The Trip Up

Okay......

I'll have to break this up, but I'll start with the first few days before the convention.

I worked a full day on Monday. Tidied up everything on my desk and tried to tie-off any loose ends before I left. Got home that evening and packed my bags and then waited until it was time to leave the next day.

My flight wasn't until mid-afternoon on Tuesday, but I'd taken the whole day off so I wouldn't be rushed.

On Tuesday, I loaded my car and headed out to the Comic Stop to meet up with Technogreek, who was also flying up with me that day. I grabbed some lunch and hung out with him while he packed.

Then we took off for the airport.

The flight went well.

I don't "hate" to fly, but taking off and landing always make me a bit uneasy.

Taking off from Sea-Tac wasn't a problem though and the hour-plus flight was pretty smooth.

That is, until we got closer to Calgary.

About 20 minutes before we were to land, the plane hit a lot of turbulence and really made me uncomfortable.

I thought I was just really hot, as I started feeling very warm and was sweating quite a bit, but I was getting motion-sickness.

As it turns out, I had forgotten to take the Dramamine I brought with me before my flight.

So by the time we landed it was all I could to to get through customs without barfing.

I made it okay and our ride picked us up and went out for dinner.

I was feeling quite queasy, so I didn't eat anything. I took the Dramamine (I figured, "What the heck. It couldn't hurt now") and hoped for the best.

Things started to settle in my stomach and I actually ate an ice cream bar later that evening before calling it a night and going to bed.

The next day was pretty calm. I was feeling much better and there wasn't a lot to do for the Expo quite yet.

We sort of lounged around the house and then went for a late breakfast nearby.

I had chocolate sourdough French toast with blueberry syrup.

Oh. My. Goodness. It was sooo yummy!

We then walked over to Redd Skull Comics and met up with Kelly. (a friend and part-promoter for the Calgary Expo)

After that, we went back to the house until it was time to pick up a couple of people from the airport.

It was starting to snow about this time and didn't stop the rest of the day. It didn't accumulate much, but considering it was close to May I thought it very unusual.

That evening we went out for some chicken wings with Froggy and then back to the house to watch the end of a Calgary Flames game on TV.

Like I said not very eventful, but a fun day nevertheless.

Thursday was when the rest of the Seattle crew was to arrive and we actually spent the better part of this day doing prep work for the Calgary Expo.

I was trimming black cardboard for framing the art prints, helped stuff some badges and things like that.

That evening, we went to dinner at a fancy-shmancy restaurant called "Saltlik".

Honestly, for the price I thought it was just okay. My food was good, but my steak was a bit more "rare" than I normally like.

The drinks however were wonderful. I had a tequila, pomegranate and lime concoction and would've been just fine drinking them all by themselves for dinner!

Other than that, not too much else to really talk about. Just lots of little things to do before the show took place that Saturday & Sunday, so we did some more prep work before calling it a night.

Friday was when the shenanigans began in earnest, so I'll return with tales about that in my next post.