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GenCon 2007: Day 1 (08/15/07)
Sep. 4th, 2007 12:54 pmBrent and I started our trip to GenCon at 8am on Wednesday, August 15th. Our flight was scheduled to leave LAX at 2:15pm but we had to get to the airport (an hour in good traffic), find a parking place in one of the long term lots, and get from the lot to our terminal before we could begin the process of getting bags checked and getting through security. That in mind, we planned to pull up stakes at 10am. We finished packing, grabbed a quick brunch of leftovers from my birthday dinner at Claim Jumper and got the car loaded. We had emptied it of anything valuable already, in preparation for parking it at the long term lot, which meant that our 2 suitcases and our 2 carry-ons fit with room to spare.
The drive north to the airport was uneventful. It took us a little while to find the right lot, to find place in the lot and to find the shuttle bus to get us to the terminal but we arrived at the Southwest counter well before the recomended 2 hour mark. The line was longer than we had hoped but it moved well and we got both our bags checked, despite the industrial strength paper cutter in one of them. There was another moderate wait at security and we were passed through to the terminal. We found our gate, made sure it really was our gate (as gate assignments tend to change randomly at LAX) and grabbed some food, since our flight would include dinner hours in all the time zones we were passing through.
About an hour later we were joined by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zechnophobe, who we knew we were traveling with, and one of the local bounty hunters, who was a surprise. Our flight boarded as close to on time as it could, but Zech, who had not made use of the on-line check in, ended up at the back of the airplane, in the last row. Poor baby.
Once we were in the air, Brent read and napped and I knit, starting a new pair of socks in the Queen of Cups pattern from Knitty. I'm working them in a fine wool/bamboo blend yarn varigated yarn in 2 shades of blue, white and light grey. The pattern in complicated but fun and I look forward to finishing them. Our flight had a layover in Kansas City (ground temp 100 degrees F) and Zech moved forward to join our row during the lay over. On the second leg of the flight, he and Brent chatted about work and I tried to concentrate on my knitting through the increasing pain in my ears. By the time we landed in Indy I was almost in tears.
Once on the ground, we collected our luggage and grabbed a cab to our hotel, the Embassy Suites. We were the last of the office crew to arrive, although a couple of the bounty hunters were still on the road when our flight landed at 10:30pm. We checked in and met our roomates, Beth and John Bancroft. The Bancrofts have been bounty hunters for a long time and John was in charge of the bounty hunter contingent at the Exhibit Hall booth this year. He and Beth and a couple of the other bounty hunters were gaming when we arrived. Brent set them up with a couple of small tasks that hadn't gotten done before we left SoCal and he and I headed out to dinner at Steak and Shake. Not great food but at least it was open late.
I had forgotten what humidity was like. Its strange that 2 years in California could negate the previous 34 years of hellish summer memories, but they have. Indy wasn't particularly hot or humid by its own standards, but for my California aclimated senses it was just awful. It felt like we were swimming all the way to the restaurant and back. Yuck!
With the combination of time zone differences and the long hours that we had been traveling, I crashed almost as soon as we got back to the hotel. Brent stayed up a bit later but not by much. We knew we would have an early day the next day and would need every scrap of sleep we could get.
The drive north to the airport was uneventful. It took us a little while to find the right lot, to find place in the lot and to find the shuttle bus to get us to the terminal but we arrived at the Southwest counter well before the recomended 2 hour mark. The line was longer than we had hoped but it moved well and we got both our bags checked, despite the industrial strength paper cutter in one of them. There was another moderate wait at security and we were passed through to the terminal. We found our gate, made sure it really was our gate (as gate assignments tend to change randomly at LAX) and grabbed some food, since our flight would include dinner hours in all the time zones we were passing through.
About an hour later we were joined by
zechnophobe, who we knew we were traveling with, and one of the local bounty hunters, who was a surprise. Our flight boarded as close to on time as it could, but Zech, who had not made use of the on-line check in, ended up at the back of the airplane, in the last row. Poor baby. Once we were in the air, Brent read and napped and I knit, starting a new pair of socks in the Queen of Cups pattern from Knitty. I'm working them in a fine wool/bamboo blend yarn varigated yarn in 2 shades of blue, white and light grey. The pattern in complicated but fun and I look forward to finishing them. Our flight had a layover in Kansas City (ground temp 100 degrees F) and Zech moved forward to join our row during the lay over. On the second leg of the flight, he and Brent chatted about work and I tried to concentrate on my knitting through the increasing pain in my ears. By the time we landed in Indy I was almost in tears.
Once on the ground, we collected our luggage and grabbed a cab to our hotel, the Embassy Suites. We were the last of the office crew to arrive, although a couple of the bounty hunters were still on the road when our flight landed at 10:30pm. We checked in and met our roomates, Beth and John Bancroft. The Bancrofts have been bounty hunters for a long time and John was in charge of the bounty hunter contingent at the Exhibit Hall booth this year. He and Beth and a couple of the other bounty hunters were gaming when we arrived. Brent set them up with a couple of small tasks that hadn't gotten done before we left SoCal and he and I headed out to dinner at Steak and Shake. Not great food but at least it was open late.
I had forgotten what humidity was like. Its strange that 2 years in California could negate the previous 34 years of hellish summer memories, but they have. Indy wasn't particularly hot or humid by its own standards, but for my California aclimated senses it was just awful. It felt like we were swimming all the way to the restaurant and back. Yuck!
With the combination of time zone differences and the long hours that we had been traveling, I crashed almost as soon as we got back to the hotel. Brent stayed up a bit later but not by much. We knew we would have an early day the next day and would need every scrap of sleep we could get.
