Today marks my annual escape from the real world to experience a place where everything shines too much and far too many useless products beg for attention from my camera lens. That's right, SEMA began today. For me this meant getting up a 3:00 AM to leave Los Angeles towing our Project Teal Brute Jeep.

Luckily for me Maurice Rozo of Off Road Unlimited needed one of his sweet '08 solid-axle Silverado trucks delivered to Las Vegas so that it too could be placed on display in the Off-Road section at SEMA. Otherwise I was sure to be doomed driving a tired old '89 1/2-ton that most likely would have overheated at least twice on the way to Vegas. I volunteered to drive the rig and cater to whatever hoops show officials required to ensure placement. The trade was well worth the effort because I got to enjoy XM radio all the way there and besides, who wouldn't like to road-trip a $100,000 truck, pulling a $80,000 Jeep. Yea, I was a high roller, if just for four short hours.

Once I arrived in Las Vegas, my good friend Clint Hartman hooked up with me and assisted in preparing each rig for show time. First we had to get the Teal Brute detailed by a pro. This meant removing all the extra stuff from inside the cab and bed. Items like winch remotes, a first aid kit, d-shackles and other odd things all went into a plastic bag for safe keeping. The detailer told us to come back at 1:00 to pick it up.

So we headed over to the convention center to scope out exactly where and when we needed to have the vehicles ready for delivery. This was a complete waste of time because nobody seemed to know anything. We kept asking where check in was and we kept getting different answers. Finally after running around for 45 minuets I decided to visit the shows main offices. We finally got the information we needed.

Both vehicles were scheduled for placement in the afternoon, allowing us plenty of time to grab lunch at the nearby Hard Rock Cafe. After lunch we returned to the detailer and removed the hard doors from the Brute. Then we took it along with the ORU Silverado to the Convention center for check in. This was worse than before. It seemed like every direction we turned we were met with conflicting information about where to go. At one point a rent-a-cop on a bike got up on his soap box snarling instructions to us, insisting we turn around and return to the entrance or we would have big problems. "Frustrated" doesn't even begin to describe the feeling I was experiencing. Go over there and wait. Stay put until "Sunny" comes and gets you. Sunny was a fast-talking stressed out kind of guy, but he tried to cover it up with humor. You could tell he didn't want to screw up and put a vehicle where it didn't belong for fear that his boss would demote him to broom pusher, which I'm sure Sunny would have found a way to make fun, but if it did he'd loose his all-important electric cart. the cart was loaded with boxes containing rolls of plastic. Sunny invited me to prerun where the larger truck was going to be parked. In retrospect I should have never gone with him. We spent a hole HOUR driving around looking for a spot and then we still had to go to the main office to get an "approval" from the bossman. It didn't help that Sunny was a social butterfly that had to stop and humor all the other event staff. When everything was said and done I felt as though I'd accomplished the impossible. Both Trucks were inside and looking awesome for the start of the show Tuesday morning. 

Mission accomplished! Now time to blog about it and get some much needed rest.