Florida RV SuperShow Day 1

We were up fairly early so we could try and beat the crowds at the RV show today. They hold the show at the fairgrounds on the east side of Tampa and it is only about 20 miles away south of us on US 301. We made the short drive, paid the parking fee and walked to the gate where we had to pay the admission for the show. The price is $10 per person but that is good for two days so that kind of takes the "sting" out. :-)

Our first stop was one of the buildings where there were vendors set up.

We had fun seeing all the different products for sale and happened onto the Amazon booth where some of our HR people from Campbellsville were handing out literature and answering questions about work camping there. They had a flat screen TV set up showing a slideshow of different jobs and Rudee yelled "Hey, there we are!" They had included the photo of our whole group of work campers from "Single Toys, D shift nights". There was a couple there asking some questions and we helped answer some of them from the work campers point of view. :-)

As we walked around the building I saw a familiar face walking towards me. "Hi there Linda Payne". There was that second of "who is calling my name" look in her eyes before she said "Phil and Rudee!" Her and Howard are the founders of RV Dreams and were one of the first full timers we ever met in person. We had not seen them since 2007 but had emailed back and forth several times over the years. I started following their blog in 2006 and maybe they have checked in on mine a time or two as well. :-)
They are presenting a seminar here and were heading over to get things set up so we only had time for a quick "how ya been" but hopefully we can get together again before they leave.

We eventually worked our way out to the massive display of rigs. They were lined up for as far as the eye could see. There was every type and style of RV imaginable was on display.

We had a mission to find a specific toy hauler to check out for Rob and Jany back in Indiana. We found our way to the Grand Design RV display and they had two Momentum Toy Haulers. We took a few pictures for them and even talked to one of the owners of the company who invited them to the factory for a tour. He said he would show them around personally! Time for a road trip Rob!

As we were walking around we found a vendor selling name signs and decided it was time to replace ours. We sure were lucky they had one with our names on it! :-)

Actually one of the gals manning the booth hand paints the names on while you wait. They were doing a brisk business and we had to wait about 45 minutes for our sign to be ready, but it wasn't hard to kill that amount time in this place!
We toured a few rigs and kept telling each other "when we win the lottery .....!"
Tomorrow we are heading back for day 2 with Larry and Sue (Single Toys buddies!) and see of we can help them spend some of their Amazon money on a new rig. :-) I'll keep you posted.