The National Rifle Association 135th Annual Meetings & Exhibits, Part I
This is the closest the NRA Convention has been to us in MANY years!
1995 Phoenix, AZ
1996 Dallas, TX
1997 Seattle, WA
1998 Philadelphia, PA
1999 Denver, CO
2000 Charlotte, NC
2001 Kansas City, MO
2002 Reno, NV
2003 Orlando, FL
2004 Pittsburgh, PA
2005 Houston, TX
2006 Milwaukee, WI
2007 St. Louis, MO
2008 Louisville, KY
2009 Phoenix, AZ
The original plan involved staying the night in a hotel in Milwaukee on Friday & Saturday nights but that was changed when I was informed that the Member's Banquet was full and the Tour we wanted to do didn't have enough people to run it. Since Milwaukee isn't that far from us, I decided we'd drive up and back both days.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
I woke up at 4:30am. (I absolutely HATE waking up that early) Showered, dressed, made sure I had everything I needed and headed on the road to Harvard. I had to stop at Walgreen’s to get AA batteries since the GPS in my car will no longer connect to the cigarette lighter power adapter due to a broken piece of plastic. I’ve owned my Garmin eMap since 2001 and it has served me very well, but it’s getting time to replace it.
After that short pit stop, I was on my way to Harvard where I picked up Dave and we headed towards Wisconsin.
The drive was going well until we ran into a “Road Closed” near Lake Geneva. After a stop at a local gas station to look at a detour map that took us on many a side street by The Abbey Resort, we were back on Rt 67.
I soon realized that my GPS didn’t have the street level maps for Milwaukee uploaded to it. I knew it had the Madison area and figured Milwaukee was in the same data set… I was wrong. So all I had was a 5 mile US Base map to assist.
We were cruising at 70 MPH for a while on I-43 until we reached Milwaukee’s MASSIVE road construction project. Microsoft’s Streets & Trips gave me directions that were soon worthless as many exits were closed and we were diverted many miles past downtown.
I pulled off at the first exit I could and turned on the next major street to head back South to Downtown. Luckily, the drive was pretty simple. We arrived at the parking deck (I looked at a map of the parking decks in the area and picked this one specifically due to its location right next to the convention center and the US Cellular Arena.) Even at 7:20am it first 3 levels of the deck were full.
Since the parking deck has a catwalk connecting it to the convention center, we took the catwalk inside.
In the middle (bend) of the catwalk there were a couple of security guys that asked it I had a convention badge. I said yes, took it out of my camera bag and put it on. We were allowed to continue to the inside of the convention center.
By this time it was around 7:30am. The Members Meeting and the show floor opened at 10am. We knew we’d have some time to kill so we waited upstairs for the NRA Store to open at 8am. Once it opened we perused every aisle. Since most of the stuff sold there was already available on their website and the fact that I didn’t have a lot of money for this convention, my philosophy was to only buy a couple of things that were convention specific. Anything else I liked I could buy later.
After seeing everything that the store had to offer we headed back outside because it was cigar time. Last weekend at Kate’s wedding I received a few Cuban cigars so to celebrate Dave and I making it to the convention, we both savored the Cuban stogies while waiting for the US Cellular Arena to open for the members meeting. Once we saw people going in to the arena we tapped out our stogies and headed into the arena. We made our way down the ramp and it was time to vote. We voted for the 76th Director and picked up all of the NRA Annual reports. We then proceeded to the arena.
Since we were early, we were able to get a good spot in the 5th row. A couple of feet away from former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr.
We chatted with a few of the people around us. The guy sitting next to me was attending his 10th NRA Convention! The meeting began with the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem.... it was strange to say the pledge since the last time I recall doing it was back when I was in school... many moons ago. It was very interesting to see Parliamentary procedure first hand. There were speeches a many. Including all of the key players at the NRA. They also showed a video every American should see. A video of law enforcement in New Orleans going house to house disarming law-abiding citizens. Taking away their right to protect their families and homes when they needed to most in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Just under 3 hours later the meeting was adjourned and we headed back to the convention center.
I was really eager to check out the show floor. Dave was more interested in eating lunch than checking out the show so we parted ways and agreed to meet up in an hour or so.
Then… frankly… I was like a kid in a candy store. Off hand I cannot think of an aspect of the Shooting Sports industry that wasn’t represented. All the big boys had a booth. Smith & Wesson, Glock, Colt, Remington, Ruger, Browning, HK, Benelli, Beretta, CZ, Kimber, Marlin, Mossberg, North American Arms, Para-Ordnance, SIG Arms, Springfield Armory, Taurus, Thompson Center Arms, Weatherby, Winchester, Walther, Bushmaster, etc.
And accessory companies like Crimson Trace, LaserMax, Birchwood Casey, Dillon Precision, Hogue, Leupold, Uncle Mike's, Butler Creek, Hoppe's, Midway USA, etc.
Ammo makers like Winchester, Remington, Cor-bon, Glaser, Hornady, Wolf, etc.
I immediately checked out Smith & Wesson (no swag) & Glock (glock pin). I saw R. Lee Ermey signing autographs. I didn't want to stand in a long line and my next goal was to find the NRANews.com booth.
After a trip around the convention center I found them next to NRA's big booth at the entrance. There I was able to meet Cam Edwards (host of Cam & Company), Ginny Simone, Joel Brewer, John Popp. & Mike McCarville. I stood around for at least an hour watching them interview some people for later playback and when their Live show began at 3pm. It was very interesting... I was able to watch Cam interview Chris Cox, John Sigler, Wisconsin Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, Wayne LaPierre & more.
When Dave and I hooked back up we decided to start our walking tour of the show floor row by row. It took a lot longer than I thought it would have. By the completion of the second row, we decided to head outside for a stogie break.
We went out in front of the Midwest Airlines Center and sat down and lit up. A few minutes later Dave asked... "Isn't that the President of the NRA?" I looked in the direction he was pointing and said, "Yes."
Sandy (and several security guys) were outside in front of the Convention Center with the large NRA banner doing an interview for Fox News. We watched her do the interview (very windy out at the time) and as she was taking off her mic, I pulled out my name badge and a pen so I can have her sign it. When she was done she kindly signed my name badge and then I had an assistant take a picture of us. Dave stopped her for an autograph too.
After our stogies and our brush with the NRA Pres. we headed back to the show floor to knock off a few more rows of exhibitors.
Just before 6pm we decided to call it a day… we headed back to the NRA Store so Dave could spend some more money and we headed back to the car. $16 in parking later we were working our way to 94 South (East) We were both tired and we had another big day tomorrow... or so I thought.
