Monday, July 12, 2010

Adventures at RomCon - Day 1



Well this is crappy! I couldn't sleep. It's not for lack of trying and it's not 'cause I'm not tired. But for the second night in 4 days, I just haven't been able to find dreamland. So maybe I'll blog, record books and do some housework and then see if things change.

So - what else to blog about than RomCon - the good and the not so good.

The Not So Good

I often live with my head in the clouds, not exactly paying attention to the details of life. One of those details was what time the taxi was coming to take me to the shuttle bus depot for the 2 hour ride to the Detroit airport. I thought the taxi was picking my up at 2 but it turns out the bus was leaving at 2. I tried to sleep Thursday night but couldn't get to sleep. So I was fartin' around, not entirely ready, including not entirely dressed when the back doorbell rang around 1:15 am.
Shit!!

I raced around like a mad woman, throwing stuff that I still hadn't packed into my suitcase. Getting dressed wasn't a problem; I knew what I was going to where. But not having my suitcase all packed would prove to be costly.But I managed to get the suitcase zipped, get to the airport on time and get to Denver in a timely manner.

The Good
I had just gotten off the plane and was waiting for the shuttle bus to the hotel, when I felt a tap on my shoulder and it was Meljean Brook. I've met her before and it was wonderful running into her again. And when we walked into the hotel, who should we see right off but Sarah and Jane and a few authors such as Nalini Singh and Carolyn Jewel and other industry people. After sitting around chatting for a while, I headed over to get signed in and one of the best things about signing into conferences (?) bags of books!! Some I had already, but some I didn't so it was all good! I couldn't get into my room until 4:00 so I checked my luggage and was about to do something - nothing in particular - that would have been a detail - when Pamela Clare came into the hotel. Now that was just perfect since the first event on my schedule was her reality tour. I had time for a brief lunch and then we were off!


The Good!
It was a great tour. Pamela makes a wonderful tour guide and showed us all the places where her romantic suspense books take place and even had a friend of hers, a Ranger, show up when we toured the Boulder park. Then she took us high up into the mountains and as you can see, the scenery was breathtaking. It was great to see all the places she took us to!!

The Not So Good - the first casualty of packing at the very last moment - I couldn't find my sunglasses and as you can tell, it was a very sunny day!! They are prescription sunglasses so the loss was doubly felt.

The Good - By this time the Friday night dinner had started. I was a tad worried we might have missed it since Pamela took us on quite a whirlwind tour, but happily we didn't. The meal - I had chicken - was excellent.


The Good I started hitting zombie stage though - what with the no sleep the night before, the time change, and overall excitement, so some of this is probably out of order, but I got to meet a number of bloggers I hadn't met in person yet, but already considered friends. First off was Jessica of ReadReactReview. One of the big draws of going to Denver was knowing she was going and getting a chance to meet her. I love her blog and her online voice and her sense of humour. So meeting her and getting a chance to spend time with over the weekend, including lunch with her and Sonomalass (I never did get a chance to find out where her "name" came from - I meant to ask her) was a real thrill. And I reminded Jessica that she's yet to become a Crusader - heh, heh, heh, heh. She said soon :-) I also met Limecello who blogs at The Good, The Bad, The Unread, but didn't get a chance to 'hang' with her much. Part of the trouble with it being for such a short time. You meet people you'd like to get a chance to talk to more but it doesn't always work out that way. I also met Kim in Hawaii and again didn't get a chance to talk to her too much - but she will be in Orlando so we will have to fix that!! She won a gorgeous box of goodies at one of the events.

I didn't stay for the dance on Friday night - I was just too tired and it was much later for me than what the clock said it was.

And I think that wraps things up for the first day! And I'm a getting tired and just might be able to sleep now - it's raining here and being off on a working day when it's raining is one of those comfort things isn't it?

11 comments:

azteclady said...

So happy you are back--and hopefully getting some much needed rest!

*waiting to hear more*

RRRJessica said...

Hi Kristie!

It was SO great to meet you. I wish we had more time to talk, but I am posting a list of the great things about #RomCon and that lunch is going on it.

Also, even though I am totally exhausted from driving home in the middle of the night, white knuckled, eyes peeled for moose (yes, I am paranoid. But I also live in central Maine!), I would get on a plane in a heartbeat to go to Orlando and see you again. Next year in New York!!


ps. and I promise, pinky swear, to become a Crusader before the end of the summer.

pps. notice I did not say which summer.

ppps. I read The Naked Edge on plane home and loved it. Thank you for introducing me to Pamela Clare!

Mary G said...

Glad you enjoyed Kristie. Pamela Clare - sigh - she's so awesome.
Lucky you.

Scorpio M. said...

Great write-up! I was so jealous of the PC Reality tour. I kept reading all the Tweets and all this Ranger Rick chatter...hmm, was he cute? LOL.

I had planned to attend RomCon but had scheduling conflicts, I hope it will be in Denver again.

Glad you got home safe & sound. :)

SonomaLass said...

It was great to meet you too, Kristy! Lunch was fun, and it was brave of you to hang out with Team Cucumber on Saturday night.

Wendy said...

SonomaLass is a Northern California girl - hence the nickname. That's the reason I've always "assumed" at any rate. But you know what they say about assuming!

I can't wait to have a nice, long chat with you at RWA about all the conferences you've been to this year. I want pros, cons, gossip etc. RWA tends to win out for me for "work related" reasons - but I'm really curious about the others :)

Pamela Clare said...

I’m happy you made it home safely, Kristie. Seeing you again was delightful! Wish I’d had more time to chat with you.

And I’m so glad you had a good time on the tour. I so desperately did not want to bore anyone. I’m glad you all were able to see the high peaks. :-)

I think Jackie got some Ranger Rick pics.

Scorpio, you’ll just have to come next year. :-)

RRRJessica, I'm so glad you enjoyed NAKED EDGE.

Mary G, thanks. You’re so sweet!

Leslie said...

Sounds like it was fun but exhausting, which seems to be the thing with the conferences. :)

Kim in Baltimore said...

Aloha, Kristie! So glad to meet you! Yes, we'll get together in Orlando! Glad you enjoyed Pamela Clare's tour - on Thursday night, I dined with Pamela, Cathy and Sarah (two readers on the tour), so I heard about the preparatoin. Pamela was so excited to share her world with her readers. And that's the best part of RomCon - all authors wanted to share their world with readers!

nath said...

At least, you made it on time :D I'm so glad you didn't miss your flight or the bus or anything!

So cool that you got to hang out with so many great authors and that Ms Clare was your tour guide!

Well at least, the not so good didn't have much to do with the convention itself, that's pretty good :)

Hope you had the day off today :D

orannia said...

Am glad you're home safe and sound and fingers crossed you sleep tonight. Sounds like an amazing first day!