branson Lakeside RV Park that afternoon for an Eagle Bus Rally. We are located here.

In the next day or so I will detail the rally.

Our new service vehicle we tow behind the bus

Hello from San Dimas, CA.

Our bus at East Shore RV Park

Hello from San Dimas, CA.

Sunday morning; March 2, 2008 (Fourth travelogue of this trip)

We are currently located here.

I can't believe that it has been almost a month since I updated this travelogue! We have been on the go at full speed since I wrote last.

As has been the case in the past, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Shoshone, a very small quiet community. At one time I found a good website on the town, but I can't find it now. This website has some information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshone,_California.

On Wednesday some great friends spent the night in the campground. Sean and Louise have a great blog: http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com/. They have a beautiful, unique bus with the living quarters above the drivers compartment (hard to describe, but their blog has some details). Folks often describe it as a “double decker” bus (not technically correct, but it works. We had planned to have dinner with them at the only cafe in town. However, a terrible windstorm came up and the whole area lost power. We cooked a large pan of frozen lasagna and had a great meal in our bus.

On Friday we made a long trip into Death Valley and visited the very unique “Scotty's Castle”. This is quite a structure and has a ton of history. Some information is contained at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotty's_Castle. We took two tours and were absolutely amazed at the structure and history. We had dinner in Furnace Creek in the park. We left our campground around 9:00 AM and got home about 11 hours later. I think the trip was over 200 miles. We continue to be amazed at the beauty and drastic geology variations within the park.

Saturday we went to the Amargosa Opera House. This is a very unique building/hotel in the middle of nowhere. Their website is: http://www.amargosa-opera-house.com/operahouse.html. A lady by the name of Marta Becket restored the building and painted beautiful murals in the Opera House and motel lobby. She has performed in the facilities since the early 80's. In those days it was a melodrama. Today she is too feeble to perform, so she sits on the stage and tells some great stories and sings a little.

The rest of our stay was filled with trips to Pahrump, swimming, working, and just plain goofing off.

We left Sunday 2/17 and drove to Chino, CA where we were scheduled to do a system install at a company called “The Paint Department”. I was there to train an installer. The person was good at detail work, but I ended up doing a lot of the work, since he did not have any experience and we got way behind schedule. It was a very difficult install and we did not get it done ( I will finish the install in the next couple of days).

From Chino we drove to Hemet, CA where we met up with other members of the Converted Coach group. We ended up missing most of the first day, but we still had a great time and got to see some old friends.

On Saturday (2/23) we caravaned over 60 miles to the Fairplex (Los Angeles County Fairgrounds) for the FMCA International Convention. We parked with the CVC group rather than with the vendors (who often are not friendly to bus conversions that are not “up to their standards”). We set up the booth on Sunday and Monday. The vendor area was open Tuesday through Thursday. The attendance, as has been the case for the past two years, was down considerably from past years. In years past, there would often be 5,000 to 7,000 motorhomes attending. This year there were a bit more than 2,300. Pat did two craft seminars and I did my safety seminar. Her attendance was great, mine was OK.

This was our best show. We had reasonably good sales and booked three of our systems for future delivery (confirmed sales). We also had great interest and one person is having a special handicapped motorhome built and is going to have the factory install the system (the factory engineer came to the booth to get information on the system). If this works out, it could lead to working with OEMs to offer the system as an option.

On this trip we also sold four systems via phone and Estore ( including one to the military). Maybe we are beginning to see the light (headlight?) in the tunnel.

Friday night we tried to be sneaky and stay at the fairgrounds, but the security folks came by and made us move (at 9:30 PM). We moved to a Wal Mart in San Dimas. Yesterday, we got a bunch of critical errands done and moved into a great “campground”:
East Shore RV Park. You will see from the satellite map that we overlook a lake. We have a very panoramic view of the colorful hills, valleys, and distant snow capped mountains. We also overlook Brackett Field, a small airport. We have been watching planes take off as I write this.

I have included one photo that I took yesterday when we moved in. It was foggy and the photo does not show the views. It is clearing today and I will post another picture and some more travelogue in a day or two.

That is all of now.