Tampa RV Show

We have wanted to go to the Tampa RV show ever since we heard about it.  That was probably back in 2008 while we were still researching the lifestyle.  We organized our travel this year to attend the show which began on Jan 16, 2013.  It ran for five days and we attended Thursday and Friday.

One great thing is that the FamCamp Office (Morale, Welfare and Recreation Department) here at MacDill AFB was given tickets to the show.  We lined up about 9:30 and got our free tickets about 10:15.

Another bonus was that good friends Tom and Cathy drove up from Fort Meyers to go to the show and spend some time with us.

We had a few things on our list in addition to trying to "find something we couldn't do without".

1. Outdoor patio rug/floor mat 6' x 9'
2. Collapsible hose 50'
3. Party lights (not sure about this one but we thought we'd look)
4. Cummins Generator info
5. Good give-aways

The RV show was held at the State Fairgrounds parking was $6 which I thought was reasonable.  We entered near the Prevost Motor coach area and had to take a look at those.

They were magnificent.  For $1.8 million we probably could have our pick.

We also saw some entertaining entertainment walking around

And my favorite

We spent a lot of time walking around and seeing some rigs.  We saw some new Winnebago trailers

And hundreds of others…walked through a lot of them.  In the North Trails RV area, we took a look at the new Tiffins and saw this:

It looks like they are doing well in Class A's for both the Diesels and the Gas Rigs.

We did not see any patio outdoor mats that hit our fancy so we didn't pick one up.  Some of those were more expensive than we figured.  We are looking for a small 6' x 9' size.

We also didn't see any party outdoor lights we wanted to buy.  

Then the best purchase of the day for us: a 50' collapsible hose.

We saw these earlier in the week at the Wagon Wheel Flea Market in St. Petersburg for $45.  We decided to hold out for the Tampa RV show and it only cost $40!

Oh wait a minute.  Yesterday at Walmart we saw this:

We could have saved $.12 but not really because we'd have to pay tax.  On the other hand, if something were to go wrong with it, you could always return it to Walmart.

One of the great benefits of going to the show was speaking with a Onan generator person at the Cummins display.  He gave us a lot of good info and said when we are dry camping, we should run the generator (Onan 7500 w) long enough to get the read out to show "float charge".  We have been running for about 1 1/2 hours at a time and leaving it at that.

I was expecting a little more of the give-aways with T-Shirts and such but saw very few of those.  I think the down turn in the economy has put a crimp in most company's marketing budget for things like  that.

All in all, I am glad we went.

Until next time, --thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!