Before dawn yesterday (15 October), I left home to begin driving to Wichita, Kansas. I was heading to Midway Baptist Church, the site of TrailCon, the annual model contest and swap meet held by the Chisholm Trail Scale Modelers Chapter of IPMS/USA.
After a trip of some 6 and 1/2 hours, counting stops for fuel and refreshment, I arrived at the show site. I brought two models to enter in the contest, a 1:72 155mm M1 Gun and a 1:720 battleship USS Alabama. After placing my models in the contest area, I began to make the rounds of meeting people I know and seeing the other contest entries and vendors. Yours truly was the only IPMS/Gateway member to attend this show. I also went in my capacity as IPMS/USA Region 14 Coordinator.
At midday, I joined with other contest judges for a pizza lunch and briefing. I then joined two others in judging the aircraft entries. There were a few categories with no entries or only one entry, but those with several entries each were scrutinized for how well they were built. After carefully looking over these entries and questioning each other, our team agreed on the category award winners.
After our team judged the aircraft categories, we joined with other judges to determine the Best of awards in aircraft and the other major awards. Once that was all done, those awards were announced to end the show. Category awards were placed with the winning models.
Both of my entries were the sole entries in their respective categories and thus received First Place awards. My M1 won in Armor: Towed Weapons and Missiles, while the USS Alabama won in Ships: Surface Vessels 1/401 and Smaller.
After packing my models and awards and saying my goodbyes, I got back in my car and started the long drive home. This included a stop along the way for fuel and dinner and another for refreshment. I listened on the 101 ESPN app on my phone to the St. Louis Blues game, their season opener at home against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Blues won, 5-2.
Late last night, I arrived home after an 897-mile (1443.6 km) round trip--tired, but happy.
IPMS/Gateway meets this Tuesday night at 7:00 pm at Affton Elks Lodge 2635.
Later.
Websites of Entities Mentioned in This Post:
IPMS/Chisholm Trail Scale Modelers: (1) Chisholm Trail Scale Modelers | Facebook
Midway Baptist Church: Midway Baptist Church | HOME (midwaywichita.com)
IPMS/Gateway: IPMS Gateway Chapter (google.com)
IPMS/USA Region 14: Region 14 - Mid Central | IPMS/USA Calendar (ipmsusa3.org)
101 ESPN: 101 ESPN - Sports Talk for St. Louis
St. Louis Blues: Official St. Louis Blues Website | NHL.com
