CA RV Show
The big RV show in Pomona was on this week so we headed out early today to see what's new in the RV world. We arrived at 10:15, near the opening time and spent most of the day there. Wow! What a difference in attendance! I think there were more salespersons than customers. (Salespersons because we had two women guide us through their RV selections.)
The show is still pretty good sized with more trailers and 5th wheels. The first coach that caught our eye had a huge deck set up on the roof. Yikes! You wouldn't catch me up there but Jim climbed the ladder :) I was impressed with the appliances--all residential. But it was manufactured by some company, CT something, owned by a Crean family member (Fleetwood) and we'll have nothing to do with Fleetwood so scratch that.
We were impressed with the layouts of some 36' Winnebago, Tiffin and Newmar coaches. We did stand on the veranda of the Country Coach recently featured in Motor Home magazine. What a crazy and wasteful idea. Must be for people who don't want to get their feet dirty. Imagine how many more things could go wrong. All sellers were offering huge price breaks. But none of them were perfect. I knew I'd come home and say I love my little coach.
What we did find were some vendors to provide some needed upgrades that we'll be working into our budget. My recliner has lost some of it's ball bearings and we met the owner of the Recovery Room in Riverside where we bought it. He'll be sending us a new base for $20!
One of our day/night shades is about to break a string which means a real hassle to fix it. We found the American DUO shades vendor who is also the RV DECOR guy located in Castaic. We can order the DUO shades and he gave us some ballpark figures on carpeting or wood floors. He also does cabinets so we could replace our oven with a couple of drawers. Also found a couple of carpet/ upholstery/ cabinet vendors here in Riverside County. So that part of the day was very helpful.
We did walk out with our hands full of goodies. A Sham-Wow package (soaks up to 5 times it's weight in water right before my very eyes!), a motion detector outdoor light, two electric cord reels that look like lifesavers, a Christmas present for Evan, some Geico playing cards with the Gecko on them, two little flashlights for free, and a bunch of literature that will give us a free weekend here and there.
It was pretty hot and dry. Fortunately, many vendors had free water bottles so we would feign looking at their coaches, sit inside where the air was on and drink water. I was pooped out by 2 pm but Jim still had vendor info to collect and a couple of coaches to see so I sat in the shade and listened to the salesmen kibitz and give away their selling secrets :) For lunch we had 2 brats, 2 chips and a bottle of water for $23!! Just as bad as the movies. We could have had all-you-can-eat soup and salad at the Olive Garden for $15! But they've got you trapped.
So we probably dropped a couple of hundred there and then went to Applebee's for dinner. That was to avoid the traffic on the 10 at 5 pm! Well that's a good excuse. We broke training and had a margarita and veggie pizza appetizer along with our Grilled Shrimp and Spinach Salad. I had a Chocolate Mousse Shooter for dessert.
All in all a very fun but tiring day. I was so happy to get home and take off my shoes :)