Ok let’s get this thing over with!
Wednesday morning we were up before the sun, headed over to Ash’s house to pick her up. This was absolutely the tightest packing job we’ve ever had…
That’s my purple duffel bag shoved in sideways in the front, which resulted in my (somewhat pricey) makeup remover spilling everywhere. Thankfully I keep all spillables in a bag but i had to wash everything else that was in it when we got to Atlanta. Yuck!
Anyway we are thinking next year we may have to go back to renting.
But we made good time, stopped at Buc-ee’s for lunch (and I finally got to get that chicken sandwich again but I don’t think it was exactly the same.)
Not long after we left Buc-ee’s, we got into a traffic jam. Like deadstopped for nearly an hour. People were out of their cars talking to each other trying to figure out what was going on. The folks in the car in front of us were dancing and recording tiktoks and we made new friends LOL
Finally traffic started to move again and it turned out to be a truck fire causing the slow down.
Finally made it into Atlanta an hour later than planned but at least here. While check-in went quickly (way faster than last year), I don’t understand why marriott has everything set up in the Bonvoy app where you can check-in, it can tell you your room is ready, have a mobile key, but still makes you go to the front desk?
12th floor. Even at this lower height I still had a migraine all weekend, couldn’t get any lower without Marriott’s “LOW FLOOR UPGRADE of $100/night” scam act.
The previous occupants of the room left us a treat in the mini fridge:
We didn’t have room for our mini-fridge this year – and the marriott mini-fridge just don’t get cold enough. Bummer. Oh well. We didn’t end up eating or drinking most of the food we brought with us this year. Didn’t even open the alcohol. Lesson learned for next year.
Did a walk around, saw friends, ended up at Trader Vic’s with some VERY strong drinks.
We had planned to walk to Max Lager’s for dinner but were too tipsy so we took an uber LOL Dinner was good and then we did manage to walk back.
Cath arrived right about then so we went down to find her, then I helped Ash take all her stuff up their room on the – I think it was the 46th floor?? wow.
On the trek up with Ash’s bags her necklace broke. We retraced out steps and thankfully found the missing part on the 10th floor!
Thursday we got up and headed to badge pick-up.
I wore my Marvel outfit. Pick-up went fairly fast though it was HOT in the ballrooms especially in masks.
There’s me on the quick start guide with George Perez (crying emoji)
After a quick lunch I got into Padme..
Chase was doing a photoshoot with a friend at Hardy ivy so I tagged along so I could photos too. Ash headed to the blood drive while we did that.
The only thing that kept me alive in this was my little motorized fan.
I already talked about the issues I had with this costume in the other post – nothing major just annoying.
We headed back to the Hyatt to meet up with Ash and stumbled into the ribbon swap. We didn’t have any ribbons to give but we were given some.
How many years now am I going to say I want to make badge ribbons to share and then forget to do it? Next year I swear.
I DID remember my swag and seek stuff, I brought all the stickers I’d gotten for kevin to pick for his water bottle for disney and set them out in the skywalk for people to take.
Some more friday afternoon pics:
Ash finally got done donating blood – and didn’t get to! After waiting in line nearly 3 hours! Her heart rate was too high and they declined. She was not happy.
Friday night I threw on Diane, we went to Big Kahuna for dinner and then just walked around and eventually found a place to sit in the Hilton.
Turns out the place we found to sit in the Hilton was the SCF Old Farts meet-up which I’d wanted to go to anyway so I got to say hi to some folks and be in the group pic LOL
Friday dawned already feeling like Sunday. I got into Bespin Leia for the Luke photoshoot and Chase got into his new TLJ Luke.
His Luke looked great. We had really nice weather for the shoot too.
Pic by David Skirmont
Then we went and changed and headed to the dealer’s room.
Ash joined us partway thru our excursion after heading to a panel.
Here’s what I got!
Then Chase got into Luke again, I put on Raddus Leia and off we went to the big Star Wars shoot.
After roasting up on the steps we skipped the smaller break off photoshoots and we found a corner to take some pics.
Love this one
Then we went to change because we were sweaty messes and got into our Bob Burger’s outfits.
We’ve already all talked about upgrades which I think I touched on in my costume post.
Random friday night pics:
Jon! I left a sticker in tribute.
What do you call a herd of Tinas? A buttload of Tinas?
Saturday we were up early and getting into the Dune costumes. The fb event said 10:30 so that’s what we aimed for. I think it was actually at 11:30 and fb didn’t change the time zone.
We did get to take advantage of a totally empty Hilton patio for some photos.
Although I’m still kicking myself for not getting more – especially not getting any video content while I was in an area with the veils all un-bustled and nobody around.
So then we just hung around waiting on everybody else.
Love this shot from Bill from the shoot.
Another from Bill, what a great turnout.
Funny thing is I had told Ash “Remember SDCC 2006 when I was in my TK and Chase was in Vader and we were both totally incapable of doing anything but walking and you had to help us with everything? Yeah it’s gonna be that again.” And back at SDCC 2006, my hand plate had fallen off and I had to just have Ash come take it in the middle of the shoot. She had to do the same thing here with Chase’s upper arm armor LOL
Ash is Dune too
We chilled out inside for a bit cooling off.
Also found this little baby Groot and we got to pick tiny baby dragons??
So cool.
Then we did a really cool photoshoot I’ll show yall later.
Then off to get changed. We had lunch and a nap.
I put on Wanda for the rest of the night. We checked out the Walk of Fame and the costume exhibit.
Decided to do Sear for dinner – before the con, Cath had asked “do you need a reservation for Sear?” Me: “I’ve never had to before, we’ve literally walked in every year before this and hardly had a wait.” This year? They insisted we needed reservations so we had to wait an extra 2 hours for our “reservation”.
Tried to hit up the little store for drinks before bed but it was already closed. Boo!
Sunday morning I got up and taped my entire front section for Padme.
Thankfully I actually felt… pretty ok for Sunday morning at dragoncon?
Went out and took pics in front of the fountain to recreate my pics from 20 years ago.
Then hung around the lobby for a bit before changing and heading to the dealer’s room again for a bit. I wore Fires of Pompeii Donna which was nice and comfy and meant I actually wore everything I brought LOL
Though when it was time to leave the dealer’s room it was raining cats and dogs. We waited on it to let up then made a run for it, only to get dumped on by the time we got right in front of the hyatt. That was fun.
In all my 20 years at dragoncon I can only think of one other time it rained and rained good and that was 2003.
After the dealer’s room I had one tiny schedule opening where I could re-wear either Padme or Jessica. I went with Jessica since it was cooler (temp wise) and I wanted more pics.
Also I did manage to wear the platforms (the “bad shoes” for over an hour). But this is where I gave up:
and walked back to the room in my socks LOL
After that it was a chore to get into my LAST COSTUME OF THE WEEKEND – really only because I didn’t want to do the boots. but I did, I got into Crusher and I’m glad I did because people always respond well to it.
We popped back into the walk of fame and LOVED all the tape art someone had did since the day before:
Then we went to Big Kakuna for dinner again and got a steady drip of water right on our table LOL
So yeah the Hilton flooded and so did Big kahuna a bit. What’s going on down there, does this happen every time it rains?
Then Cath, Ash and I went on a walk around the 3 hotels.
Monday morning we were up early again, finished packing and got out of there before it got busy.
The bell hop who helped us load the car was Tetris champion – everything fit better on the way home than it did on the way down.
Stopped at Buc-ee’s again.
Made it home by afternoon, had naps, kitty cuddles and Panera for dinner.
For the past week I’ve been letting myself be lazy. Or rather forcing myself, all weekend I kept trying to find things to do. But I successfully did nothing except record a couple of tiktoks.
I have SLIGHTLY unpacked… that is, I brought stuff upstairs from the bin so I could lighten it and then bring the whole thing up – but nothing is put away yet. Ill start doing that this week.
Friday we did go to Spirit Halloween.
And got this.
Saturday Chase had a video shoot so I had planned to play sims all day. Since i just got the high school expansion I decided I needed a new twilight family. Downloaded this Bella Swan from the gallery and she looked normal until you got to the winter outfit.
WTF? Her eyes are red, too.
If you think I changed that you are wrong, that’s awesome.
But just as I was settling in play, Chase called, his video shoot location had a ton of poison ivy and he wanted some pants. So I drove the 40 minutes out to the remote location to take him some pants. No regrets because I got to see this awesome abandoned 30s-era camp site that is normally blocked off to regular folks.
The totally creepy road
Cabin
And I got to pet a dog sooooo
Last night we ordered dinner on doordash. Chase really wanted wings. We picked a place called “It’s Just Wings” and Chase ordered. The driver picked up the food, then we got a “your order has been canceled due to unexpected driver” something or another. WTF? They gave us a credit and Chase was going to re-order at the same place but decided to call them first to make sure it wasn’t an issue with the restaurant. Turns out “It’s Just Wings” is just freaking Chili’s. So we didn’t order from there again, I said the universe must have been saving us from Chili’s LOL.
Ordered from another wing joint, took forever to arrive, and then the dasher left it at our neighbor’s house. Ugh.
Reminds me why we don’t do doordash much anymore.
Anyway, next weekend is MCX so I gotta figure out what to wear. Then family vacay! YAY!