Just got home from the Overland Expo East.
All I can say is it was a major disappointment.
There were very few "motorcycle' related vendors, activities and the classes were a washout Friday due to rain. Accommodations were very poorly conceived, as in there were three shower stalls for the estimated 1500 participants. And they even had designated times 6-8:30AM and 5-7:30PM for usage. Oh sorry, you could use the anytime but other than the assigned hours there was no hot water! Making matters worse only 2 of the three stalls were working due to, pick your reason, blown fuse, dead battery on the pump, pump failure. when you have big rig campers with their own accommodations providing for the ride in crowd wasn't considered necessary. Trash disposal was another thing. We only found one trash can at a designated fire pit, which a fire pits few were spread out throughout the grounds. NO PERSONAL CAMP FIRES!!!
Poor weather can't be helped but camping in a cow pasture with knee high grass, on a slope in the rain surely sucked. I guess the disappointing thing is we felt as though the motorcycles were an after thought, something to be tolerated, not specifically planned for. If you were a truck, land rover, jeep or off "road vehicle" there were plenty of seminars and events to do, so it truly is an Overland Expo if you travel on 4 wheels.
We left early.........................
Maybe Overland Expo West has more to offer the motorcyclist because of location and vendor accessibility, but Expo East has a lot of growing to do to improve.
The ride there and home was nice.
