Con Report: Getting There was only half the battle

Fourteen miles of construction on I-71. Fifteen minutes late getting to Paul's house. But we got underway, and dropped his two cute kids off at their grandparents.

We were making good time, I think. The traffic wasn't too thick for a holiday weekend, but after a little while, we started to notice the Fog. Lots of fog. Blocking the scenery of the surrounding mountains. We were detoured once, then got back onto 68 and ran into the remnants of the worst pileup in Maryland history.

We sat for three hours in dead traffic with an eighth of a tank of gas. In those three hours, we went one mile. Thanks to the am radio station we tuned in to, we heard eyewitness accounts of the horrible accidents, and realized we would be there for a while.

Well, being trapped in a minivan with a bunch of writers isn't a bad thing. After speculating if the bread guy would ever return from his jaunt to pee in the woods (the werewolves, you know) and watching the motorcycle guys beg for food from the motorists, we realized that we weren't going to make our panels, so we had mini ones in the car.

Paul and Toby did the Population Implosion panel quite well, and I said a little something about small presses. I think Toby had another panel, but I don't remember if he said anything about it or not. (I'm thinking he did, but I can't remember.)

Finally we got moving, in pea-soup Fog again. And we continued on our way, got gas without running out, and used the nastiest bathroom in the state of Maryland. No kidding! The sink looked like someone had washed their bloody hands in it after murdering an entire family or something. Or maybe that was just my imagination running into overtime.

Sometime around 8:30, I got a call from Jess, who thought I had gotten stuck in traffic on my way home from work and that I had been sitting on 125 for five hours. Which was funny in itself, since I can't imagine a 100-car pileup on 125 without laughing. :)

We left Paul's house before 10:30am. We arrived at the hotel after 9pm. Toby danced in the parking lot.

After I checked in and got my badge, I went in search of Laura, just to let her know I was there. After failing to read the con's map, I managed to stumble into the Art Show kick-off (or whatever that was) and there she was, along with Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, the GoHs, and David Coe. And Alan, I think, from Meisha Merlin. So I got introduced to these nice people, and found my roommate. Yay!

It seems like everyone was stuck in traffic and late, because they had to cancel some of the earlier panels. So I didn't feel too bad about it, other than the fact that it would have been nice to be on the small press/pod panel. Ah well. Better luck next time, right?

So... Laura and I headed to bed rather early, but ruined it by talking for hours. In fact, we did that every single night. We never learned. :)

And it didn't help that the alarm clock went off at 5:56am Saturday morning, a very rude and unwelcome wake-up call.

Saturday I had no panels, but there were some I wanted to go to. I ate both breakfast and lunch in the Green Room, which was nice, discovered a wonderful flavor of Black Currant tea that I have to find again and purchase, and ended up meeting all sorts of nice people. I also spent my book budget on books: the Tanya Huff collection I've been meaning to buy, the new Tanya Huff (Long Hot Summoning), one of Laura's books, the first book in David Coe's new series... I think that's it. If the authors were there, I got my stuff signed, too! Yay! And I swapped business cards with a couple of people.

Let's see. Saturday night, Laura and I headed over to the mall to eat, and we ended up getting wonderful Chinese food. Laura rescued the baby ptedrodactyl (sp?) in the Discover store (fast reflexes!), and I took a few pictures. Later, we went to the various parties, which were okay (I'm not a party person.) But the food was good. And I got a lizard. I got to talk to David Coe a bit more (he's a cool guy) and I saw someone drink a purple margarita. There was also spiked punch, but I didn't drink any.

I think my line will be that I'm allergic to alcohol. :)

I attended David Coe's reading (which made me happy I'd already bought book 1), Lawrence Shoen's reading (funny!!), and Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's reading (which was good, even though I don't care for SF.) It was nice to be able to put faces to some people I've "met" on sff.net.

Sunday, I attended David Barr-Kirtley's reading, and received a signed manuscript of his very good story, "Seeds for Brains." I also sat and talked with a bunch of other writers/participants in the Green Room after breakfast (Sunday was the day I decided to sleep in a bit.) I also attended Paul's reading and Laura's reading, where she played the harp. And I did not win the dragon puzzle. :(

I also got stuck on an elevator with three or four preteens who shouted "Will you marry me?" every time the door opened. I left them with the lacrosse players. (Who were also at the hotel. And did not know what a LARP was.)

There were only three elevators per tower in the hotel, so waiting for elevators was one of the low points of the weekend! I also participated in my first panel on Sunday, "Why did it take so long for Urban Fantasy to catch on?" which was not very well attended. But we managed to have a panel anyway.

Okay, and on to Monday...

Monday, I had a panel at 10am, so I had to get up and ready and out the door. Laura and I managed to check out before the panel, which worked out well, and the panel itself was interesting and fairly well attended. After that, I gave away one of the free books I got over the course of the weekend to someone who would appreciate it more, said my goodbyes to everyone I could find, and we were out the door!

We ran into no fog, or traffic, on the way home. I managed to prove that it's possible to eat a Taco Supremo salad in a car without making a mess, and read one and a half books (the Tanya Huff ones.) I got home around 9:30 last night, wide awake and raring to go. And I do declare, that was a nice vacation. :)

Of course I don't want to go back to work now...

Other notes: I'm seriously thinking about dealer tables, since my crafts would fit in quite nicely at a con. I'm also going to sub The Twa Sisters to RoF, because... I think it would fit in well there. So we'll see.

It was fun. I'm glad I went. I met some new friends, and I don't think I embarrassed myself too badly. :) And I would go again next year.

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