Sorry wohlf 16, I never saw you there anywhere Saturday.
The show sucked. Nothing like I remembered, although it was several years ago. But I've been to Lima, Canfield (no longer a show there), and Bloomsburg.
The fairgrounds roped off a bunch of area limiting the parking on the grounds, which left a lot of trucks parked off in more of a grassy parking lot area. Very unorganized, and nobody was walking around those areas looking at trucks.
Saturday was more of a redneck mud fest. It looked like a farmer/cowboy convention meets hillbilly Mardi Gras. Muddy trucks, air horns, black diesel smoke, girls in shorts and cowboy boots, and guys wanting to give girls beeds for showing tits. I saw a kid that looked like he was 7 offering girls beeds to see their tits.
Some guy was sitting in his truck trying to call Vanessa over to talk to him. She flashed the wedding ring and told him she was married. He didn't quite, so I went over and talked to him instead. He was actually with his wife (girlfriend?), and she was also going on about Vanessa. I think they were swingers trolling for a 3rd playmate. There were a few more instances and inappropriate comments made Saturday in regards to her. I really don't understand the mentality of some people, but I guess that's why they're without a date of their own.
I remember when this was a truck 'show' with show quality trucks. A lot of average to crappy trucks in attendance, but not a whole lot in the way of quality worth stopping to look at. Way over crowded. You could barely move around on the 'cruise' route.
Sunday was better and at least half the participants were gone. The show was more civilized and seemed more typical of what the shows use to be. There were probably only 1 to maybe 2 dozen show quality trucks in attendance for the event. It use to be nice to go to these shows and look to see what others were doing, where the trends were going, and get ideas for your own build. I had hoped Vanessa could look at a bunch of trucks to get ideas and motivate her on her build.
The best part of the weekend, and the only thing worth going for was the monster trucks. There were 11 trucks in attendance including Jim Koehler's Avenger. The man never disappoints and puts on a good show.
So today I'm back home thinking about our trucks. I have the '83 that's sat for years since I built the '96. I have the '84 Bronco II, and Vanessa has her '89 Ranger. The '96 is my trail truck, the axles from the '83 are going in Vanessa's Ranger, and the V-8 from the '83 is replacing the bad V-8 in the Bronco II. I had hopes of rebuilding the old '83 in to something big and bad with the (2) Dana 60's sitting next to it, but I'm just not sure what the future holds for my trucks. I don't take the '96 off road much any more. I thought it would be cool to build the Bronco II in to a decent looking driver (not a trail truck), and building the original TRS-1 '83 truck in to something awesome. I thought I might want to go the show truck route for a while. I'm tired of the repairs and mantenance of a trail truck. But the reality on the '83 is that I need an experienced welder to come over and do some welding for me, and I just don't have one. I have a friend who is a great welder, but he works long hours and you can't depend on him to weld anything for you. I could get him to do a one day small project, but wouldn't rely on him for a big project. I've thought of getting rid of both my Rangers and the Bronco II, and just building (1) new Ranger. Or, it could end up that Vanessa's Ranger could be the only one we have. Actually, if it was mine, I'd probably get rid of the other trucks and just invest the money in it.
I'm not sure what the future holds for me and my trucks, but going to a truck show and not seeing many show quality trucks, and seeing no show quality Rangers didn't help re-fuel my interest in them.