Our mini SMBforum meet in Valencia

Jeffrey · 08-19-2007, 06:17 PM

Today a few forum members met for a casual parking lot meet in front of Camping World, in Valencia, CA. Present were Craig (calclimber), Herb (bronco hauler), Jeramiah (Jage), and myself. It was fun to line up the vans and watch other RV people try to figure them out. We chatted for hours and visited the store, which was not as exciting as I had hoped for. Plenty of valuable info and tips to share, as well as our experiences with the SMB company. On my way home, I passed another SMB on rt. 126 in Fillmore, and we ended up at the same flling station in Santa Paula. Mike lives in Ventura and works in Santa Barbara, right near my home. I told him about the forum. That meet was fun, too.

Here are some looky-loos...

Our 4 Vans...

Herb's red and Craig's Tan rigs....

Jeremiah's Green van, on it's way to Fresno for some attention, and my own Pueblo Gold....

And our forum president, Jeremiah, explaining something terribly important....

danamrak · 08-19-2007, 06:23 PM

What a fun idea for a mini meet. Glad you all enjoyed your talk and checking out each others rigs....

**BroncoHauler** · 08-19-2007, 07:13 PM

Jage,

Forgot that you wanted to check out my switch layout. I have the same issues that you have had, namely trying to find the correct light switch more or less by feel, since they are far out of the normal sight lines unless you really want to take you eyes off the road for an extended period of time.

It helps a little to label them. I used a Brother P-Touch labeler, which is actually pretty neat. I've also used it to label what gear I have in what storage compartment in the SMB.

I've also passed on to Jonathan at SMB West a link to a marine switch panel that has light-up labels with them, which I think would help a lot. The panel is also water resistant; not necessary, but can't hurt.

Herb

Ed in Montana · 08-20-2007, 07:15 AM

Very cool you guys. I really wanted a red van like Herb's but the wife vetoed that color, and we ended up with a tan van like Craig's. Now I want one of every color!

There's five SMBs in my local area, but I only know of one of the owners. it would be great to have a Montana meetup at some time.

Ed in Montana

**BroncoHauler** · 08-20-2007, 08:08 AM

mmmm...MegaMillions is at $170M. How many Sportsmobiles would I want....? Heck with that, just buy SMB West!

Herb

Buji · 08-20-2007, 09:13 AM

I know Jage isn't super thrilled with the custom skylight in his van, but seeing it deployed there makes me think about it...

Also, Jeffrey, I've been meaning to ask, are you passing your photos though an HDR filter or something? they have better than average detail in the shadows.

You probably have a nice slr now that I think about it.

Jeffrey · 08-20-2007, 10:31 AM

Buji, you may not know that I am a passionate semi-pro photographer, one of the reasons I bought the van. I do have a very nice dslr (Canon 1Ds), large and medium format systems,, but I made these images with my Panasonic (Leica) DMC-F250. I do use Photoshop on all images. These did have some shadow recovery and a bit of levels adjustment, besides cropping and proper color space and jpeg settings.

my website:

http://jeffreysipress.com

Scalf77 · 08-20-2007, 11:59 AM

Jeffrey,
Slightly off topic, but I love the section on the High Sierra, I always enjoyed backpacking out of Bishop. The pictures of Dusy Basin and the Palisades bring back fond memories.

Greg