A number of years ago we had a situation occur where we had excessive
rain in April and May and we were worried that our clay soil and grass
would be unusable for our annual spring contest at Avenal. We decided
that we needed to fly off of a paved runway so we went and talked
with the airport manager of the large, new, and unused, municipal
airport 16 miles to the north of us. He was very helpful and setup
everything for our use of the airport. He also stated that he would be
out of town that weekend but his assistant, who we had not met, would
be available to assist us.

The practice days went well and we were all settling in with the new
field. However, early in the morning of the first contest day the
assistant manager introduced himself and proceeded to tell us we could
not use the field the way we had set it up for the contest. We knew
now it was unworkable and we could not convince him of the fact. He
then drove off.

Fortunately for us, our weatherman had stopped at Avenal and told us
that field was drying out faster than expected and would be O.K. by
the afternoon. We then switched the finish of our task, planned for
the day, to Avenal. The crews and volunteers worked marvelously and
moved cars, motor-homes, trailers, and equipment back to Avenal and
were setup before we finished the task. They also took great delight
in making sure nothing was left behind to suggest we where even at the
airport.

The assistant manager was shocked to find the airport vacant, and was
put in a bind, the following Monday, trying to explain why we had
left.