This weekend was an odd mix; not sure I enjoyed the trip, but all in all I’m glad I went, since the movie was good.
We set out Friday as soon as Chase got home from work — after several stops (gas, dinner, snacks, stretching legs, changing drivers, etc — you’d think it was a 9 hour drive the way we kept stopping! It wasn’t much more than Memphis-Nashville.), we finally pulled into the hotel around 10:30. Our hotel was unusual, I really loved the lobby, it was very old-fashioned and even had a barber shop downstairs. It was very cozy and I liked the lobby a lot. We got checked in, went around and found the parking garage, and carried our bins and stuff up to our room. We were on the top floor… and when we got up there, couldn’t find our room. We finally figured out that some of the rooms were outside – there were doors leading out onto a balcony, and some of the rooms were out there. It was kinda neat, the balcony had a nice view… however our room was another story. It was clean, but it was seriously only one step up from a cheap motel – the comforter was dirty, the bathroom was one of those teeny-tiny closets one person can just barely fit in… also – no internet. No wireless, and they were out of cables.
I could have dealt with that – but the AC in the room wouldn’t work. We had it cranked all night… but it never got cool. It was pretty icky. On top of that, the room smelled weird.
(I’m not trying to make this a whole post about the hotel, but all of this comes into play later!)
Saturday morning we got up and ordered room service, which was the best part of our stay at the hotel – it was good, quick, cheap and the lady who brought it was really nice. I put on my officer uniform and we loaded up the car and headed over to the other hotel – about 15 minutes away – where we would all be changing. The other hotel was in the same parking lot as the theater where we would be trooping – which raised the question, why didn’t we stay there? It was much nicer and right there! Turns out it was sold out. Oh well.
We met up with Matt, the marketing guy and he let us into the changing room. I got Chase into Vader and we headed over to the theater at 10 for some media stuff… and no one was there. Turns out they’d changed the schedule and hadn’t notified anyone with the our group. It didn’t bother us much, we just went back and changed! We went back to our hotel and met up with the other troopers.The Heart of an Empire guys took us all out to lunch at Chili’s, very kind, and then we again went back to our hotel where we got a private viewing of the movie.
The movie itself was good. I hope everyone at some time gets to see it.
Afterwards, I got back in my officer costume and we went baaaaack to the hotel by the theater, Chase got back into Vader.. this time it was a lot more crowded since everyone was trying to change in there! We got Chase dressed, got outside to walk to the theater… and it was raining.
Chase tried to duck into the passenger seat of the bug, but no go… we ended up popping the trunk, he perched just inside it, and rode over to the theater like that. It was one of the oddest things I’ve ever done, driving Vader around in the trunk of my VW bug.
This time the theater was pretty packed. We got lots of pics right away, and until the other troopers got there, got a few weird looks. The festival organizers were wonderful, they were really kind to us and came up and thanked us for being there several times. Also gave us passes to get into everything going on at the festival. Since it was raining, Chase and I stood under the overhang in front of the theater, just kinda hanging around, taking pics with people. The rest of the guys came over a few minutes later, and people flipped out. It was a lot of fun, we got a lot of questions, and probably 3/4 the people there taking pics with us had no idea about the movie, or why we were there, so we got to explain it several times.
Once the movie started, we went back over to the hotel and got Chase out of Vader, then went off in search of food. I wasn’t feeling that great and really needed to eat – we ended up just going to a little mexican place right in the parking lot. It was good, and fast. Went back over and hung out with everyone in the room until time to get suited back up. Since it had stopped raining, didnt have to drive Vader this time š
I slept horribly, my sinus headache came back and I tossed and turned, plus is was horribly hot in the room. Chase woke up around 2 AM, I was already awake and contemplating going downstairs and asking at the front desk where the heck I could get some advil or something. Chase said he was burning up and was starting to feel weird. He said, “You wanna go?”
I said, “yes, please.”
So we got up, changed clothes, packed up, and went and checked out! We were back on the road by 2:30AM. LOL. We stopped at a gas station where I got some medicine, then I managed to fall asleep until we got halfway – Grenada. When I woke up I felt much better, and pretty awake, too. So we switched out, I drove us back into Memphis and Chase slept. We got in at 6:30 and promptly went right back to sleep.
We were really glad we went ahead and went home. I never would have slept all right without getting something for my head (pisses me off, I had one of these sinus headaches last sat at midsouthcon, too — I need to remember to take stuff with me from now on, just in case… although it’s usually just this time of year when I get them). We probably wouldn’t have gotten home til around 2 pm if we’d followed out original plan. Chase said he thinks it was that weird smell in the room, whatever it was, that was making him feel bad, he said he felt like he was having some kind of reaction to it, because as soon as he was out of the room, he started feeling better. He also says he’s going to write a letter to the hotel complaining about the air conditioner situation. That’s what made the whole room so unbearable, really — how hot it was in there.
So anyway, the pictures for the event are in my 2007 Trooping Folder. Mostly troopers standing around, you know the deal.
I feel like I’ve just whined a whole lot about this whole event, but I did enjoy it, we were treated wonderfully, and movie was great, it was just that dang hotel. LOL.