Well, it had to happen. We had a rainy day. Now this wasn't the frog strangling rain you might expect with an FMCA Convention. This was a slobbery drizzly day. In fact I rode my bicycle to and from the activities I attended today and did not get wet on any ride. I picked up a few rain drops but never really got wet. Louise walked to her activities. To be honest, there weren't many bicycles in the bike racks early this morning.

My first session was Tires 101 by Roger Marble. Roger is an engineer and has worked with tires for his entire career. His talk gave us the real scoop on tires, tire dynamics; how tire wear affects traction; how tire damage occurs and when to discard a tire that looks like a good tire but likely is damaged. He showed us tires that had failed and tires that were going to fail soon. Being a motor home owner himself, he was able to relate the entire talk to motor homes and a few references to toads as well.

After a seminar on tires I went to the advanced class on satellite TV. A panel of experts, representatives of several satellite dish producers, answered questions from the crowd. A wide variety of questions and problems were addressed to the satisfaction of the crowd. I got several answers that will help me with my project to get a satellite feed to the bedroom. Many of the answers were for people to stop by the booth of their satellite dish manufacturer and fill out a service request to have them come take a look a their equipment. Again, the value of being here at the convention is apparent. I always figure that one way or another I get my money's worth from by registration fees in being able to talk to experts, face to face, have service personnel come do work on my coach while I'm enjoying the convention and knowledge gained in the sessions. It really doesn't cost to attend these conventions, it pays.

After the session on satellite dish TV, I contacted Louise on our walkie-talkies to see where she was. As planned she was on the way to the big tent to get ice cream. I asked if she had our mail and she said, "No" so I said I would pick it up on my way to get ice cream. The volunteers in the information booth were friendly and delivered the mail package in a moment. I'm always happy when the mail arrives on time! From there it was straight to the big tent. After parking and covering the bike seat, I went looking for Louise. I called on the radio just as I walked up to her. She gave me ups in the long line waiting to get ice cream. As soon as I was in line, it started moving. It didn't take a minute for us to get through the line. Ten minutes later the line was still there as others joined almost as fast as the volunteers could serve up the ice cream bars provided by Miller RV Insurance. There is another $3.00 of our registration fee!

A quick visit to the vendor area and I had the answer I needed about the problem I was having with the Silverleaf engine monitoring software. Louise picked up easy care slacks, blouse and jacket while I grabbed several FMCA T-shirts. On our way back out of the vendor area, we passed the big tent and people were still getting ice cream bars. We were met by two young men from the local sandwich shop distributing sub sandwich samples! Then it was back to the motor home for the afternoon. Our next door neighbor has packed up and moved out. A few people will make an early exit. He had the Goodyear tire truck at his site yesterday. They installed two new tires on the front of his motor home. Shortly after we arrived back at the RV, Karen Rambow arrived to work on the glazing on the headlights on our motor home. She spent several hours buffing and polishing them to near perfect clarity before quitting for the day. She will return tomorrow to apply the Nanotec coating to protect the surface for the future.

This evening I spent some time arranging our meeting with friends for a trip following the convention. We'll link up several days after the convention and start our caravan toward Canada. My favorite weather program, The Weather Bug, shows 0.04 inches of rain today. There is more rain on the doorstep so tonight will be good sleeping weather if you enjoy the sound of rain on the roof. We'll see what tomorrow brings.