Convention is history for another year! As always, it is pure enjoyment to reconnect with our franchisees and company managers one more time before calling it quits for the winter. This year it was a joint convention with the National Association of RV Parks right in downtown Phoenix.
We landed in Phoenix on Friday, Nov. 2nd about 9:30 a.m. and couldn't get into our rooms until afternoon. So we became 'lounge lizards', along with some of the other teams, exchanging tales of our seasons. Connected with some old friends (former KOA owners) and they met us for lunch about 2:00 here at the hotel. Great food for a hotel restaurant.
That evening we walked over to "The Big Fat Greek Restaurant" (that is really the name) and enjoyed an evening of good food and great company, with all the Field Services Teams together. Our bodies are out of whack for it is a 2 hour time difference, and we were ready for bed long before bed time. As always, the days are full of meetings, workshops - and eating, of course. Our convention planner really outdid herself this year with menu selections. Every meal (other than the box lunches) was superb.
At the Care Camps auction evening I successfully bid on a couple of sets of Tervis insulated glasses. For those of you not familiar with the Tervis brand, they are based out of Florida and have a lifetime replacement guarantee. These are 'pure Floridian', complete with pink flamingos! Oh, well, I can lounge on my new back porch and pretend. And they fit in my suitcase for the flight home. Roger had his eye on a KOA yellow electrical pedestal for our 'personal RV site' at our house, but the CEO of the company outbid him. Not sure just how we would have gotten it home!
The merchandise expo day is always one of our favorites - but not nearly as fun since we don't have a campground. But we gathered lots of information to take back to our parks next year - and ended up ordering an electrical pedestal - and yes, it is KOA yellow! (Thankfully, they are shipping it.) I commented that maybe next year we can pick up a KOA fire ring to complete our own little one site RV park!
The grand finale tonight was great! A very fine dinner began the evening and then we were entertained by three rock and roll groups from the past: The Drifters, The Coasters and The Platters! What fun! A few songs were a bit before our time, but we throughly enjoyed every minute. It's always sad to say goodbye to everyone, but we're ready to get home and finish up the house and get my shoulder surgery scheduled.
It's time to hit the sack for tonight. We'll land in Dallas tomorrow and catch our breath before driving home on Friday.
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