Northern California Angora Guild: 10/28/18

The Young Building at the ARBA Convention in MA

The location of the convention is at "Big E" in West Springfield. The convention used two buildings, Mallory and Young Buildings. All wool breed plus several other breeds and all youth activities are being put in the Young Building. Mallory Building is the main building so the building we were in is considered as the "minor" site.

These two photos give an overview of the set up, photos taken from the second floor that houses offices.

NARBC has a booth in the same building.

Margaret is one of volunteers in the booth. Margaret has been involved in the running of NARBC for 20 plus years. She is the spine of the club.

Next to the Angora booth is the Fuzzy Lop booth. Carol is the president of the American Fuzzy Lop club.

Another view of the Fuzzy Lop booth.

It was a huge disappointment that the show committee did not assign any dedicated grooming area. Wool breed exhibitors were told to grab whatever space available. This is an area several exhibitors set up as there were very few spots "available"; it's next to the water station without a drainage. The electrical outlets and the water faucets are only feet apart.

Tables, chairs and blowers with electrical wires don't mix well with a water station. It's a miracle that none got electrocuted!!!

Betty and Carol Travel to the ARBA Convention in MA

The 2018 ARBA convention was held on October 27-31, 2018 at West Springfield, Massachusetts.

Betty's six English Angora and one French Angora are in the 500 size dog kennel.

The buns have to be dropped off at the Delta cargo office 3 hours before the scheduled flight time. Going through a very congested Silicon Valley/Bay Area traffic, we arrived at the Delta cargo by 7 pm for the 10 pm flight from SFO to BOS on Thursday, October 25.

Carol and Jim watch the Delta worker adjusting Carol's kennel. It's hard to follow the ever changing airline requirement, our kennels did not have the right size holes next to metal door. The Delta worker is drilling holes on the four corners of the kennel in order to use the zipties to reinforce the metal door.

Now the Delta personnel is working on Betty's kennel....

...and put on the "releasable" zipties (see the drill in yellow color on the ground).

Carol and Betty proceeded to go to the passenger terminal after the cargo office. After a 6 plus hour flight, the trip tracker shows that we have arrived at Boston Logan airport in the morning of Friday, October 26.

Carol is in line (the very left) to get a rental van while Betty watches the luggage.

Going from the passenger terminal to the cargo office at the Logan Airport presented quite a challenge: the GPS kept on sending us touring the airport surroundings instead of getting us to the cargo office. Finally a kind hearted water company employee took a drive to lead us to the cargo building to pick up the buns.

Carol's Fuzzies and Betty's Angoras are sharing the space in the rented van.

After another GPS lead touring around, Carol and Betty finally arrived at the "Big E", the location of the ARBA convention at West Springfield, Massachusetts.

Neighborhood Fat Cat AJ Visiting Betty

AJ visits Betty's rabbit barn area.

I feel relaxed.

I feel at home.

What? You are invading my territory?

I'm big, I'm dominant.

I want to be sure he's gone.

See, Betty, I protected you from an intruder.

Can't you see how great I am?

Police Officer Arresting English Angora?

What is this, I got to arrest this unusual looking "thing"! No, we are kidding. A Daly City Police officer comes into the showroom at the Cow Palace show and finds the English Angora interesting. Despite the drawback of having wool clinging to his black uniform, he cannot resist the chance of having a photo taken with Tristen the white buck.