As I wandered on to the 2nd half of the show floor I seemed to be moving into the more local booths, local as in states. I stopped at The Hershey, PA booth and right next to it was Lancaster County, PA, Amish country. And then I saw a big sign…Lake George and I had to stop there. I have to laugh because even after I told them I was from the area, they pressed the brochures into my hands. One of the reps was a young lady who has a store on Main St in Bolton. She knows my mother and brother so I told her to tell them she had seen me.
More local was the Concord Booth manned by reps in colonial dress.
There was a National Parks booth too where I stopped for a chat.
As I was preparing to leave…if I could find an exit…I saw a booth that I has somehow missed. The Grand Canyon Railroad! There were 2 young ladies manning that booth and it wasn’t crowded so I had a chance to have a nice visit. I told them we had a trip planned in May and would be taking the train and include the Rim tour. They said that was absolutely the way to do it (of course ) but then we discussed some of the other tours in the area. They had both been on the Bottom of the Canyon tour but with another tour company. They had heard of Native American Journey’s but didn’t know it well. They said that going with them would give us more of the perspective of the Native Americans. They also said that some areas of places like Monument Valley are closed unless you have a Native American Guide. I had heard that but it was nice to have confirmation. As I was getting ready to leave they handed me 2 wooden train whistles as a gift. I had mentioned my sister was going on the trip with me and they remembered saying, “here’s one for you and one for your sister.” Very good. I am impressed by things like that. Shows they were really listening to what I was saying.
I left the Grand Canyon booth and went to the third floor so I could get a look out over the show floor.
Then I headed back down to leave. Easier said than done. I walked around and around and couldn’t find the exit. Finally I asked one of the security guards.
By the way, security was tight. We didn’t have to pass through any screening but the guards all had the little wires in their ears and seemed to be a higher level than the normal “rent -a-cop”. Anyway, they gave me directions that could have been from Peter Pan…First Star on the right etc J they told me to go to Hershey and take a right then a left at New York etc…Pretty funny. Finally I saw a small exit sign.
But you still had to get past all the AAA displays by the exit. I skipped the survey and headed out. I’d had enough of crowds and “hawkers” for one day. All together I was in the show for around 3 hours. You could easily spend all day but I had what I came for and was glad to drive off into the sunset.