My Stockton report

Left Friday morning as early as possible, meeting up with a breeder in Sacramento.
I hate Sacramento... even the airport exit pissed me off. I am used to two lanes of freeway traffic; not eight. I am used to courteous polite people who drive the speed limit and use their directional signals.

Get into Stockton, head to the fairgrounds. It's an open barn. Puzzled on how they are going to cram in thousands of animals in there before the show starts in the morning I drove back towards my cousins's house to find out they are sick, so we find a hotel. Have to carry 3 big carriers upstairs. Wonderful.

Go out to dinner with my uncle and one of my cousins that weren't sick. Hit the bed, had to be up at 6.

Load the rabbits into the car and hurry to the fairgrounds. When I paid my entry to Rita I asked where to set up my reigistation stuff and she told me next to the raffle and there was an empty table there.

Mistake #1. Little did I know, that empty table was where they used to have the secretary's table. A simple line in the catalog noting that there was a change in location would have been nice. I had to tell about 200 people, and several of them youth, that no, I was not the secretary, I would not take their money and had to give them directions where the secretary's new table was. Now, if that happened a dozen times, I wouldn't have minded.... but it was really irratating and half the time I just left and went and talked with breeder friends.

Mistake #2. Putting all BIG entries in the "arena". Big entries mean lots of people, silly people so why cram a bunch of people in one square. I had troubles getting in there, so I became really agile and learned how to hop chain link fences while dodging all of Chris's carriers below.

Mistake #3. Leaving the lights on when its 103*F out. WHYYYYYY. Selling bottled water for $1.50.... im surprised they didn't charge tax too. No fans for the buns.... WTH. By the time it coooled off, we were leaving!

Mistake #4. Sitting next to the raffle table. Never again. People assume you are "in-charge" of the raffle and then to come out and ask you who's in charge.... I don't know lady!, I'm from Oregon! Not to mention, when they finally pull tickets for the raffle, just leave the area. I had a crapload of kids ON my table, affecting the work I was doing and deterring people from bringing animals to register. I could have doubled my work if it wasn't for that darned raffle.

Mistake #5. Having bathrooms that don't work and furthermore not supplying toilet paper or paper towels... or HAND SANITIZER for that matter.

Mistake #6. A lot of the above could have been avoided if the superintendant had given a 'welcome' message at the beginning of the show. A simple, here is this, the secretary's table is over there, or these breeds will be starting under these judges..... I would have been a wreck had I been a newbie exhibitor trying to find my way around....

There is more... I know it, I just can't think of it at the moment. Are there any positives? Sure, I made enough money to pay for this months rent, I got to see some of my family that were'nt sick and only got chased by one African American man... we made it through the bad part of town pretty safely. My uncle drove me through Stockton, telling me about all the buildings that have changed since I lived there, and took me up to the Port of Stockton and got to see a HUGE frieghter boat.

I come back with no pictures, the only pics I got were of family and the bunnies in the hotel really... I was driving so no I-5 memories.

Overall, it was a decent show. I've been to worse, but the Pacific Northwest puts on lots better shows and that's what I'll stick to from now on. :)