Move-in day

If you've ever taken part in the process of moving someone; yourself or your child or anyone really, into a college dorm, the title probably sent a cold chill down your spine.

Sorry about that.

This was nowhere remotely close to as bad as collegiate move-in day.  It was, however, the day we moved "the girls" in to McCormick Place for the buff-fest known as IAFC Fire Rescue International.  

I say that with all due affection, by the way, I love those nerds.

We got up around 4:00 this morning, gathered downstairs a little before 5, almost before the coffee made an appearance at the hotel, and got on the road heading in to the city with the understanding we were supposed to be there for a "drivers meeting" at 6:00 AM.  

We arrived about quarter to 6.  

The meeting was at 6:45.

Whatever.

We finally got the girls inside a little before 8:00 AM

Ann Marie taking the turn in to the exhibit hall...

Followed by Karen and the trailer...

I've been in McCormick Place a bunch of times over the years, for the Chicago Auto Show, the Boat Show, things like that, but I've never been in the exhibit hall when it was empty.  It was kind of weird to see.  

Good thing it was empty too, I can't imagine trying to maneuver the trucks the way we did with a lot of stuff in there.  It took a couple tries to get them positioned where Dave wanted them - "does this truck make my a** look big?" but we got them set fairly quickly.  

Once they were ready for presentation, we headed down to Robbins to look at a couple of old fire engines Jaime found online.  The first, an E-One looked to be in pretty good shape, no rust, motor sounded OK  but the guy was asking a lot for it.  The second, a Pierce had a lot of rust on it.  A LOT.  Motor sounded good though, a texted a guy I know from the department it came from and he said to his knowledge it was in good shape and was sent away due to age.  The price was high, but he said he'd come down on it.  Probably not enough to make it worthwhile though due to the body work needed to repair the rust.

That's it for the rest of today and tomorrow too for that matter.  With no vehicles, it's hard to tour and they are committed to the show until Saturday afternoon.

Which, by the way is my last day on tour.  At least until October.

And that sucks. 

Looks like I'll have to work for tomorrows entry...

Pink Heals!

Peace