Here we are a full month after the event and I’m just now finding the time and motivation to actually mention this: I went to Shore-Leave 45! It was a great trip and another great event and through a series of weird coincidences my wife was required to be just an hour away from the convention center for a family event, so we got to fly together, arrive together, then be apart for a day.
The trip started in typical local airport fashion, which is to say we could either fly out at 6am or 6pm. With the timing of everything we opted for flying out at 6am, so that meant being up at 3am to make it to the airport by 4am, get through security by 5am, then be fully checked in for the flight. We stopped off at the local WaWa to get some coffee and there was a lady there picking fights with everyone around her, we somehow managed to miss her attention, but she was super aggressive for the time of morning. We made it to the airport, made it on the plane, then had a 20 minute layover in Charlotte, but of course our gates were nearly a mile away from each other and somehow in the transfer from one plane to another, the airline misplaced my wife’s suitcase. Note to self: never pack your daily meds in a checked in piece of luggage!
We stopped by Wades Comics on the way into the show and while I enjoyed chatting with the guy behind the counter and I got a couple really cool Trek books from them, the state of that store was intensely distressing for me as someone that values organization and clear pricing. Long boxes stacked on top of each other with naked books, no prices on any of them, then stacks of loose comics on top of those. I didn’t spend much time going through those stacks and only asked about a few books I saw on their ebay shop, which they were able to find easily and sell to me, the discriminating consumer. I adore the books that I bought there, which included my very first 1:100 virgin variants from a specific series.
We made it to the hotel and if you follow me on bluesky, you’ve see the view from the room. It was a great room, I enjoyed spending no time in it other than to sleep. We hung out for a few minutes, went to have dinner, then someone managed to find the energy to go see Superman in an “AMC Prime” which was a new experience to me. The seats were fully reclinable and there was a table that you could swivel to eat foot from. It was a fun movie, but considering the 3am wake up time, I was ready to pass out when we left the theater at 10pm, but we needed to get replacement clothing and toiletries to replace the bag items that the airline misplaced. They eventually got the bag to us a day later, but the hassle was very frustrating for us. We made it back to the hotel and went to sleep around midnight. All that on just the first day of travel!
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