So you guys would be proud of me - for the first time ever, I left my truck at a show overnight.
That's right, drove her in one morning, left the show without her that night, and walked into the show the next morning to find my truck already there. This was a pretty big deal for me, an uncharacteristically risky move that I had never ever considered doing before. This bizarre idea only occurred to me as I was trying to figure out why so many trucks were still at the show at the end of the first day compared to the number of people I saw. Perhaps something was going on at the main stage. Maybe people were eating. Perhaps there was some cool party somewhere. Then it occurred to me: those trucks were locked up for the night, and the owners were gone. Whoa, bizarre!
It's not like we have a lot of opportunities to do this in California, but for the few chances to roll in the night before, I had always been the first to say heck no. Now, I realize that my truck usually brings up the rear of the pack in terms of desirability compared to everything else you'll find at shows, but still, the idea of leaving your ride in some open grassy field is a little disconcerting, don't you think?
And the idea that "security" is some guy named Bruce who zooms around on a golf cart every couple hours armed with a flashlight, water bottle, sandwich, and official-looking SECURITY patch doesn't help.
Anyway, I took everything valuable home for the night, and locked her up, then locked her up again, just to be sure. As I walked away, I kept looking back, thinking to myself, "I should move her closer to that other group of trucks... she's all alone and stands out too much... maybe if I turned her the other way... maybe I should just take her back to the hotel..." Eventually I convinced myself to just think about something else.
Sure enough, in the morning, she was right where I had left her. I pretty much did this whole leave-it-overnight thing just to say I had done it, because really, it wasn't an easy thing. Telling someone my truck was still at the show made me feel like an irresponsible parent who had forgotten her kid somewhere.
So I'll go ahead and cross this off my list of things to do once in life.