I'll probably post my report 11 and 12 when I get back home, as I have not
been near the computer lab for the past 2 days.
It is Saturday morning and the NSS Convention is over. About 50 campsites,
remain, but they all appear to be packing up and the smaller camps should be
gone shortly.
Nearly everybody is stopping to take a picture of the ton of trash left at the
front of camp. 1/4 of it is in recycle bins.There is a
mountain of broken
E-Z UP shelters twisted together like some form of artwork.
The volunteers appeared to be doing a good job with re-cycling, but
future conventions like this, are going to have to put even more
emphasis on recycling.It is a very dirty chore, but I imagine
there was a lot of trash that could have been recycled. It
is going to take more than one person to haul this trash off.It is going to
take a crew.
The ground is wet but only soggy in a few places, so a lot of gear will have
to be dried out as soon as we get home.
I would bet that many people left earlier than they intended.If the weather
had been perfect like it had been all week, then maybe a few more people
would have stayed and done some more caving. I think it is safe to say
that the storm put a damper on the finalle of the convention, and unfortunately,
10 years from now, people will only remember the "photo salon storm of 2007."
I will probably spend the rest of the weekend touring the commercial caves;
and I may be the only person camped here tonight ( if they let me ). My camp
is allready all by itself in the back corner of the campground.If
the hot tubs
are still up tonight, then I will take advantage of that. I wiil be
in Louisville Sunday night at an airport hotel, and fly out 6:30 in the morning
back to Houston.
I will probably go straight to work after my plane lands, and then rush
home to give my daughter, Dalena, a hug. We will have not seen
each other in
12 days and that made the convention very depressing for me.
Meanwhile, the local Indiana volunteers are very hard at work de-rigging
the convention. There is a ton of work that has to get done this weekend.
Here is a brief critique of this years convention.
For me personally, the highlight of the convention was sitting around
camp with other cavers and eating grilled pork burgers cooked
by speleo-chef Phil Larou.
And of course, the caves that I saw were fun.
The organizers led by Mr. Hahn, did a frickin ton of work to make
us feel hospitable and to welcome us to southern Indiana.
The ginormous tent that they put up for the Howdy Party was a very
smart thing to do. Cavers seem to hang out there more than the
much larger pavillion. We need that at all future convention
campgrounds where the chance of severe weather is possible.
The storm cost the caving community here thousands of dollars.I personally
lost about $ 33 worth of stuff. B&C Wunderwear appeared to have
a significant amount of damage and lost sales.I heard there was even
damage to the indoor vendors due to a leaking roof.
In summary it was a great convention. I am very glad I came and I am glad
I took off for 11 days to attend it. I wish I had taken off 2 more
days and I
wish I had brought a lot more money. The only cave gear I bought was a
tiny biner to put on my Swago caving pack and some caving pants.It was
like being a kid in a candy store seeing all that caving gear and not being
able to buy it.
The note below is for future convention planners:
In my opinion, the convention generates a lot of paper.I believe
someday the NSS needs to go paperless, so that in 10 years the
attendees can just look at their wi-fi electronic-reader-gadget and
get all the information they need. Someday the sessions will need
to be broadcast
live over the internet, so that people can sit at home comfortably on their
sofas and watch it on the plasma TV.
And consideration needs to be made for the elderly cavers that like to come
to the convention just to see old friends at the banquet.
And consideration needs to be made to entertain the family members stuck
at the convention who have no interest in caves. I understand a few cavers
worked hard this year to entertain the teenagers at the JSS booth.
It is believed that there was a cleptomaniac at the convention, but I can
not confirm this. Or maybe a few people who saw an opportunity.
I believe one of the vendors lost a $ 30 pulley. And I heard
that someone lost some food or beverages from their camp. I don't
believe anything was taken from me, but
I tried hard to keep my stuff in my car with the door locked. One caver is
missing a sack of books he bought with the speleo-author signatures in them.
I wish the NSS would have 2 or 3 gatherings each year, like the TSA does.
That way if you miss one of them then, you don't miss everything, and you
dont' have to take a week off of work.Or maybe I just need to start
going to Cave
