We spent most of the day and evening traveling to, attending, and returning from the Prevost-Stuff Show at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.  Prevost-Stuff.com is part of the Prevost Owners Group (POG) owned and operated by Jamie Bradford.  We have been POG members for a few years now but this was the first event we have been able to attend.  The Prevost-Stuff show is strictly used Prevost coach conversions.  Jamie organized the show starting last year to run for the two days immediately prior to the Tampa RV Supershow at the Tampa Fairgrounds because the Supershow only allows new units to be displayed.

Before heading to Tampa we stopped at the CVS Store in Williston to purchase an electronic pass for the Florida Tollway System.  We purchased a SunPass Mini, activated it via the website using Linda’s cell phone, put an initial balance on it, and mounted it to the inside of the car windshield behind the mirror.  We planned to use the Tollway for part of our trip to Tampa and did not want to be bothered with stopping to pay cash tolls.  We also knew that we would want/need to use the toll roads as we traveled around Florida over the next few months and the SunPass is both more convenient and slightly less expensive on a per toll basis.  A quick stop at the Williston post office to mail a flash drive full of photos to Bus Conversions Magazine editor Mike Sullivan and we were on our way.

Rather than take I-75 to Tampa, which we have already done once when we went to Arcadia, we headed to the west edge of downtown Williston and picked up US-41 S.  We stayed with US-41 S through Inverness to Brooksville where we took FL-50 over to the Tollway, FL-589, and then headed south towards Tampa.  Our Garmin nuvi 465T GPS was rather persistent in trying to route us away from the Tollway until we checked the settings and discovered it was set to “avoid toll roads.”  From there on it steered us through the convoluted Tampa freeway system, onto the surface streets, and directly to the entrance to the Tampa Convention Center parking garage.

The Prevost-Stuff show was in the West Hall at the Tampa Convention Center.  It was free and open to the public but there were no signs announcing it, almost as if it was an invitation only event; and in a sense that was true, the only real marketing being through the POG and Prevost-Stuff.com websites.  Much to our surprise, the first person we met as we entered the hall was Joe Cannarozzi, our mobile mechanic.  I knew Joe was in Florida for part of the winter, but wasn’t sure just where.  It turns out that he is staying at an RV park an hour or so south of us.

There were at least 30 units on display, all used and all for sale, with a roughly equal number of H3s and LeMirage / XL / XL2s.  All of them were very nice, of course, but most of them were not to our taste (too fancy).   Almost all of them were not in our price range either, so that made it a lot easier to not buy one : – ) (We agreed on the drive down not to make an impulsive purchase.)  I did, however, see a few interesting “features” that may eventually find their way into our coach.  I forgot to take my camera so the photos in today’s posts were taken with my smartphone.

The best part for me was the Prevost reception at 5:30 PM.  I got to meet several people including the owner of AAP.  AAP is the company that now handles Cruise Air units.  It was good to know that they are still available as our coach has three of them.  I got some suggestions from him about what we might do to reduce the noise when they are running.  We also met Jamie Bradford, the owner of the Prevost Owners Group (POG), and Dale Farley, who handles administration for POG.  Jamie said that in addition to the New Orleans rally he is planning for March, he is planning a rally in East St. Louis for the last week in September.  The RV park closes after the third weekend in September but remains “open” for another week for exclusive use by the POG rally.  He will have room for 90 coaches.  I have no idea what it will cost, and I am sure food will be an issue for us, as always.  St. Louis, however, is our home town and we not had the coach down there yet, so we’ll see.

Finally, we met several folks from Prevost, including:  Gaetan Bolduc, Eng. (president/ceo), Steve Ziegler (national sales manager for conversions shells), Martin –?— (factory product manager), and Bill Jensen, national service manager (conversion shells).  I now have faces and business cards to go with the names.

I had a chance to talk to Martin about the lack of availability of rubber seals for our awning windows and describe how we were able to get new ones made.  I offered to supply them if they have any other customers who need them : – )  I also got to discuss our intermittent speedometer/odometer problem with Bill Jensen.  Bill agreed that it sounded like we had a wiring problem somewhere after the engine and transmission computers and told me that the two wires of importance are numbers 16 (speedo +) and 20 (speedo ground).  He also indicated that the coach probably does have a “speed switch” and that it is most likely located in the electrical bay above the tag axle on the driver’s side.  The purpose of the switch was to disable the kneeling feature on a seated coach above 5 MPH.  The speedometer wires are “looped through” the switch, however, and it is a potential failure point.

By the time we left around 6:30 PM it was dark and Linda’s hip was bothering her so I drove home.  Our GPS got us to I-275 northbound, an easy, straight shot west from the Tampa Convention Center parking garage.  I-275 merged into I-75 N.  We exited at US-27 W in Ocala and were home before 9 PM including a brief fuel stop along the way.  Heavy and persistent rain was forecast to start sometime after 9 PM and go through the night, but we made it back to the coach before it started raining.  I took care of some e-mails, posted my blog entry for yesterday, and called it a day.