Well, I’m on my way to San Diego. Actually, the trip started yesterday since my flight leaves at 7am, and with the latest fiascos in air travel and increased security I decided that it would be a lot easier to just stay the night in Baton Rouge last night. We found a hotel about two minutes from the Baton Rouge airport, which meant that I was able to sleep a tetch later (though I still got up before 4 am. Ugh.)

This morning Jack dropped me off at the Baton Rouge airport, and I headed in to wrangle my way through security.

I’m sorry, but the “new restrictions” are such a friggin joke.

Anyway.

I got checked in, delivering over my two suitcases stuffed full of far more clothing than I will ever conceivably need for a week, and went in search of coffee. There was a café down by ticketing, but the woman informed me that she was just opening and could only sell me a cup of coffee if I had exact change. I asked her if there was some place to buy coffee past security and she said that there was not, but since I had nothing smaller than a five dollar bill, and did not need coffee quite THAT badly, I decided to take my chances on whether she knew what she was talking about.

I made it through the screening without any trouble. Again, I say that security in the US is a joke, however I will say that the big advantage to flying out of a smaller airport (as opposed to an international airport like New Orleans) is that all of the workers and security people are incredibly friendly. Maybe they don’t get burned out as quickly? Anyway, just past security I saw a little food place, where I was able to obtain a muffiny-thing, a bag of cookies (which I stuck in my bag for later, since airlines don’t feed you anymore), and a cup of coffee. However, the coffee was so execrable, that I’m thinking that the women in the first café knew exactly what she was talking about.

In about twenty more minutes I’ll be boarding my flight to Atlanta. Yep, I have to fly east first, before I get to fly west. [insert eye roll.] Time for one last bathroom break before I go.

**

Okay, I’m in San Diego now, but I’ll recap the last several hours. My flight from Baton Rouge to Atlanta landed about ten minutes early, which delighted me since I had only an hour for my layover and I knew I had to go to a different concourse for my next flight. Unfortunately, even though it landed early, it didn’t get to the gate early. In fact we sat on the taxiway for almost half an hour waiting for our gate to clear so we could deplane. We sat about fifty feet from our gate. I emphasize this, because when we finally were able to pull up to our gate, we ended up going down the steps to the concrete, where we then walked over to the stairs at the gate. In other words, for half an hour we waited fifty feet away from where we could be allowed to walk across the concrete. [insert eye roll]

I thought I was going to miss my connecting flight, or at least my luggage would, but it turned out that the flight to San Diego was delayed by nearly 45 minutes while they did a security sweep on the plane and the passengers. The flight itself was uneventful, and I got to see Mission Impossible3 (silly movie, but it killed two hours of flight time), and four hours later I landed in San Diego. I made my way down to baggage claim, and found the person (Tiffany) with the big sign saying, “Writers and Illustrators of the Future.” And that’s where it started to get really fun.

After claiming my bags (which amazingly made it!) we headed out to meet our ride… but then had to go back inside and redo the whole “meeting my ride” thing, because it all had to be recorded for posterity. [g] From that point on, it was lots of pictures and video, which got to be a real kick once I got used to the concept that I was probably having my picture taken at any given second. Lee Beavington was also being picked up at the same time, and we were going to wait for Michail Velichansky, but his flight was delayed, so we took off without him. After a quick stop to eat a late lunch (I was STARVING!! They don’t feed you on airplanes anymore except for some dinky snacks) we finally made it to the hotel, where we were once again photoed and videoed exiting the car, entering the hotel, checking in, walking down the hallway, entering the room… you get the idea. But once I made it to my room and dutifully posed for some more pictures, I was finally left to my own devices and told to rest.

Whew!

So, I’m here! Yay!! I have every intention of keeping this blog updated during the workshop, so… watch this space!