Gaslight Gathering 5 - September 18-20, 2015 (Part 1)

As I've said in the past Gaslight Gathering, held here in San Diego at the Town and Country Hotel in Mission Valley is probably one of our favorite shows to do. Part of it is because it's a local show and the other and more important part it, the people attending are fabulous and this year was no exception.

Normally we load in on Friday morning and do all the set up work, which means we're usually putting things out right up until the doors open. This year we took the opportunity to bring everything in on Thursday evening and set up the tables, grid wall, t-shirt storage (and t-shirt) as well as the banner so we could put out the rest of the merchandise on Friday morning without feeling rushed.

After some tweaking and shuffling we finished the booth infrastructure and headed out for some food before heading home to finish any last minute prep/projects/etc for the rest of the weekend. Because there are *always* things that still need to be finished.

Friday morning, I loaded up everything from the house that we needed to take with us and then headed to the shop to grab a couple bins of merchandise that we hadn't been taking to some of the other recent conventions. Halfway to the shop I realized that I forgot my cash box, not too big of a deal (though there were a couple colorful phrases said), because I could swing back by and pick it up after I picked up Cindy & Jen. What was really the icing on the cake was that the elevator was *still* not working at the building my shop is in. For anyone who hasn't been to the shop, my work space is on the 4th floor. Insert more colorful phrases and expletives on my part.

This killed any plans that I had of bringing the old steamer trunk I got earlier this year as a display piece, so I began shuffling items from that into a couple of plastics bins that I could carry down the stairs. Once those were loaded I grabbed everything and headed out the door. Chatted with the business owner across the hallway who had been climbing the stairs all week on a fractured ankle (yes, the elevator had not been working for the entire week).

I maneuvered my way to the stairs and decided that since the tubs were light enough I would just brace myself in front of them and slide them down the stairs. Thankfully the tubs and I survived the adventure unscathed, though there were a couple times I fully expected to end up like a cartoon character with tub imprints on me due to them running me over going down the stairwell. ;)

From there I got the tubs loaded into the truck and headed over to get Cindy and Jen. From there we made a stop at my house to get the ever important cash box and made our way to Mission Valley.

Now you have to understand, I don't work on Fridays, my work schedule is such that I work Sun-Thurs and enjoy Friday & Saturday off, (it's a bit of a blessing and a curse, but that's another story), so I always forget that traffic at 8:30 (I get to

work at 7 am) in the morning sucks, A LOT, and that morning it happened to be no exception. While I muttered and mumbled about crappy drivers and slow traffic, Jen kept us entertained with her commentary of her IM conversation with Shawn from Pendragon, A quick stop for breakfast and coffee was made and we headed to the Town and Country hotel to finish setting up.

Did I mention, I had been up since 5:30 am and not had any coffee yet?  ;)

Dropping off Cindy and Jen and the two tubs or merchandise, I parked the truck and we made our way to the vendor hall.

Since the infrastructure had been set up the night before we took our time getting the rest of the booth set up, changed into our outfits for the day and waited for the customers to start coming in at 1pm when the hall opened.

Now anyone who knows Cindy and I, knows that when then two of us are together, we are not quiet in the very least. Couple that with Jen, who was working with Mike & Shawn at the Pendragon booth next door and the volume increases as does the joking and banter back and forth. This weekend was no exception.

We were in our usual spot in the vendor room with Pendragon to our left, Seven Deadly Fairies across from us with Steampumpkins next to them and our friends Joe & Lex behind us.  It definitely made the 6 hours fly by and before we knew it, it was time to head home.

On to Part 2

HRM Steampunk Symposium 4 - 2015 - Recap Part II

For those of you who missed Part I, you can read it over here

Saturday morning we pried ourselves out of bed, made coffee in the french press,  dressed for vending and headed up stairs to prep for the onslaught of customers.

We made some minor tweaks to the displays and put out the books that we got from Drake & McTrowell on consignment, which is now available at our online store, we were ready for business, well mostly, there was still more coffee to be had and some food too!

Saturday was crazy for us! When I said onslaught of customers, I wasn't kidding.We had a constant flow of customers come through the booth all day, with very little down time.Come 4:40 pm when they announced that the vendor hall was going to close, Cindy and I looked at each other in shock. I don't think we've every had a day of vending go by that fast. It was such a whirlwind that it took me a bit to remember that I did indeed have lunch and what it was.

Once the vendor hall closed and we covered everything up, we headed to the room and changed into some more comfortable clothes. We relaxed a bit while I added up the numbers from the day and made sure that all the sales were logged and recorded (I swear I'm going to get a barcode scanner one of these days)

From there we again headed to the Auld Dubliner for dinner and then came back to the hotel. We considered heading out to the ball, but we opted to stay in and relax mostly because we didn't feel like getting dressed back up into Steampunk gear.

Sunday was another busy day though it slowed down at the end when most people opted to head home and not stay the extra day.

Monday we drug ourselves out of bed for the final day of vending and since it was such a short day we wore our every day clothes so when it came time to pack up and load out, we didn't have to go change.

Load out went pretty fast, I think we were packed up and on the road in about 2 hours, from there we made our usual stop at Dairy Queen for food, before getting back to San Diego and unloading everything at the shop.

HRM Steampunk Symposium 4 Recap - Part I

Home, unloaded (mostly) and already powering full speed ahead into planning and prepping for our next event, but before we get to that, let's recap our first event of the year, Her Royal Majesties Steampunk Symposium.

This show is the first show of the year for us and we always look forward to gearing up and spending the weekend on the Queen Mary for the weekend. This year was no exception.

Normally we leave around 2 or 3 pm to get up to Long Beach between 4 or 5 depending on whether or not someone has dorked traffic one of the freeways. This year we didn't actually hit the road until 7pm, because Cindy had to work until 5 and then had to fight her way out of downtown La Jolla, those of you who live in San Diego for any period of time know what I'm talking about. Of course, this also means that since we were slated to load up and go when she got home, the Traffic Gods[tm] decided to be extra rude and made the drive home much slower.

It all worked out since I still wasn't done loading up. Between herding the kids, and having my day discombobulated from having to run all over town, I was a bit behind in what I needed to do.

We finally hit the road about 7 pm and made our way to Long Beach by 9 pm. The Traffic Gods[tm] must have felt bad for the earlier mess and gave us a clear path, except for the road work that we had to navigate through up near Camp Pendelton.

Once we got to the Queen Mary, we unloaded the show stuff and dropped everything in our booth space, leaving the step up to be done first thing Friday morning when we had access to the vendor room. We usually try to get at least the grid wall up the night before, but Cindy and I just wanted to get unloaded and then check into the hotel room and then find the bar for a much needed drink.

The antics and adventures we had when we checked in can be read about over here.

Set up always tends to be an adventure no matter how many times we've put up the booth in different locations. This year was no different.

The vendor room was in a new location from last year, which meant new placement in the room. We didn't really pay much attention to the space when we rolled in Thursday night and dropped off all the grid wall and tubs, Friday morning we were whistling a different tune.

Normally our booth space is 10 feet x 10 feet, this tends to be standard for most conventions that we got to, however, do to the layout of the room and there being two huge pillars along the side we were on, our space was 8 feet wide x 12 feet deep, which gave us 96 square feet of space to work with, instead of 100 square feet. While 4 square feet (2 ft x 2 ft) doesn't really sound like much, when it comes to display space it's actually a lot of room to put stuff.  Now, we're down 4 square feet, but we have a new set up to try out for the t-shirts which gets them off the table and stored (in theory) in a much easier way to control inventory and get at the certain sizes. So on to the grid wall set up we go!

Loading in

We really have a love/hate relationship with grid wall. It's the best way for us to set up the booth and display a good portion of our inventory and it's also great for space delineation. What it's not, is great to move around, it's heavy, and bites the heck out of your fingers if you get them in the way. Thankfully, we were able to get rid of the 8 foot pieces we had and now only have to deal with 6 foot x 2 foot panels and 5 foot x 1 foot panels.

So in comes the grid wall along the back wall....oh wait...that's not a straight wall, it had a built in cabinet that curves outward into the booth, which of course means, we can't put a table along the back. ~scowl,grumble,swear~

Putting up the banner

Time to rethink the booth layout, which at this point Cindy makes the smart move and goes for more coffee as I sit there working things out in my head and cursing under my breath.

After some shuffling and creative thinking, we got the grid wall up and used the curve to our advantage, though it did cost us a couple extra feet of display space and the second table that we normally have, but we were able to get everything in the booth displayed, though it was a bit too crowded for my tastes. Of course, us artists are our own worst critics too.








Here we are all set up and ready for the first customers on Friday, not to bad for not having our usual amount of space.

All set up and ready for customers

 We ended up tweaking and rearranging things throughout the weekend, but over all we were happy with the set up that we cobbled together.

Cindy & Colleen

Once the doors opened for the day, things flew by, before we knew it they were announcing that it was 4:45 and the vendor hall was going to close 15 minutes later.

While we both devoured lunch at some point during the day, we couldn't wait for the room to close down so we could head out and get dinner.

Glorious Guinness

True to form we, went to the room, changed and headed out to the shuttle to have dinner at our usual haunt, The Auld Dubliner.

In past years the vendor room has closed at 6pm, which usually doesn't put us at the Pub until 7/7:30 depending on how long it takes us to change and take the shuttle over. This year vending closed at 5pm and we were at the pub by 6pm, which of course, was packed to the gills. Thankfully there was a couple leaving and we were able to get a table pretty quickly.

Selfies or ceiling photos ?

With drinks & dinner ordered, we chatting with Mike & Bre, from L.O.S.E.R, who were sharing a room with us. Of course what dinner isn't complete with a few fun(ny) photos and some photos of the Pub decor:

Pennyfarthing

The bar area, with a rather impressive whiskey selection

We're not sure if Mike is trying to serenade Bre or eat her brains.

First show of 2015 - HRM Steampunk Sympsium

We're back at it for 2015 and I'm hoping that I can be a bit better at the upkeep of the blog and the goings on of Wyng'd Lyon. I'll do my best but I can make any promises.

Last night, January 15, 2015, Cindy and I loaded up and hit the road for Long Beach for our first show if the year, HRM Steampunk Symposium.

After leaving an hour later than we wanted last night we got to the Queen Mary with an hour to unload, which for Cindy and I is an amazing amount of time. 

We checked in with the vendor coordinator, found our booth space and had everything out of the truck in a total of 30 minutes.  The whole evening was a comedy of errors though, from the dolly having a mind of its own in the hardwood floors of the Promenade Deck, the wheel of my suitcase deciding that it was going to stop work and literally go sideways, right down to checking into our room and discovering that I booked a room with two twin beds instead of two queens. Certainly not conducive for sleeping 4 people, so back to the front desk to upgrade the room so no one had to sleep in the bathtub.

Once the room issue was straightened out, we went to find the bar and settled in with some friends for a couple hours of laughing and swapping stories.

  After finally turning in a bit after midnight, we both slept like the dead and are now working on caffeinating ourselves and waiting for the maintenance guy to come fix the shower. Yep, the fun continues! 

Oh look the maintenance guy just showed up and I need more coffee.

More to come as the day progresses!

HRM Steampunk Symposium Part IV

For those who missed them, here are Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3

The last day of conventions are always the saddest day for me, because that means we're one step closer to having to pack up and go home to the daily grid. Though in a way it's a double edged sword, because it also means that get to go home and see my kids who I haven't seen for 4 days.

Lather, rinse, repeat with the early morning wake up time (again). At least this time I had something t keep me occupied, Cindy had forwarded me a copy of her recap of the Run for Your Lives Zombie 5K that we did back in October 2013. One good thing about being the first to wake up is that you get to enjoy some peace and quiet, the bad thing is trying to be quiet or keep from shaking your bed mate out of the bed from laughing so hard remembering the hilarity of the events that took place during the run. For those of you who want to share in the hilarity, you can read the recap here.

After enough giggling and the alarm clock finally going off, we all get up and started the morning dance of packing up our belongings and taking them down to the car since we had to be checked out of the room by noon and well, we'd all be in the vendor room for any final sales that would be happening.

Most of the day was uneventful though come 1pm there was much commotion when a group of bandits burst into the room and robbed a few of the vendors, us included. We gave up a good fight but were overcome when they ganged up on us. They rushed out the side door when the constabulary rush in to try and make an arrest. Incidentally most of the bandits were caught, and the day was saved. The few that escaped and made it back to their hide out ended up with quite the surprise. See, the tricky lasses that we are, decided to replace the cash with Hershey's kisses.

If you haven't guessed by now, the above robbery was staged as part of the weekends events. Our friend Phineas asked if we would be willing participants to be robbed by the League of Supremely Evil Revolutionaries (L.O.S.E.R). Though I think they were a bit surprised when not only did we fight back, we ended up with their "cash"


After the afternoons excitement died down, we visited with friends and customer and then said by to Andee who had to leave for the bus station to make her way back to Tucson. Before Cindy and I knew it, the vending day was over and we started breaking down and packing up. Mike and Bre stopped by and said their good-bye and apologies for not staying to help as Mike was coming down with the plague.

Cindy and I had the booth broke down and packed up in an hour, something that used to take us at least twice that in the past. Of course it took us longer to get off the boat and loaded into the truck since there was a line of vendors all waiting to use the same elevator to get off the boat. Now most vendors are pretty patient people and all tend to laugh and joke when waiting for things to progress, but there is always one that causes some sort of hate and discontent and this event was no exception.

Incidentally not only were Cindy and I the subject of this guys rudeness of cutting in line, he happened to be the same guy that commented on Cindy's Lovecraft shirt a few events back, saying that it was a great shirt, and then proceeded to ask her if she even knew who Lovecraft was. . I'm sure you can imagine the ranting that ensued from both of us at that point. 

Once we finally got ourselves down to the parking area, we got the truck loaded up and hit the road making our usual stop at Dairy Queen for dinner before making it back to San Diego to unload the truck and then go home to pass out.

HRM Steampunk Symposium gets better every year and it was an awesome way to start off 2014. We can't wait to be back on the Queen Mary for another round of fun and shenanigans.

HRM Steampunk Symposium (Recap - Part III)

Here are Part I and Part II  for those of you who are just joining us.

The second day of conventions always tend to be the least stressful, mostly because everything is set up already and all we have to do when we get to the vendor room is uncover the booth and reset a few items that we laid down so they don't get knocked over and broken, like our Absinthe glasses.

That and by then my body has decided that I get to sleep in, or maybe it's because I've whacked out my sleep schedule because we'd stay up until 1 or 2 am the night before laughing and giggling about whatever our sleep deprived brains decide is funny. Of course, the biggest problem with this is we end up being loud and not know it until the adjoining wall gets pounded on by the occupants we've woken up or by getting a phone call from the front desk. Thankfully none of that happened this year.

Again, my brain decided that I needed to be the first one awake as soon as the sun came up, though I did actually get to sleep in until 7:30 am, trust me this is a milestone, just ask any parent with kids under the age of 7. Grabbing my phone, I read email and checked Facebook while I waited for the rest of the crew to wake up, or in this case, I ended up waking them up as everyone was enjoying their slumber, this was of course after walking the obstacle course of bodies on the floor to and from the bathroom.

On to making coffee and ironing the yards of red fabric for my dress, which had been balled up in a pile since the last time it was worn, which I think was back in July 2013, all the while the 5 of us were doing the hotel room dance around each other, trying to get in and out of the bathroom and around the room to get dressed and our make up on. Despite no real choreography, no one tripped, died or fried themselves on the hot iron.

Once we were all corseted up, we grabbed our things and headed upstairs to uncover the booth and get ready for the days customers. Cindy and Andee ventured off to the coffee cart to obtain some more caffeine and some much needed food and we were ready for the day! Bring on the sales!

Saturday was as busy as Friday and we could tell when then panels and other events let out as we were graced by a wave of customers each time. Cindy was cranking out the commission sketches between customers and friends stopping by and Andee was working on some creative quilled items, while I sat and finished sewing the string ties and ascots that I hadn't finished before leaving San Diego, if you can't tell, this is a reoccurring thing for me, of course it also gives me something to do during the slow times in the booth.

Come the end of the vending day we were more than ready to go change, grab dinner and then come back to get ready for the ball.

Dinner was once again at The Auld Dubliner, though it was just the three of us this round and we lacked the fun bus ride of Thursday night, but we did remember to get off the bus at the stop closer to the Pub! (See we can be taught!) After a round of Irish Coffees, a lovely glass of Oban Scotch and some really good food, we made our way back to the Queen Mary and donned our finery for the Saturday night ball.

We made it to the ball just in time for Abney Park to start their second set for the evening. Being a big fan of their music I was very excited to see them live, though I wished that the kids could have been there, because they would have had a blast as well. Once the set was over the came out and did a couple more songs as an encore and then threw out the sets lists from the second set. I was standing there talking to Cindy when I felt something bounce off my chest, lo and behold, it was one of the set lists.

After the crowd dispersed a bit we went over to get in line and get autographs. I also picked up a copy of Abney Park's book Wrath of Fate and had that and the set lists autographed by the band. I even managed to get photos with the guitarist and the lead singer, Robert. I told him how my kids love to sit in the back seat of the truck and sing along with Airship Pirates. He also noticed Cindy's stuffed ferret, Senor Squeaky Pants and asked if it was a weasel, when she said no, he asked if it could be a weasel (if only for a moment). Seems  the guitarist has a thing for weasels. She laughed and said he could be a weasel if they wanted him to be. Robert then pointed our Senor Squeaky Pants to the guitarist and he dug out his phone and asked Robert to take a photo with the comment "I think this the first time I've ever asked to have a photo with a fan."

We chatted for a few more minutes and then made our way to the midnight buffet line and since we were not only full from dinner a few hours earlier, we lived by the ideal that "Life is uncertain, eat dessert first" mantra and went straight for the tasty dessert morsels.

After our fill of sugary goodness we made our way back to the hotel room, chatted for a bit and then passed out.

The 4th and final part is here

HRM Steampunk Symposium (Recap - Part II)

For those of you who missed Part I

Now events are a bit a of a vacation for me, not that I don't love my kids or husband, but there are just times that you need to get away for a few days to recharge and regain any semblance of sanity you might be able to pull kicking and screaming back from the void, they're also a time for me to sleep in. Well, you would think that would at least be the case, so you imagine my irritation when my body decided that I needed to be wide awake at 6:30 am on Friday morning.


Since we unplugged the alarm clock that was in the room, because it was the only outlet that the phone charger wouldn't fall out of. Upon waking I grabbed my phone thinking it was arounf 7:30 or 8 in the morning to see the bright numbers telling me it was 6:30 am. Grumbling I put my phone back on the headboard and slunk back down into the bed trying to get myself to fall back asleep. After tossing and turning for about 45 minutes, I gave up, grabbed my phone and began to peruse Facebook and check my email, all the while glaring and grumbling at Cindy and Andee who were still fast asleep.

Around 8, I detected movement from the other two and we started getting ready for the days events. First order of business, coffee. Learning from the first year on the Queen Mary, where we discovered no coffee pots in the room, we have since been bringing an electric tea kettle, a french press, coffee and tea, so getting started in the morning is much easier, as opposed to getting dressed and then wandering around in a haze trying to find coffee and not growl at anyone in the process.

New poster going up.

After correcting the blood to caffeine levels in our bodies, we headed up to the vendor hall to finish set up of the booth, where like parking is always something that ends up being re-engineered by yours truly. The awesome guys at the booth behind us (Crimson Chain Leather) told us that we could push our grid wall so it butted up against their storage containers, which gave us another 4 feet of booth space! After some shuffling and sliding of grid wall and tables, we had the booth layout completed. I ended up pulling the two pieces of grid wall off the left side of the booth and lending it to Lyssa from LastWear Clothing as they really didn't have much to set things up on since they flew down from Seattle.

From there we starting putting out merchandise and while I tinkered around Cindy and Andee went off in search of coffee and something to eat for breakfast. Low blood sugar is bad, mkay?, so are low caffeine levels too.

Come 11:45 we're still putting out merchandise, when Kat, our lovely and awesome vendor coordinator comes by to tell us there was a scheduling mix-up on the website with the vending time,  it seems they posted that the hall didn't open until 1pm, which gave us an extra hour of set up time. Rock on, though we were mostly set up, it was nice to have the extra time to rearrange and refine the set up.

We took turns running down to the room to change from our jeans and t-shirts to our Steampunk attire and were then ready to take over the worl....ahem I mean, ready to vend!

The booth setup essentially remains the same, though we do move things around periodically to make things more aesthetic looking and so it flows better. I think having 2-3 artisans in the booth really helps things comes together in a cohesive look. We're gotten many compliments of the setup and layout of our booth, which are very much appreciated and makes us feel all warm and squishy.



Vending started off slow, but picked up at some point in the afternoon and before we knew it, it was 6pm and the vendor hall was closing for the evening and once things were locked down, we met up with Phineas from League of Supremely Evil Revolutionaries (LOSER) and his lovely girlfriend Bre (who were also crashing in the room), made a quick stop at the room to change and then headed off to dinner at The Auld Dubliner (can you tell we like this place?).

Sadly we didn't have the party shuttle driver for either trip on the shuttle, but we did realize on the last trip that if we waited two most stops, the shuttle would drop us right across the street from the Pub.

Dinner ended up being one of their delicious boxty plates with a Guinness and a lovely glass of Laphroigh scotch along with a side of their crisps (potato chips for you not in the know) with truffle oil and goat cheese. Good stuff right there.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening in with a bottle of wine and some great company.


Part III coming soon.

Her Royal Majesties Steampunk Symposium the Third (Recap - part I)

I have to say that Her Royal Majesties Steampunk Symposium has come along way in the three years it's been happening. Every year seems to get better, though there is always something new that surprises us, sometimes good, other times not so good, but the organizers still put on a good event and we have fun.

The event ran from January 10th through January 12th on the Queen Mary, though this year, my partner in crime Cindy (from Original Cin) decided that since neither of us are really morning people, we should head up on Thursday afternoon instead of at O'dark thirty Friday morning. Let's just say that is the new standard for this event. I took the day off from my full time job and headed to the shop to try to finish up some custom work and pack up all the merchandise for the weekend. I had grand ideas of being able to finish a custom vest and then pack everything, which went right out the window when I stopped back at home after dropping my daughter off at school.

I made some much needed coffee and then packed up my clothes for the weekend, the intent was to get my clothes packed and hope that while I was doing so, Fedex would show up with the box of shirts that were due to arrive from Sigh Co. Graphics. Sadly I didn't get that lucky and after I was all packed up I sat down and visited with my roommate until about 9:30 am, when we both decided that if we were going to get what we needed done for the day we needed to get our butts in motion.

After loading up the truck with everything from the house that I needed, except the box of shirts that were still in transit, I swung by where my husband was working and picked up the floor dolly from the trunk of his car. From there I  headed over to the shop and started digging out the merchandise containers which were mostly packed up from the last show we did back in November.  While I packed, I fired up the laptop and started doing the sign printing I needed for the weekend. (yay multitasking!)

My husband swung by after he was done at work to help me load and spent at least an hour sitting there watching me. His comment: "I remember why I don't help you pack, I just end up sitting here", and he's right, I have such a system of packing that it usually ends up being a nightmare if anyone besides Cindy helps me (just ask Tawmis & Andee), though I am getting a bit better about giving direction, somewhat.

Now, we moved the shop back in June from Casa de Oro, Ca to Lemon Grove, Ca, which is about 6 miles west of where we were. The space is almost twice as big and is much more secure. The drawback, we're on the 4th floor and the elevator is tiny as well as temperamental at times. This means multiple elevator trips to get everything downstairs. Getting things to the truck is another adventure since there is a breezeway you drive through to get to the back of the building to the slope hill of a parking lot. The breezeway is mostly flat and is wide enough for two cars, but the security guard gets a bit cantankerous if you are parked there too long. The only other option is to pull into one of the two handicap parking spots, which has it's own ramifications (expensive ones too!).

Queue to the loading. When you do something multiple times you eventually get it down to a science and I have certainly got that done with loading in and out of the shop. We stage everything out into the hall and one person takes a load down in the elevator, sends the elevator back up and lather, rinse repeat until everything is down in the lobby.

Then it's time to get the truck and park it in the fire lane, much to the irritation  of the security guard, of course he's can't really complain about it too much, since 1. there is no loading zone and 2. we are parked there *maybe* 15-20 minutes max. This is how it goes:

Truck loaded and ready to go

1. 12 pieces of grid wall into the bed of the truck, trying carefully to not smash the Hell out of ones fingers. Trust me, grid wall is evil, but it's one of the best ways to display our stuff (at least at this juncture)

2. Load the large black storage containers of which there are 5. This becomes a game of Tetris, mostly because I forget how they get put in from show to show, you'd think I'd remember after 18 shows with the damn things.

3. Then fit in any additional (smaller) tubs, boxes, suitcases and then the dollies to move everything around and then strap it all down with tie downs. Shake the items to make sure they're not going anywhere and then....

4. Stuff all the loose stuff (usually the sewing machine, purse, handing clothes, etc.) into the back seat of the truck.

5. Profit! well...not yet at least.

From there is was off to the gas station and then swinging by to pick up Cindy, who was just getting home from work and then time to hit the open highway for Long Beach.

2 miles down the road, the realization hits, the sewing machine is still at the shop. Off the freeway we go to the shop to grab the sewing machine, (the foot pedal was already packed) and then a quick stop at Taco Bell because I hadn't eaten yet. Trust me with no food is a bad for a lot of people's health, almost as hazardous as me without coffee.

Sewing machine - check
Food - check
Full tank of gas - check

Alright take two on the road to Long Beach, with a couple side stops. First stop, the printers to get the posters I had made with the new logo, then CVS to get a binder, batteries and some Airborne, and the last stop being my place of employment to stop by and pick up the last piece of my Christmas gift from Tawmis. Which was pretty damn amazing! (Photos later)

Then onto the open road known as Interstate 5 North. After all the stops, it was about 3:30 pm before we were actually headed out of San Diego where we began to have little feelings of dread. Why you ask? Well for anyone who lives in Southern California, you know that people start leaving work around 4pm, which would drop us into Los Angeles about 5 pm, (see where I'm heading with this?) right into rush hour traffic.

With a quick bathroom break (too much ice tea!) at the rest stop just before Camp Pendelton, we fired up the first episode the Comic Relief Podcast, done by my dear friends Tawmis & Maico. Then we switched over to Welcome to Night Vale. Surprisingly traffic only slowed down and never really came to a complete stop. We sailed into Long Beach at about 5:45pm, parked the truck and checked into our room on the Queen Mary.

We still had about an hour to kill before we could unload everything for the event though. While Cindy and I were plotting a plan of attack for the unload as we walked to our suite, Andee (Twylite Creations) texted me asking to let her know when we arrived to which I responded with "We just got here." to which she frantically responded with.."I'll be there shortly."

Upon entering our suite, Cindy and I plopped down our suitcases and turned to look at the room. First words out of Cindy's mouth, "Where is the bathroom?" The first door she went to was the one to the adjoining room which was locked and then she opened the closet and well discovered it was a closet and not the bathroom.

Confused, we both looked at each other and she asked "Did you get us a room without a bathroom?!?"

"Uh, it's a suite it better have a @$()@*)(@ bathroom." I replied.

It wouldn't be setup without one of these photos.

She went to the adjoining door again and stood there puzzled as I went to close the hotel room door and upon that, discovered the door to the bathroom. Laughing we breathed a sigh of relief , as Cindy says "It's going to be one of those Cons isn't it?"

"Isn't it always?" was my reply.

After getting our stuff settled in, we headed upstairs to see if we might be able to get into the vendor room a bit early. Sadly the doors were still locked and the staff was still marking off spaces. Just as we got back down to the lobby, we see Andee walk through the doors with her suitcases, so we walked her and her stuff to the room AND told her where the bathroom was. By this time it was 6:45, so we decided to go unload the truck figuring that we'd be upstairs about the time the vendor room was open for load-in.

Booth setup as interpretive dance performed by Cindy

We arrived at the Queen's Lounge at 7:01 pm and true to form for any Con, they were still laying out booth spaces. We only had to wait about 15 minutes before our space was done (same space as last year) and then we began to plot. As always we set up the grid wall in a U shape and then did the same with the tables. After much shifting we had everything ready to go, of course I extended the grid wall set up and there were two extra panels on one side, which made Andee's OCD want to run to a corner and rock in it repeatedly.

By the time we were done it was about 8:15. Since my last meal was about 2:30 pm, we decided that we'd finish setting up in the morning since we had 4 hours before the vendor hall opened.

After a quick stop at the hotel room to drop off things like the cash box, we headed off to the shuttle. The shuttle has to be by far one of my favorite things about this event. It's free and it takes us right into downtown Long Beach where all the restaurants are. True to form, we took the opportunity to dine at The Auld Dubliner. I mean really, who can pass up good food and whiskey as well as great customer service.

After dinner we made our way back to the shuttle stop to return to the hotel. Now for those of you who haven't been to downtown Long Beach or the Queen Mary, there are two shuttles, on that drops off from the Queen Mary and one that picks up. Like any bus service, I'm sure they switch their signs halfway through the route. The first shuttle up was the one coming from the Queen Mary and if any of you remember the first year we did this show, we took the wrong shuttle and got to enjoy(hah!) the scenic route back to the hotel. Of course it only took us once to learn the error of our ways.

So when this particular shuttle showed up and was mostly full, we asked, just to double check that it was going back to the hotel and the bus driver replied with "Eventually, but I'm going the long way." and then continued by saying that we should take his bus otherwise we'd be riding "Grumpy's" bus. We  chuckled and said that we would wait, when suddenly the crowd on the bus began chanting for us to get on. The three of us looked at each other, chuckled, shrugged and joined the crowd on the bus. Much cheering was had as we boarded, of course my comment was "They really don't know what they're getting themselves into, do they?"
To which Cindy laughed and shook her head.

I'm sure Cindy and Andee would agree, best bus ride ever! The bus driver joked and socialized with everyone on the bus, and then banter that went back between us, him and the group of business men was priceless. The driver even circled the roundabouts multiple times and flickered the bus lights on and off. We ended up dubbing it the party bus. Sadly the group of businessmen that convinced us to ride the bus with them, departed 3 stops later, but that didn't stop the friendly banter with the bus driver. At one stop, he even came back and talked to us for a few minutes.

Upon our return to the boat, he got on the loud speaker and said good-bye to us as we crossed the parking lot.

Returning to our room we all  decided to turn in for the night so we'd be ready for the final set up and first day of vending.

Part II

Calico Ghost Town:Wild West Fest Recap

To say "Let the busy season begin!" would be an understatement.

Cindy & I

7 Cons/Shows in a 2 month period along with volunteering at a major SCA event over Memorial Day weekend shows that Wyng'd Lyon has hit the busy season. 

We kicked the round of shows off with Wild West Fest (not to be confused with Wild Wild West Con in Tucson) on April 27th up in Calico Ghost Town in Yermo, California.

Friday the 26th, Tom and I went out to the shop to load everything up into the rental van. Normally I would have done this myself but on the 18th I was in a car accident and I was told not to lift anything over 1- pounds. Now those of you that know me, know how much of a feat this was for me not to do. My business is one of my babies and  I tent to do pretty much everything myself (most of the time). Seriously you should have seen how long I wrestled with turning the Social Media stuff over to someone.(Though I do have to say that Tawmis is an awesome pretty good choice for the job.)

I loaded the lighter stuff while my husband loaded the grid wall, boxes & tubs, the new popup, etc. Then I headed over to get my partner in crime, Cindy. Initially I was at a loss for who was going to go help me out for the event. Most everyone already had plans for that weekend. Cindy ended up deciding that she needed some R&R away from work and took the day off to join me. Have I mentioned how awesome she is? If not lately, she's pretty damn awesome to say the least.

Once we got Cindy's stuff situated into the rental (a soccer mom mobile aka mini-van) we headed to my house to pack up my clothes and other items for the weekend. Then it was off to Target for sunscreen and chairs, while Tom went to get the kids. After meeting up at Target, we stopped for gas and we then caravan-ed out to Yermo.

The drive was pretty uneventful, aside from the carpool lane up 15 North from San Diego, wigging out the navigation app on my phone and my hands free speaker. We made a quick stop for food by North County Fair Shopping Center and then started heading North again.

We had a moment where we pulled over to the side of the freeway in a turnout so my son could water a bush, except that wasn't what he had to do, so back into the cars we pile and in search of a real bathroom we went. We ended up getting off the freeway near the March Air Force Air Museum, taking care of business and then got on the road again.

I think we finally made it to the hotel and we checked into our room by 9:30 pm. My son was passed out by 10:15, my daughter however was awake until after 11pm. Once she finally passed out, I nodded off to sleep only to be woken around 2 in the morning by my husband who was tossing and turning, and while doing all this in his sleep he told me to stop moving around. All I could do was shake my head, roll over and try to go back to sleep. If I had been coherent enough, I would have gone over and crawled into the other bed with Cindy. Hindsight is 20/20 ya know? ;)

Saturday morning rolled around and we found ourselves up at 7 am in the morning getting everything together and out the door to the site which was a mere 5 miles away.

I really wasn't quite sure what to expect for the event since I had never been out at Calico Ghost Town and it was a first time event, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that we got to set our booth up in the actual "town" (something I think would be awesome if they did out at Old Tucson, but I digress).

Set up took us a couple hours before we were ready and while Cindy and I were arranging things, Tom took the kids off to the self guided mine tour and the train ride to keep them entertained.

By 10:30 the kids were ready to pumpkin out even though they wanted to watch the shootout they were more interested it going back to the hotel and watching a movie with daddy. Just as they were about half was down the center of town the organizers announced that they were a mere 15 minutes away from having the shootout, so they returned to see the cowboys "gun fight" in the streets.

Cindy scrounged up a menu from the local onsite restaurant and we decided on lunch. Of course not remembering that I was wearing an off white shirt, I ended up ordering the pulled pork sandwich. Amazingly enough I survived eating that and later eating ice cream without a drop of anything end up on said shirt.

While she was out walking around checking things out, Cindy was asked if she was a member of League of Steam, which she was extremely flattered about. We had quite a few visitors stop by the booth and Cindy even got 3 commission sketches for the day, something she'd had yet to do at a Steampunk type event.


I actually made it out of the booth for a bit and wandered around the little shops and merchant booths and per tradition, I spotted something for Tawmis as a thank you for all the help he gives me at events. (Though he chastises me every time I bring something back for him).

We saw quite a few friendly faces from HRM Steampunk Symposium as well as a few faces from Wild Wild West Con and we were also visited by friends of friends and other great people through out the event.


We finally wrapped up selling around 5:30 ish, and began to break down the booth and pack things up, an hour later were we done and loaded and headed back to the hotel to change into something a bit more comfy and then head next door to Penny's cafe for dinner.

After dinner we adjourned back to our room and cracked open a bottle of wine, sent random text messages to friends and then ended up passing out for the night.

Now anyone who has kids, especially young ones, knows how difficult it is to get any time sleeping in on the weekends, so those parents know how excited I was to be able to sleep in Sunday morning with no kids or husband to wake me up right? Such was not the case my body or my brain, not sure who I'm blaming first, decided that I needed to be wide awake at 6:30 am.

Hello Body! Did you not get the meme? No kids == me sleeping in as long as I want! Please remember that for next time.

I was able to go back to sleep off and on for the next two hours, but it still wasn't the same.

Once Cindy and I were up and mobile we headed back over to Penny's Cafe and enjoyed breakfast before getting on the road to head home.

Three hours and a brief stop later we dropped things off at the shop, I took Cindy home and then I made it back to my house where I was greeted by my two wonderful kids who acted like they hadn't seen me in days and a husband who had a look on his face like I abandoned him for weeks with them. Needless to say  as tired as I was, I was happy to be home and take a breather (even if it was only for a few minutes) before thinking about Gaslight Gathering coming up the following weekend.

Cindy and I had a blast and have to say that Wild West Fest was such a great event and so well run by the staff that we are looking forward to going back next year.

We hope to see some of you out there as well!

~Colleen

Wild Wild West Con Recap - Part IV (and final part)

Continued from Part III

I always dread the last day of conventions. Partially due to having to pack up, drive home and unload, but also because it means the end of a fun weekend with great people and having to go back to my real job. Not that I dislike my job, it and the people are great, but there is just something magical about cons and the people there.

We got up about 7:30 am, dressed, packed the suitcases, grabbed the other miscellaneous items (the beer!) and then fought for a spot on the only elevator down from the second floor of the wing of out hotel, tossed the stuff haphazardly into the van and headed off back to Old Tucson. We skipped the stop at Circle K as I had a can of Irish Coffee Monster and everyone else also had their own beverages of caffienation.

Once on site we uncovered the tables and waited for vending to open for the day. We made some changes to the way the table was laid out and moved somethings around for better display.

 I always try to wear something on the last day of the Con that I can break down the booth in. I'm still piecing together my Airship Captain's costume and the photo below is one of the incarnations that I put together when I was tossing things into the suitcase.

  Andee wore a cute Kimono that she had made a few years back for another event that she attended. The highlight of the day for me was the little boy that was hanging outside the back door of the vendor tent. As I was headed to the Ladies' room he was standing there in his sheriff's outfit (complete with badge) and told me to draw. So I drew my flint lock pistol and we stood there standing off. As I was walking backwards, a man came out of the tent, snuck up with his fingers drawn as guns and told the little boy to drop his gun. My reply to the little boy, "You always have a henchman in the wings." and made my way to the restroom. On the way back the same little boy was outside and he aimed his gun at me and said that he shot me and there was an alien inside me (he was quite the imaginative kid!). I chuckled and walked back to the booth and told Andee that I had been shot and had an alien inside me, just in case it decided to burst out of my chest or something. Her response was "Well hopefully the corset will keep it in."

 Traffic for the day came in waves and was a bit lighter that Saturday, but there were still a good amount of customers coming through to shop and get last minute items before they headed home.

This gave me some time to get some shopping done and do my usual tradition of buying something for Tawmis as a thank you for the work he does on the Facebook page and on Twitter while I'm at the Cons. (Though he always chastises me for buying things for him.)

This time I got him an iPhone cover that had an old comic book cover of Thor. I also got myself a cute necklace that has a falcon on it in a military style hat. There were a couple other things that I wanted to buy, but I knew that if I brought home any large boxes, my husband would have had a little of kittens since we're not moved into our new place yet.

The downside to the day is that we had got shop lifted for the first time, the even worse part of it was that it was one of out own Steampunk folks. I was rummaging through one of the boxes under the table looking for something and Andee was standing in the middle of the booth. She saw the man walk back and said he made a motion like he picked up a skeleton key and then kept walking. At first she thought it was nothing and then she saw him repeat the action as he passed the jewelry booth and walk out the tent door. She turned to me and mentioned that she thinks we were just shoplifted from and then went to the other vendor to tell them what she saw. They looked at the tray the man passed by and confirmed that there was an item missing. She and the other vendor went out of the tent to see if they could catch the man, but he was already most of the way to the parking lot.

I was more irritated about being shoplifted by one of our own that the shoplifting itself. I guess with spending so many years in the SCA, you get used to those that you call "your own" being honorable and stand up people. I know that not everyone is like that and every group has it's bad apples, I just find it very disappointing when things like this happen because those are the ones that the reports end up focusing on.


All that aside, we finished out the day on  a good note and began breaking down the booth when the time had come. Michelle and Alastar came over once they were done and waited for us to finished packing before we began load out.

Of course like set up, my brain always decides to go out in left field and leave me in a state of "Where the Hell do I start packing up?" After about 10 minutes of standing there confused and Alastar laughing as he says he's going to stay out of the way, thoughts start processing and I started putting things in tubs and such. Once the packing was complete it was time to play Cartris again and load everything up. True to the theme of the Con, I smashed the heck out of my fingers loading up and tying down the grid wall. It was mostly dark when we finished and got on the road to Casa Grande to Andee's house.

We regaled each other with the tales of the day from the Con to keep ourselves from falling asleep. We made it to Andee's without any incident and were welcome by a wonderful spaghetti dinner cooked by Andee's husband, Frankie. After sitting and chatting for a bit and settling up Andee's sales, Michelle, Alastar and I hit the road for Yuma.

One we stopped at Yuma, we gassed up the truck, made a bathroom stop, grabbed something to drink and I switched seats with Alastar and let him drive back to San Diego.

We got to the shop about 3:00 am, unloaded and then headed to North Park to drop off Michelle and Alastar. I finally got home about 4:30 am and passed out for about 4 hours before getting up and taking the van back to the rental place.

The rest of the day was spent at home relaxing doing much of nothing before having to head back to work on Tuesday.


Over all it was a great Con and I'm really looking forward to next year. Cindy has said that she will be there and Andee has committed to going as well. So look out Old Tucson, we're planning on returning in full force!

I want to give out a heartfelt thank you to all the participants that came out making the convention so successful. I also want to thank the staff of Wild Wild West Con for all their work and for making things right as much as they could.

See you all next year!

Wild Wild West Con Recap Part III

For those of you just joining us, here are Part 1 & Part 2 of the recap.

A full night's sleep does wonders for the body,  well at least for Andee and I it did.  Poor Michelle said she felt like she was sleeping in a saw mill due to Alastar's snoring. We told Michelle that  if she had problems sleep again, she should could come crawl into bed with us, since the bed we had would have slept the three of us comfortably.

We all dressed in our respective outfits for the day and hoped that Saturday's weather was going to be better than Friday was and I was hoping that the vendor tent we were in survived the night and that all our stuff was still in a sell-able condition. We got to the site, parked the van and headed to the tent to see what awaited us. Thankfully everything was still in one piece and just needed to be put back into a presentable manner. After about 30 minutes of work the booth was ready for business:

Saturday's outfit is known as my Mina dress, as it's based off the dress that Winona Ryder wore in Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's one of my favorite pieces currently in my closet for events like this. Coupled with the fan that was a gift from someone who professes to be my Number 1 fan the outfit truly comes together. Eventually I plan to make some sort of fascinator or hair piece to wear with it as well. Though I have to say after this event, the dress sorely needs a good dry cleaning as the train was drug through the dust and dirt in the vendor area. 

Colleen in her Mina dress

It was also Andee's day to be in red as well. This being her first Steampunk type event she pulled together some really cute outfits.

Vending on Saturday made up for Friday's nightmare and though the organizers couldn't do much about the lost vending time, they were awesome and bought all the vendors in our area pizza for lunch.

The weather was still a bit cool and there was some rain off and on, but the wind was pretty mellow and the day went so fast that it was 5pm before we knew it.

Once the vendor area was secure and everything was covered we headed over to meet up with Michelle and Alastar and headed off to the parking lot.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Old Tucson, everything is a dirt road except the parking area which is asphalt. So walking in general is a precarious adventure with all the rock and the land minds that the horses leave behind.

What makes the walk even more of an adventure is the addition of high heeled shoes or boots. Just as we passed the guard house to cross the walk bridge to the parking lot, one of the attendants mentioned to Michelle that she was pretty brave wearing her two inch heeled shoes. She laughed said that it was mostly walking slow and watching where you walk. I laughed and responded with "You walk very carefully, especially in shoes like this," and showed him the 6 inch heeled boots that I was walking in. He stood there boggled that anyone would wear shoes like mine in an environment like that and from behind me I hear Alastar say "+20 boots of Gothness" and laugh, (yup we're a bunch of gamer geeks.)

We piled into the car and of course the first thing that came off was the boots and then we headed back to the hotel. Well that was the intent. We were so tired from the long day and so involved in our conversation on what to do for dinner, no one realized that we got on the freeway going the wrong direction. We actually didn't notice it until we got to an area where there was construction happening and I commented that I didn't remember it from the day before. It was then we realized that we were headed back towards Casa Grande and not to the hotel.

Once we got that navigational incident corrected, we headed back towards the hotel, stopped at Wendy's for dinner, where they gave me Sweet Tea (blech) instead of regular tea. Thankfully I got that corrected before I took a swig of it thinking it was plain tea.

Upon returning to the hotel, we discovered that our room key didn't work (again) and I was too fried and hungry to walk down to the lobby, thankfully the guy in the room next to us was getting ice and I asked if I could use his phone to call the front desk. A few minutes later security came up with new keys and said that they had the date set wrong for the checkout date.

Once we were back in our room, dinner was devoured and more refreshing adult beverages aka beer were consumed. I Skyped with the hubby and kids, worked on some more cameos and then passed out for the night.

Part IV in process.

Wild Wild West Con Recap: Part II

If you missed it, Part I can be found here.

Our hotel room

One of the things that you get used to when doing conventions is the high probability that the day you are setting up your booth, you are going to be running on little to no sleep from the night prior. Either you are up until all hours of the night finishing projects (in my case it's either sewing buttons on or sewing ascots closed) or you'll be up before nature itself to drive to your destination to set up.

There was no exception to the rule this time around, we rolled in to the hotel by about 4 am, promptly passed out and then woke up to the alarm a mere 3 hours later. It's times like this that I am thankful for coffee (and so are other people).

After taking advantage of the snooze button a few times,I think I finally rolled out of bed at 7:30 or 7:45 am and made myself something akin to coffee, to be honest it was more like coffee flavored water. After the issues on the Queen Mary with no coffee pot in the room, I should know that I should always have my french press and coffee packed for out of town shows. Thankfully there was a Circle K on the way out to the freeway.

Shirt from piratebooty.net

After I got all of what I was wearing for the day together in a bag (I never set up in costume, too much of a hassle) and the rest of the group was ready, we pillaged Circle K for food type stuff and each of our own favorite vehicles for caffeine consumption and headed off to Old Tucson Studios.

The drive was mottled with rain drops here and there among the Arizona desert and the turn off to the event was pretty quiet and uninhabited. Thankfully no one got car sick though Alastar likened the ride to a roller coaster with the sweeping dips in the road.

Once we got to the site, after having to turn around because I passed the driveway to the parking lot, we were pleasantly surprised with being able to practically pull up to the doorway of the vending area, which meant less steps to haul things for set up. Woohoo!

As many times as I have vended at various events, set up always seems to make my mind go blank, or maybe it's just that the coffee hadn't kicked in yet. I'm standing there trying to answer Andee's question of "What do we do first?" and can't seem to process a single thought, it's like my brain blue screened or something. Seeing my dilemma she asks about unloading the grid wall and that was just the kick started I needed to engage the brain cells, that and a few more swigs of coffee (sensing a theme yet?)

Gridwall up

There always seems to be a theme to the Cons, the first year on the Queen Mary at HRM Steampunk Symposium, it was "Pants!", this past year at the same event, it was sliding along the promenade deck floor, and at Wild Wild West Con it was smashed fingers, mainly mine. After the colorful words were expelled from sandwiching my fingers between two pieces of steel grid wall, we started unloading totes from the van to the booth space. Most of the vendors had arrived the day before so they were mostly all set up and ready to vend, though there were a few that had arrived that morning like us.  Once the van was unloaded, Andee went and parked it in the parking lot and I started to figure out the layout of the booth and then grid wall assembly began!

Putting up the banner

Once we got the grid wall up we moved around the tables and discovered that the leg was broken, thankfully it was before we got it in place and I went to stand on it to put the banner atop the grid wall, otherwise there would have been more than smashed fingers at the event.

Banner is up!

Being the pirate preemptive salvage experts that we are, Andee and I switched the tables with an extra that was off to the side, made sure it was functional and then I performed the daring feet of putting up the banner or as Tawmis refers to it, "shaking my money maker to help with sales". (He's lucky I like him so much, else he'd be walking the plank)

After arranging and rearranging we got the booth setup and then dashed off to the restroom to change and await customers. Our booth was the first one when you walked into the tent which was great for traffic, but no so great when the wind blew. Not only was it a cold breeze due to the rainy weather, but every gust of wind brought in a cloud of dust right into our faces.

Colleen of Wyng'd Lyon

Andee of Twylite Creations

Here are Andee and I all dressed up and ready for the day of vending.

Things were pretty dusty as exhibited by the following photo and sadly it wasn't raining enough to keep the dust down. We joked that it would be pretty obvious if someone decided to walk off with something from the table though as there would be a large dust outline of what ever walked off. (That table cloth started out black in color, by the end of the Con it was grey.)

Customers trickled in and out of the tent and we had a few sales while watching the rain come and go through the doorway of the tent. The wind was also blowing off and on and eventually the thunderstorms rolled in. I love thunderstorms, but sadly we don't get any really good ones in San Diego unless I decide to trek out to the desert to see them, so when they started out at Tucson I was as excited as a kid in a candy store with $20 to spend.

Just a little dusty!

From my days camping with family and then with the SCA, you learn really quickly how to keep a tent from blowing away in the wind, or when to worry about the wind being too strong for said tent. So when Andree expressed concern about the canvas of the tent snapping in the wind, I shrugged and told her it really wasn't that bad, and it was true for the most part, until the wind picked up and snapped the roof of the tent so hard it got my attention. I looked at Andee and replied: "Ok, now that's not good." and not more than 5 minutes later another strong gust came through and lifted the tent enough to make a couple of the upright poles fall onto the ground with a clatter. Vendors and staff alike scrambled to put the poles back in. Andee was watching the wind gust through the doorway and bolted to the booth just inside the door as the side of the tent blew their display over. Had she not made that dash, the entire table probably would have fell over. Once we got everyone away from the walls and more towards the center of the tent, the event staff started talking about evacuating the tent and the vendors started packing and covering things. Meanwhile the people that were helping hold down the tent were looking for things to use to wrap around the poles. Lightning and metal are not a good combination, unless you really have the desire to be a lightening rod. Bits of rope were used as were belts and anything else that was long enough to wrap around the poles and help keep it down while we waited for the tent company to come out and re mediate the issue.

Our gallant volunteers holding down the tent 

The issue being that the crew that came out initially didn't stake the tent down properly, as in they didn't stake down all the poles, just the corners and a few select ones along the long sides of it. Not something you do with a tent that is about 40' x 80' in size especially in the desert. Shamella, who was the vendor coordinator was an absolute dream, she took care of the problem as best as she could and checked up on the vendors to make sure they were aware of what was going on. The owner of the company ended up coming out with a crew to fix the problem, but it was still going to be a couple hours before they were done. So most of the vendors closed up shop and headed out for the evening. Andee and I went into the barn area and waited out the last hour of the day with Alastar and Michelle as the Gaslight Gathering table.

Once the main vending area closed for the day, we loaded our tired, dusty selves into the van and headed back to the hotel.

End of day conversations generally need an interpreter  mostly because they're full of moaning and groaning from any injuries or muscle strains inflicted from setup or because  one is so tired, the mouth and brain are not working in unison. The only discussion that made much sense was what we going to have for dinner, that and the awe that came over us when we looked up and saw this giant floating section of rainbow, not a full rainbow, but a chunk of rainbow mid sky. In the photo below you can see it just between the two mountains.

Another shot of the block of rainbow

From the WTF? files

Of course when we return to the hotel we encounter the following: (various holiday and garden figures along with bottle caps and other miscellany glued to the vehicle - and here I though we only saw this weird stuff in California, it's nice to see that other states have weird folk too.)

Colleen & Andee

Settled back in the room we rekindled the arduous discussion of what the heck are we going to have for dinner. Alastar & Michelle were on a fairly tighter budget than I was and I really didn't want fast food. Traveling messing with my body enough so I try to eat on the more healthy side of things. After much deliberation and internet searching we settled on Chopstix for Chinese food, which was reasonably priced and a couple blocks up the road from the hotel.

Got root?

The service was great and the food was pretty tasty. The family with the kid that decided the high ceiling restaurant was a great place to try and communicate with the dolphins or dogs (we weren't sure which) was not so pleasant.

Michelle & Alastar

After stuffing ourselves we stopped by the Circle K for some refreshing adult beverages (read: cider & beer), and a few snacks (chocolate). The guy at checkout was a bit puzzled by my  "got root?" shirt and the easiest way to explain it without his eyes glazing over was to say "It's a computer thing" and be on my merry way.


Dinner: devoured
Adult beverages & snacks:  acquired
Relaxing in the hotel room: achievement unlocked

Next level: The Skype session with my kids so they could go to bed and then a nice hot shower.  It's one thing to be grungy and gross from set up at a Con, it's another to be that and then have a fine layer of dust coating your skin and hair. By the time we got back to the hotel after dinner, I was ready to stand in a hot shower for at least an hour. Let me tell you, that shower was almost as good as the showers when we come back from a 5 day trip out to Potrero County Park for an SCA event over Memorial Day weekend. To say it was heavenly would have been an understatement.

The rest of the evening was spent working on making more cameo pins and ascot pins before crashing out for some much needed rest.

Part III to come soon.