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I didn't think we'd ever actually get to attend a national convention -
arranging for Kelly to miss high school is such an ordeal here; the kids are on
a 'block system' and only have 4 long classes each day. If you miss one
day, it is as if you are missing 3 regular school days. Kelly, being a
straight-A student, wanted to go to convention, but was tormented about missing
so much school. Jody was thrilled to miss school...the more, the better,
in fact missing the whole year would have suited him fine.
With next year's convention being held so far away in Texas, the Indiana
convention seemed the be our best shot for attending a national show though and so we made
our plans and looked forward to the 2005 ARBA Convention!
Getting ready for the big one was not as bad I had imagined it would be. This was essentially like
preparing for a regular rabbit show but just
bringing a lot more of each supply. We made a list and simply worked
off it. Probably the hardest part was
digging up enough clothes for all of us to wear for 6 days without having to do
laundry!
The drive was easy; it only took just over 6 hours and was pretty
straight-forward coming from Wisconsin. I had always thought of Illinois
drivers as possibly being borderline crazy, this was confirmed during our
drive through Illinois. The intense race from each toll booth, to where
the road bottle-necks into a few lanes, is a life-threatening event! I never perfected the Illinois way of
getting back into a lane; stare straight ahead, clutch the steering wheel and
floor it. Of course, I am exaggerating a bit...would not want to offend
any of my rabbit friends in Illinois!
We stopped off in Oakwood, Illinois to drop off Scrappy and Ivan to their new
owners, and gas up. Gas was still up in price when I left Wisconsin; I
think it was still hovering around $2.80/gal. We were shocked and pleased
when we found gas in Indiana was only $2.29 and lower. Jody must have been moved
by my comments because he even snapped a picture of an Indiana gas station sign!
 The show was set up
at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, and had an open building, which was a huge,
sunny and bright
building, and a youth building, which was smaller but still roomy. The two
buildings are connected lengthwise by a narrower building that housed the commercial
booths and vendors. The cavy area was a large separate brick-building area
which was connected to the youth building.
We arrived late Saturday afternoon and discovered almost immediately that we
were in for a LOT of walking! We parked at the youth building, but had to
walk clear through that building, through the commercial booth area and finally
through to the other side of the open building to reach the check-in area.
We spend a fair amount of time fixing up our entries and scratches then we
were off to the cooping areas.
The cooping was similar to what we've seen at our local fairs, with the solid
wood floors and shavings for bedding. My first thought was 'oh my God, how
did they set all this up?' The club did a wonderful job with the space they had
and the traffic layout. Coops were all labeled nicely, and everything was
clean and ready to use. We especially enjoyed the large showroom maps at
the entrances - these helped us out a lot! We had already purchased risers for
our coops and they turned out to be a blessing at keeping our rabbits clean!
The show provided coop cups but we were glad we brought along our own since the fair's
cups were narrow and would not work well for the French Lops' massive cheeks!
Lesson : check your entry confirmation when loading up your rabbits to go
to convention
- We briefly panicked when we discovered we brought along a young junior French
Lop doe that we did not enter! So after another long walk back to the show
entry booths for help, they had us place this rabbit into a 6/8 slot of a rabbit
we scratched. We knew she would not place as a 6/8 but we were just
relieved to have a space for her! We found all our other rabbits' coops
and got them settled in.
 With all the rabbits and cavies
cooped, we left to find our hotel.
Early in the year, our friends, the Keisers, had made us all reservations at the
ARBA Headquarters Hotel - The Sheraton. This hotel was very elegant, the
rooms were clean and housekeeping service great, but I had the foolish
money-saving idea that we would visit a grocery store in Indiana and fill our
hotel room's refrigerator with snacks and food to be eaten during the week -
this was not to be since our room had neither a refrigerator, nor did it have a
microwave! We were then destined to eat out for every meal. "Don't
worry", I told the kids, "we have a restaurant in this hotel!" But upon browsing
their menu, I figured we could afford to eat only about 1 meal there and still
have enough money to last the week. So fast food became the plan and of
course the kids were happy, but my stomach was already churning. Our room
was on the 11th floor, which at first was eerie....the hall ceilings were a
little lower than normal, which gave us all a bit of an strange feeling until we
were used to it.
 Sunday we hurried back to the Fairgrounds so we could look for sale French
Lops and Champagnes. How impressive to see so many rabbits in the open
area! Rows and rows of each breed! We quickly found out that not all
owners list their sale rabbits as 'for sale' and we had to do a fair amount of
waiting and hunting down people to look at their rabbits. We also
discovered that many breeders do not list their contact information on their
'for sale' tags, making it difficult to find them! Kelly bought 2
French Lop does from the Garretts, and later she purchased a doe from Jean
Thomas. Kelly had been saving up for the past year to buy rabbits here,
and she was very pleased with what she was able to leave with. I especially enjoyed
meeting and talking to all the other breeders.
Now it was my turn.....I had previously emailed Willis and Chris Plank about
their sale Champagnes they were bringing to convention. They brought a
nice selection of sale animals but I, being new to this breed, wasn't sure what
to choose. Willis Plank really impressed me by showing me all his rabbits,
how each compared to the others and pointing out what to look for. He
helped me choose a 6/8 doe, which ended up placing 8th out of 49 entries in her
class!
 I ventured over to the Champagne booth to join the club. While joining,
I talked to Wayne Cleer, who is the secretary and also a long-time Champagne
breeder. He gave me a bit of info on the breed and the club, and even sold
me a sweatshirt and T-shirt! He is quite a character!
Although he didn't list any rabbits for sale, he said I could choose from one of
his junior does he brought. So I ended up buying a second Champagne (I
didn't really plan on that!) I was very excited about my new stock and how
they would all fit in with my Champagnes at home!
I think I put over 20 miles on my feet just in this one day! The shoe
inserts I had purchased just for this trip soon felt like flat cardboard and did
nothing to relieve the pain of walking on cement for hours - I wished I had bought newer shoes, next time I will know better!
We prepaid for several of the social events that the Hoosier Rabbit club
offered - one of which was the Family Fun night. On Sunday night, we
meandered over the the Pavilion where this event was held and met the Keiser
clan there for dinner and games. Jody played cards and the other kids
played some of the games. Jenna played Bingo and was disappointed when she
didn't win the prize; a bottle of ketchup!
Monday was the start of judging and a very exciting day for all - although a
very tiring one! Youth Hollands were judged by both Todd Naragon, and Joe
Lugo. Todd Naragon had our solid senior bucks and Joe Lugo was judging our
broken senior bucks - it was hard to watch both tables at the same time and
keep track of your own rabbits.
 Two of
our young senior bucks only made it through the first few rounds of cuts, then were off the
tables - no idea where they placed since they only count the top ten.
Three of our bucks kept making the cuts though, and hours later,
two of our bucks were still up! Todd Naragon commented on Double's
excellent body type and placed him 16th -Jody was so happy with that placing!
We got excited, especially when Joe Lugo
was down to two broken bucks and one was Jody's! His buck placed second in
that class, which earned him a nice Holland Lop award. How cool to see the face
of the boy who owned the Holland that won that class - he was just bursting with pride!
I tried to catch them as they walked away, so I could congratulate them, but I
was diverted by another Wisconsin rabbit breeder with news of their show
placements.
 During judging of the Holland Lops, I noticed they had already started the cavy
judging - so I ran all over to find Kelly, who had been wondering around waiting for French Lop
judging to start. Next time I will consider purchasing two-way radios for
our use during convention, because I always seemed to be looking for someone,
and always in a hurry!
Read the rest of our story on the
next page.....
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