Huck attended the GSMJCI last weekend for the first time. Wasn’t sure about how it was going to be. Turned out it was a good time!
Never saw that many jeeps in one place before. The were everywhere. Numbers were estimated at 20,000 or more. Some say 50,000; not too sure about that.
We stayed at a nice local campground very close to the Laconte Center where the event was held. About 1/2 of the folks there were jeepers. Nice concrete pads, full hookups, and even cable TV. The same guy owns the hotel across the street and you could use the pool and hot tub there. The breakfast there was for hotel guests only…guess they had issues about that! The price was in the $75/night range. We needed to leave early and came a night early, but they still made us pay for Saturday night since they had a three-day rule. Kind of an asshole move, but apparently the whole town screws everyone they can during events. Screw the tourists is the main purpose of the locals. I read an article that suggests the reason the Smoky Mountain National Park is free is to fleece the folks who come to visit.
Many of the jeep folks got tickets for what people said were minor offenses. Part of the event during the evenings is riding up and down the strip showing off your jeeps and sitting along the route watching. There’s this new thing where people give each other ducks, ostensibly to give the receiver joy. There’s a lot of debate and conflict about this phenomenon. Many people, Huck included, don’t really want others touching their prized Jeeps. The other side says it’s to make you feel good and what about the children who love to duck jeeps. I don’t say anything about it when I get ducked; I just give them away later. Most of the duckers see that you aren’t displaying hundreds on you jeep and don’t leave them. Others don’t seem to notice and leave them anyway. Actually, some of the ducks are cute. Keep that to yourselves… Some of the anti-duckers even have stickers with a duck in the red circle with the crossbar. I’m not that worried about it. We did see ducks lying in the road all around Pigeon Forge and even on the roads in the Great Smokies. Probably not too environmentally friendly and the bikers complained about crashing because of them. Of course, grass causes them to wreck, too. In my day, we smoked lots of grass and never wrecked because of that.
The show was everything you might expect with all sorts of Jeep parts, booths with jeep related items like t-shirts, and so forth. I spent my daily limit pretty easily and got some cool stuff. Lots of Bigfoot and Trump stuff as well. Not a really diverse crowd, which seemed to lean a bit on the conservative side. Everyone got along well since we had a common obsession to talk about. There were not too many Jeep parts for TJs, my type of Jeep. Makes sense since there aren’t too many left. They were made from 1997- 2006 and even have subgroups in there. 97-02 and 03-06. We found a few vendors still carrying the older stuff.
The parking could be difficult. We did our due diligence and purchased tickets for the show-and-shine. For $150 you got a parking spot between the outdoor section and the convention center and a three day pass to get in to the event. There was also a shuttle running between the two areas. From the show-and-shine, we walked down a ramp over a bridge to the convention center, and then took the shuttle back. Even with my disability it was easy to get around. Not too many handicap spaces, but that is clear in the information. The show-and-shine and VIP areas were underutilized. Plenty of room in both. We left on Friday evening, so it could have been more crowded on Saturday. Show-and-shine would be the recommended parking situation. They did have a contest for the Jeeps, but it was mostly giving prizes to whoever spent the most money fixing up their jeeps. Regular old Jeeps were not given prizes. People claimed the the majority of Jeeps at the show were pavement princesses or mall crawlers…not really complimentary terms in Jeep parlance. There were some amazing builds. Some over the top for sure!
Of course I had to buy some stuff…
Not this…
All in all, a great trip! Not sure we will do it next year, but certainly gonna go back to the Smokies in the future.