RV Fun Trips --- On the Road --- FMCA Oct 2002

Yet Another FMCA Motorhome Convention
Motor Home on the Range
October 2002
Page 2

A Slow Day

The day after arriving at the FMCA convention, we headed into the fairgrounds to get an early look at the layout. This is something we learned to do from previous FMCA conventions. It makes it easier later to find our way around when the grounds are crowded. It was a good thing that we went in early to find the Information Center. As it turned out, reservations were already being made for classes. The women signed up for craft classes.

A little later, the women had gone out for a drive to find a quilt shop in Hutchinson. We would hear later of their adventure as they found themselves, at one point, riding on a road right next to a prison. I was told that they found parts of the Greater Hutchinson area that they really didn't want to know about. However, they did find the quilt shop they went out to find.

Tom and I headed out into town with us having to wait for a break in the stream of incoming motorhomes before I could drive out of the fairgrounds. This was the second day of entry and there were a lot of rigs coming into the fairgrounds. When I finally found my way out to one of the main vehicular arteries, I was driving against the flow of incoming RVs. There was a solid line of motorhomes farther than we wanted to go.

When I turned off the street to head toward downtown, I had measured over three miles of motorhomes and the line still went on to where we couldn't see the end of the line. It was a very impressive site. So much so that there were motorhome and convention stories on the front page of the local newspaper everyday we were in town. We found out that the FMCA convention was making the news in Wichita more than fifty miles away.

Tom and I got to know Hutchinson fairly well. I wanted to find a car wash where I could remove a load of dirt and grim that had accumulated on our car during our trek to Hutchinson. I finally found a do-it-yourself car wash where I thought I would come out with a nice clean car. As it turned out, the dirt was gone, but the water was so hard that the car was now covered with big, heavy mineral deposits.

I set out on a mission, with Tom riding "shotgun," to find a cleaner that I could use to remove the watermarks. Since it was Sunday, most businesses were closed. This resulted in me driving all over town until we finally found an auto parts store that was open. I bought a bottle of the closest thing I could find to a dry cleaner and polish. Once I had something to make an attempt at cleaning the car it was time for lunch.

After leaving the auto-parts store, Tom and I found a place where we could have lunch, the Hog Wild Pit Bar-B-Q on north Main Street. It was a small restaurant that specialized in barbecued pork sandwiches. The place was across the street from the State Fairgrounds and about a block north of the entrance to the fairgrounds.

Looking at the plans for a space shuttle

After lunch, Tom and I went to the Cosmosphere Space Museum. This is one of best, world-class, space museums anywhere. This place is the home of the Apollo 13 command module and the Freedom 7 Mercury space capsule. Also, one of the largest collections of Soviet space artifacts can be found here in Hutchinson.

I found that there were several new displays of rocketry and space material. This was my fifth time to visit this great space museum. I always see something new on each visit. Tom and I saw an IMAX movie about the building of the International Space Station.

We returned to camp where, for a while, I tried getting the mineral deposits off my car using the car-cleaning product I bought in town. It was a losing effort; the watermarks on the car paint were very stubborn. As it turned out, the best stuff for removing the mineral deposits was a special cleaner that Tom uses to clean his motorhome. It did get most of the stains off the hood, however, I didn't want to use too much of Tom's supply, so I planned to buy my own jug of the cleaner when the vendor booths opened.