Travel Show

Wild Bill's Wild West Dinner Extravaganza, the Buena Park dinner theater attraction, has found a way to use "moving billboards"--those trucks that drive around with a billboard on their beds--without environmental guilt about the pollution they spew. The attraction opted to paint two tour buses with huge murals depicting scenes from the show. Sure, the buses still pollute.

Dawn was just breaking over the soft green hills of western Connecticut, and several hundred spectators, some in prams and strollers, a few on walkers, had turned up for an event as old as the nation. Unfazed by the competing allure of TV, video games or the multiplex, and undaunted by the protests of animal-rights crusaders, the circus had come to town. The Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros.

Nico Melendez of the Transportation Security Administration was a last-minute guest at the L.A. Times Travel Show on Sunday at the L.A. Convention Center. In conversation with Chris Erskine, L.A. Times deputy travel editor, Melendez shared these tibidts of information: --Behavior detection (think micro facial expressions) is now an important part of security but if you see the agents “standing around texting or laughing and joking, please report it,” Melendez said. “If you see something, say something.” --If you're in line waiting to get through TSA security and a first-class passenger gets to go ahead of you, don't blame the TSA. That's the airline, not the TSA. --TSA confiscated 1,200 guns from carry-on luggage in 2011, Why would people have a handgun in carry-on “Like Assemblyman Tim Donnelly,” Melendez said, “they forgot.” (Donnelly, a Republican legislator from San Bernardino, was recently stopped at Ontario airport when he tried to go through security with a gun.)

Exhibitors were working hard Friday to get their booths ready for the L.A. Times Travel Show, which opens to consumers Saturday. The show, open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, brings together vendors and travelers , offering information (lots of it!), speakers (Lisa Ling and Arthur Frommer on Saturday, Adam Richman on Sunday and Rick Steves both days) as well as a host of learning opportunities. Learning opportunities? Well, yes.  Staff members from the Los Angeles Times will moderate and serve on panels that  will tell you, among other things, how to save money on travel, will help make you a better shopper and give you inside info on how to take better photographs.

Eunice W. Johnson, who gave Ebony magazine its name and for almost 50 years produced an influential traveling fashion show that brought haute couture to African Americans while raising millions of dollars for charity, has died. She was 93. Johnson, the widow of Johnson Publishing Co. founder John H. Johnson, died of renal failure on Sunday at her Chicago home, according to a company spokeswoman. A close business partner of her husband's since the beginning of Johnson Publishing in 1942, she remained the company's secretary-treasurer at the time of her death and for years wrote a monthly fashion feature for Ebony magazine.

Navigating through the floor of the L.A. Times Travel Show is a mini-cultural exploration of its own. You can stop by the Guam booth and watch traditional dancers perform, or listen to live sanshin music as you pass by the Okinawa booth. You can also stop by the Fiji booth tucked away by the Xtreme Adventure stage and the rock climbing wall and participate in a cultural activity firsthand. The booth features special guests Joji Ramasima, Jesom Tuikana and Paula Rokotuiveikan Nabuta - dancers and musicians studying at the Conservatorium of Music in Fiji.

Beginning today, many outdoor types will be going indoors. It has nothing to do with the weather. They'll be attending a show at the Anaheim Convention Center, where more than 600 exhibitors will be touting their wares at a three-in-one show featuring sports activities and equipment, West Coast travel and recreational vehicles. Kay and Joe Peterson, who have lived full time in a recreational vehicle for the last 18 years, will present daily seminars on the RV life style.

Irvine Music Conservatory teachers are still driving to their students' homes three months after they were barred from holding classes at the school's new location. And the 20-year-old nonprofit organization is still paying $1,650 a month to rent space in a building it cannot use. After the music school moved to its new, larger quarters at the Airport Business Center on July 30, city officials prohibited music classes there, citing zoning and fire code restrictions.

Reporting from Tempe, Ariz. — If reliever LaTroy Hawkins picked an entry song that truly reflected his baseball career, it would be Johnny Cash's tune, "I've Been Everywhere. " The 39-year-old right-hander is now in camp with the Angels, his ninth team in 10 years. After eight seasons in Minnesota, Hawkins moved to Chicago (Cubs), San Francisco, Baltimore, Colorado, New York (Yankees), Houston, Milwaukee and now Anaheim, where he is expected to be an important bullpen piece after signing a one-year, $3-million deal in December.