I felt compelled to take a whirlwind two-day trip to from Seattle to Orange County , CA . I had enough points on Alaska Airlines for a free flight , so I planned my adventure to leave as early as possible to see as many friends and guitars as can be , and return home all in a 39- hour timespan . How many guitars could I see in two days ? 10 ? 100 ? 500 ? You ’ ll see .
FRIDAY , JUNE 16 3:00am – The alarm goes off and I leave the house and drive 45 minutes to catch the 4:00am shuttle bus from the airport parking lot . TSA was a mess – people everywhere – yikes ! But I do board my plane on time for a 6:00am departure .
8:30am – Land at John Wayne International Airport / Santa Ana . Rental car line the worst I ’ ve ever seen . The guy at the counter felt so bad for me he gives me a new Ford Mustang to drive .
10:30am – First stop , I get the grand tour of HOSA Technology by David Chavez / Head of Marketing . David is super friendly and tells me the history of this company from their humble beginnings to now on the verge of celebrating 40 years of serving musicians . The people there and the facility are top drawer .
12:00pm – I drive 15 minutes and then see the famous Fender Ave street sign . I park at the building Leo Fender built himself when he started G & L Guitars after selling Fender to CBS . Ron Moreno National Sales Manager for G & L Guitars meets me there and proceeds to give me quite the walk through of their guitar plant . From the curing rooms of raw wood , to seeing guitar and bass bodies stacked high , to the fret departments , paint booths and even the custom shop . I get to see the whole facility . I even got to meet the owners Dave and Amanda Mclaren .
But Ron ’ s hospitality doesn ’ t stop there . He then unlocks the office and workshop space of Leo Fender himself . They keep this area just as Leo left it back in 1991 . I even take a photo of myself sitting in Leo ’ s chair and get to see the things he was tinkering with even back then . They also display a lot of historical photos and contracts , spread out to see . Leo ’ s guitar designing genius is evident to see in G & L ’ s guitars still to this day . Wow ! This is a bucket list moment for me .
David Chavez and Bruce
Leo ’ s workshop
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