I was sitting in River Dave's garage the other day trying to figure out how I wanted to write the Park Moabi article and my mind was wandering so, I started going through the pictures on my laptop. Now, bear in mind, this typically means imminent doom for my productivity. I'm what you might call a bit of a picture hoarder. While most folks have a couple folders with a few hundred pictures on their computer of family, friends, pets, etc., I have literally hundreds of folders with more than 30,000 individual picture files of everything from sunsets to Supercross... Yes, I have a problem. At any rate, I happened to open the Desert Storm 2013 folder and started reliving the memories of this weekend in April. As I browsed through the seemingly endless number of pictures, some that made the cut and some that did not, I realized one thing about the weekend... I had a amazing time! It's hard to believe just how much fun was packed into a few short days of Spring! So, I thought I'd share a trip down memory lane for those who were there and an inside look for those that missed it this year.
This story will be a three part series, but let's start with the Street Fair that was held in downtown Lake Havasu...
I arrived in Havasu from Prescott at around 9am on Thursday and decided to run over the Nautical Resort for a bite to eat and a place to sit before all the chaos that is a RDP weekend began to unfold. On the way in I was greeted with all sorts of amazing machines lined up waiting to head up to Main Street for the street fair... Seeing this much baller hardware in one place is completely unheard of in the cowboy town of Prescott from which I hail and my rubbernecking nearly ended in me rear ending an exotic car which would have surely bankrupted my insurance company... Focus man. Play it cool. Stop licking the windows, you're embarrassing yourself!
Time to hit the Street Fair!
After I found some parking just outside of the Main Street area, I gathered my gear and headed toward the action. Things were still being set up and you would think that there would be a gridlock of boats, trailers, haulers, and everything else scattered about, but the organizers had everything flowing nicely and it was apparent there was a method to the madness. I quickly found the River Dave's Place booth, not because there were a ton of Inmates out front or an ample supply of refreshing beverages being handed out by RD himself (which there was), but because of the massive RDP 41' Bahama Center Console wave crushing machine next to the booth. "Pretty" Ricky Hidalgo of Maxed Out Marine had made arrangements to have the big blue boat transported from Florida for the event and it was a real hit with the crowd. With it's stainless pole and killer system, it was indeed partyable!
After I checked in with Dave and Stacy I cruised around and snapped some pictures and said hello to a few folks I recognized from the boards.
It's always fun to meet someone from RDP so that you can put a face to the name and get to know them a little outside of their online persona. Having said that, the problem with meeting everyone is that you aren't putting a face to a name, you are putting a face to two names! Some guys are easy... RiverDave is just Dave. No surprise there. Then you have other folks like RogerThat99 whose name is Scott or LomitaBob who is actually Jim... See how this can get confusing? I met a ton of people from the boards, but between the free drinks and my limited memory I only stored a handful in the old hard drive. Next time you see me be sure to introduce yourself again. I should be able to remember after 8 meetings or so!
As the night carried on I spent some time back at the booth helping sling RDP apparel to the passers by with Nord and Hammer. These guys were on point and after the dust settled RDP had doubled it's clothing sales from the previous year! This may have been helped by the fact that Jim Nichols of Lake Racer LLC had put on a party that was bigger and better than the previous years and boating enthusiasts showed up in droves to see all the latest in performance hardware. With Teague Custom Marine as the title sponsor and guys like Schiada, RaceTec Pistons, Ultra Boats, Sinthetix, Nordic Boats and Barrett Custom Marine all showing off their newest products there was enough to see to keep you occupied for hours... or until the beer ran out at the RDP booth.
If you missed this event this year, be sure to mark it on your calendar for next year! The Street Fair could stand on it's own and be a great event, but this was just a warm up for the weekend...the beginning of the Storm.
See you next week...
