I arrived Friday late afternoon at area five. After I had set up my camper, the folks who had toured the various wineries in the area came back to camp and I joined four members to mark the two trails for the class. Saturday morning I helped to set up the registration site, and made myself useful during registration and vehicle checking. Vehicle checking is a good exercise for newcomers because going along with different members, I learned a lot about the various technical matters. Some examples are:
the right tools for airing down good and bad tow straps where NOT to store equipment
After registration, when the students where in class, I drove up to the demonstration area. Here, I found Jim Hodges attempting to get stuck for the locker demo. He tried various places and, after about half an hour he really got stuck. He tested to get out (with lockers), it worked, and he wanted to go back into the same position. But, whatever he tried, he couldn’t get stuck any more in this spot. So, frustrated he decided to drive to a different location, but he oversaw the sign for the locker demo. He run over it and punctured a charcoal canister that is unfortunately located right under the front bumper on his Chevy. The sign was easily bent back to almost original condition, but the canister spilled charcoal into the landscape. (Doesn’t this have a smell for the cow bell?) Finally, Jim got really stuck, it was about time, because the students were already on the way from the school house.
After the three demos, I went over to the obstacle course and watched at the various places.
In the evening I helped Kathy a little bit when she prepared dinner.
On Sunday, it was pretty much the same for me. Only this time, Jim Hodges couldn’t get stuck at all - whatever he tried. So, Steve Pieraldi took a shot at it and he found the perfect spot right away. However, during the process he transformed his high lift jack into a bent lift jack.
One final note: I had heard some comments about the jet blowers in the bathrooms, I finally found a good use for them. Before driving home I wanted to clean my glasses. Since they are of the plastic variety I did not want to wipe them with a cloth, so, I washed them under the faucet. The jet blower did a perfect job of drying my glasses afterwards.