First Day at the MATS

Wow, what a day! We arrived here in Louisville late yesterday afternoon. We are staying about 15 miles from the Kentucky Exhibition Center, the site of the show. Instead of trying to catch the last hour or so of the show on Thursday, we decided to get an early start this morning. Had a great meal at a nearby Chili's, came back to the motel, watched a little TV and headed to bed.

It was a rather uneventful drive to the show, and we arrived about an hour before the doors opened. We had already pre-registered for the show, so all we needed to do was pick up our materials and head out to see the show.

Don't know if it was fate or something else, but the very first sight we see upon entering the exhibit area was the FedEx Custom Critical booth! On display was a brand new FECC expediting straight truck. As it turns out, we actually had met one of the owners of the new truck several years back at another truck show. They are members of the Expediters Online Forum, and I had been following her posts about having their recently purchased truck on display at the MATS.

We were able to take a quick tour of the truck, and spoke with a salesman from the truck dealership that had sold the truck. The truck belongs to Linda and Bob Caffee. They have been expediters with FECC for about six years.The new truck is a 2012 Freightliner Cascadia model and is just an amazing example of fully decked out expediter truck. There is a post on the EO forum about the new truck here.

Here is a not very good picture of Linda and Bob's New Truck

We spent the rest of the day walking around the great number of exhibits and finally made our way to the part of the hall where the new trucks were on display. By 4:00 we were more then ready to call it a day and head back to the motel. So much to see!