Where the buffalo roam

This is a photo my daughter took while she was home visiting at Christmas. Living in Wright we are blessed with a large buffalo ranch near town.  The Durham ranch has over 1000 head and on occasion they are near the road and pose for pictures. The buffalo is a prairie icon and a symbol of the west, for that reason I have included it in my picture mosaic knife series.

One week in sunny Las Vegas, Ha Ha

The first couple days where sunny and nice but the rest of the week saw clouds and lots of rain.  It rained three days, mostly in the evening and totaled 1.8 inches.  The average yearly rainfall for Vegas is 4 inches and last year they didn’t even reach 2 inches.

   Most people try to get a hotel close to the convention center and walk every day.  With the rain in the evening the line out front waiting on taxi’s was huge, several thousand people hutled under the eves to catch a ride.  The traffic was also backed up and added to the problem.  The police showed up and started directing traffic and that seemed to help.  We, as in the Al Mar crew, had a rent a wreck that we parked near by for a quick getaway.  The booth was manned by The president of Al Mar Knives, Gary Fadden and his wife Rumiko, my son Kalob and myself.  We also had various friends drop in to help.

Setting up the Al Mar booth

Too much to see too little time

The Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor, Trade show  is a dealers show that is not open to the general public.  The companys show their products to the dealers and take orders for the coming year.  Many new products are introduced at this show and it is well attended as the dealers are anxious to see the latest hot items for sale.  The booths very greatly in both size and content at the show.  All the major gun company are there with giant booths, also scopes, knives, tents, barbeque and outdoor cooking, camoflauge gear - pretty much everything but fishing equipment.  I’m sure the fishing and boating industry have their own trade show.

This a shot looking down one of the many isles at the show.   There are many miles of isles and thousands of booths to see.  Four days just isn’t enough to cover the show.  Since I’m working the Al Mar booth the whole time, I don’t get a chance to see much.  That is why I make a list of the things that I am interested in prior to the show, look them up in the show directory, and I can go directly to them.

    This years show was held at the Sand’s Convention Center.  The venue was not well recieved as it was on two levels and very confusing to find your way around.  We were on the first level which I think is a converted parking garage because it had a low ceiling and not quite enough light.  It was a little slow the first day, I think because it took people a while to filter down.  The rest of the show moved quickly with lots of traffic.  The upper level had high ceilings so the companys could hang there banners and construct the larger booths.