I think I am getting redundant, but we are still here. I cannot say much about Pomona or Lavern (the town adjacent to the exit from the Fairplex closest to where we are. Um, Fairplex, a California name for a Fairgrounds, actually the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds. It is situated on the edge of Pomona conveniently near the I 10. It contains what may be the single largest paved parking lot I have ever seen. We have about 4,000 motorhomes arranged on this parking lot in camping herringbone and the lot seems to be about 40% empty. We are located at the last row in our section very near the NHRA Drag Strip (second time for us next to a drag strip) right at the starting line. The lot extends the entire length of the strip (quarter mile) plus the outrun. The distance from the strip to the other edge of the lot seems to be about the same, call it a mile square.
The trip from our coach to the center of activity is a 10 to 15 minute bike ride, a tram ride can take 10 minutes, or if you get on one that does the entire serpentine route past every coach on the way it could take 30 minutes. We rode our bikes it whenever possible. When Carol was doing her Seminar and her Workshops she was able to use her car and park near the seminar building to reduce the distance she had to carry computers and equipment.
The seminar on Photo Composition: Taking Your Best Shot went very well. The room was a large meeting room in the hotel adjacent to the Fairplex and as such it was warm and the sound was good. All the equipment promised was present and worked as expected. Carol was brilliant as usual and the 175 to 200 attendees were captivated and never moved (as proud husband I believe I am permitted to enlarge on the success just a bit). In fact the attendance was excellent and the questions were very good. The next day she gave two workshops where attendees were encouraged to bring there own images for review and discussion. The workshops went fine if you ignore the fact that for the 8 AM gathering the door was locked when we got there and when we got to the room it was bitter cold and there was none of the promised equipment. One other features of the Fairplex is a horse track and the meeting room was set up in the Pari-mutuel betting room. Of course we had great access to the grandstand level of the track and the view over the track to the not very distant mountains covered with snow was just grand. It was even better a day later when the temperatures finally got over 60.
We are in California, in case I hadn’t mentioned it. We are at a motorhome convention. It rained on Tuesday night, a lot, and it was cold really cold for these parts, below 45 overnight and not over 55 in the day. ENOUGH!
I did mention something about spending money here. This is always part of the entertainment. There is the opportunity to spend $1,000,000 on a new coach – didn’t do that – although some did. There are goodies that make life more comfortable on the coach and we are so comfortable that we didn’t buy those either, well nothing big. Then there are safety items. We have driven our motorhomes a total of about 70,000 miles over five years with no supplemental braking system in the tow’d. This results in extended stopping distances and in some cases may even be illegal. I have resisted buying a system because the type that can be moved from car to car easily has to be installed and uninstalled each time you hook up or disconnect. I did not like the concept, but didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a permanent installation in the old tow’d. Last year when we bought the Toyota to tow I decided to investigate a permanently installed supplementary braking system. When I finally saw the one I had decided on being offered for installation here I ordered it and had it installed the next day. For the RVers among you, I bought the US Gear vacuum assist unit with a charge line to prevent running down the tow’ds battery. I hope I have nothing more to say about it as we drive the 3,000 miles to Rochester over the next two week.
We have made a umber of new friends, especially Beverly and Dan Armstrong who we first met at Sky Valley and then at Dockweilers and have had some nice times with here as well.
The entertainment was variable. Debbie Reynolds is old and shows it. Her humor was off color, not appropriate for the audience. A number of us thought she was drunk or otherwise impaired, although I guess the cold could have accounted for her slow start. The last night was the Bobby Vinton Show. He is very intense and really put on a grand show. The venue is the grandstand of the race track and he came into the audience and eventually made his way to the top of the grandstand. It was very enjoyable and he sang all of the favorites “Blue Velvet” “Blue on Blue” “Roses are Red” and far to many more for me to catalog (or remember).
On Friday morning we will push out into the edge of LA traffic heading away from the center. We hope to be in Blythe, CA when we set up camp next. At least that is the plan at 10:15 PM.