March 23rd

Nice sunny day, the highest temp I saw today was 90F.

We left early and went to the Good Sam Rally at Phoenix Intl Raceway in Avondale. Bingers went with us as they had never been before either. It is a fair hike from here but we left just after the morning rush & the wrecks [as they call them] had been cleared up. The last traffic report I heard had 8 or 10 crash sites identified between here and there. Got to the raceway right before 10 AM, so made good time, right around an hour. It was something to see. It's a NASCAR racing site and the stands are huge around a banked track. The main part of the show was in the pit area & to get to it you had to go through a tunnel under the track. Travel was mainly on passenger cars, the same as you see in Disney or other major theme parks. There were all description of RV's there as well as every kind of supplier related to the trade. I think there were in excess of 250 booths in the show, most under one huge tent. The tent had to be 500 ft long, it was impressive.

We saw expensive iron and some really good deals. The new ideas/innovation in the industry was really interesting to see. It would be easy to get enticed into a new coach, like we almost did last year. When you start talking about driver passenger seats with full electronics including vibrating or corian counter tops & fireplaces. The display booths were interesting as well. Again some great ideas and the handouts were pretty great. Both Pat & Marg had many new bags, all were filled with brochures and knick knacks. I talked to the manufacturer of our tow bar and got some good ideas about maintaining it. Marg talked to some people that do interior replacements, including the chairs & sofa as well as some others that have products to make rv'ing better. The big pole in the picture reports the positions of the cars on the race track during events.

We had lunch at a booth and then met up with Kenny & Doris at the Tiffin booth. Kenny is sure well known there. His coach is a Tiffin, Allegro Bus and his brother worked for them. He introduced us to his brother and the owner, Bob Tiffin. They sure make nice coaches and a big display of them. At the time of our visit they had 8 of them sold & their entry level is about $121K. After we went out to Blanke's motorhome for a beer in the shade of their awning. Did I mention it was very hot!

Got out of there just before 4 PM in time to hit the rush hour in downtown Phoenix. We went right through the heart of the city and where the I-10 becomes the I-60 or continues on to Tucson the traffic was bumper to bumper, six lanes across. In fact it was stopped at times. Did I mention a few accidents or wrecks as they call them thrown in for interest. We took on the worst they could throw at us and were victorious, LOL!

Stopped at IHop for supper with our company and that made for a great reward for navigating the freeway at rush hour.