Star Wars Celebration Blog 5/25

 I deleted another fifty spam emails this morning, and the one I'm choosing to share with you is The Truth About Your Manhood.  I clicked it, and there was an Unsubscribe link . . . and that's it.

Our trip to California for the Star Wars Celebration had begun!

Marshal was driving down, and predicted it would take him about five hours to get here, where he would pick me up and we'd drive down to my cousin's house, where Marshal would leave his car and we'd take my cousin's van (which is big enough I found it comfortable and it also fit all our luggage and/or swag from the con).  But Marshal arrived early, when I was at the UPS Store dropping off a package, and that embarrassed me.

But I should be used to embarrassment at this point.

My cousin provided the family mini-van, which may not have gotten great mileage, but was totally comfortable.  I believe, up to this point in time, I've always referred to my Cousin Ryan as "my cousin," but I'll try to do better from now on.*

We drove south, and even though the drive is long, there was a constant stream of conversation, and that sped things up quite a bit.  I had intended for us to do a lot of podcasting over the weekend, and I must admit that I didn't feel up to it most of the days.  We did record one bit I had prepared on the drive down, and I suspect we never got out the recorder again.

We got gas for $4.79 a gallon, knowing it would all be uphill from there, and before long, we'd crossed Las Vegas (hitting a pocket of traffic there, but not encountering much more, even in Southern California).  I sat in the passenger side, Marshal was in back, and Ryan drove, and this would remain unchanged for the rest of the weekend.

The first photo I took was of the gas prices in Barstow, where we all stopped, and each of us ventured into the grossest bathroom I've seen in civilization (campsites and port-o-pottys don't count).  The floor alone . . . shudder.

The second photo I took was of the sun setting on the Death Valley horizon, as the I-15 plunged us inexorably toward the kind of weather that would cause my cousin to complai--oh wait, everywhere has that.

I had packed plenty of cough medicine for the trip, and I made use of it all.  I never felt particularly good, but I tried not to draw attention to myself, and only later in the week worried about perhaps infecting and killing Marshal.  Whoops.

It was night when we reached the City of Orange, where Marshal had booked us a motel.  And we just couldn't find it.  We followed the directions of our phone, and it took us to a strip mall, which was pretty unsettling, until we realized that the motel was hidden behind a gas station, and the entrance was actually through the station's lot.

The room was upstairs, and large and clean, with two chairs my cousin and I would make use of the whole time we were there.  He had brought an inflatable mattress, but the bed was big enough we had room to share.  I did not sleep well, but unlike the other two guys, I hadn't a Darth Vader breathing apparatus to strap myself into, so it could've been worse (I did have a nightmare during the pre-dawn hours, and I had meant to tell the guys about it, but I didn't, and of course I can't remember it now).

Writing or Exercise: Writing