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| BRANSON DOG RALLY / DUI HOSTS 30 EUROPEAN DEALERS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. We truly experienced that at the DUI DOG Rally & Demo Tour event in Branson, MO April 12 & 13! We arrived on Thursday evening after being rerouted by American Airlines (whew, thank goodness Faith found us another flight that left Orange County airport on Thursday). Okay, we got over that hurdle. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
On Friday, Faith, Quincy, Oren and I go out to scout the location at Table Rock Lake and set up the tents. However when we arrived at the site, it was pretty much underwater! The lake was over 30’ higher than normal and they had opened the spillway. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
We drove around to numerous sites to see if we could relocate the event. No can do – everything was underwater. Not to mention that it was about 40 degrees and the winds were howling! Unless we were going to create a new specialty certification called “Shooting the Spillway”, we had to cancel the diving for the weekend. This was the first time in 11 years we had to cancel the diving at a DUI DOG Rally!
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| What makes this particular event truly unique is we had the opportunity to welcome 30 DUI dealers from Europe representing 8 countries: Germany, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Croatia and Spain. For many, this was their first visit to the US. The plan was to show them how a US DUI DOG Rally works. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Our first stop on Friday night was dinner and then a show called Legends in Branson. Even Quincy got in the mood trying to pose like David Hasselhoff. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Saturday we wake up to high winds and cloudy skies. But with a hearty breakfast in our bellies, we hit the park and put up our tent. We sent out an e-mail on Friday and posted a pop-up on the DUI website announcing that although there would be no diving, we were still there fitting divers, serving a barbecue lunch, passing out TEST DIVER hats, talking about diving and having a great time. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
And you know what? 46 divers showed up and 8 dealers with their staff. We had a ball! After a great Saturday evening dinner, we hit the ground running on Sunday morning. Would a few snow flurries stop us? No way!
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On Monday, all 30 Euro folks returned to San Diego with the DUI staff and spent the afternoon touring the DUI factory. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tuesday was our big, diving day – we had awesome plans to dive the Yukon and do some great kelp dives. But alas, Mother Nature was not in the mood as we had 5-6’ seas and many of our used-to-lake-diving Europeans were caught off guard. With 1/3 of us getting sick, 1/3 trying not to and 1/3 bravely trying to suit up to go diving, we decided to turn around and head back to calmer seas and a harbor cruise. Everyone recovered quickly and happily! 
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The rest of the time was spent having a product training meeting and two very delicious, extremely fun dinners at Dick’s and Faith’s house. With a final dinner at a neighborhood Mexican restaurant complete with Mariachi’s, it was time for them to go home. While we had our challenges, we all made the best of it and had a great time along the way. Amongst a few tears and lots of hugs, we put our new Euro friends on a plane. It was a truly exciting week and we can’t wait to do it again. Just maybe next time we can do it in the Fall and Mother Nature will be more willing to play. Susan Long | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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