PCA Conference 3

My travelling caught up to me on Friday. I went to the first session, but then skipped two to go for a run and some necessary shopping. I still met up with the group from the night before for breakfast though, but declined their offer to go to the zoo. We agreed to meet at poolside later, then go to dinner, but the zoo group didn’t make it back in time, and a smaller group of us went for margaritas at happy hour at TGIF. I don’t quite remember what I actually ate there… Overall, it was an uneventful day.

The first two sessions on Saturday morning were interesting, and I spent some time in the book vendor room (had to keep reminding myself to only look – I didn’t have any extra luggage space!), then caught a noon ferry to Coronado Island. I love ferries. Actually, I love travelling on the water, period. Growing up in the prairies, then living in the foothills of the mountains, water and water travel still holds a fascination for me. And at $2, the price was right. Half of Coronado Island is taken up by the military base, with the other half divided between homes of the ultra-rich, and a tourist trap of restaurants, gift shops, and bicycle rental shops. But just because you’re in a tourist trap, doesn’t mean you need to spend money, and I enjoyed a wander around the perimeter to the ocean side.

The houses on the island are decadently beautiful, and I immensely enjoyed the experience of wandering though immaculate neighbourhoods, smelling hibiscus and lemon trees, and ignoring the fact that this unreal vision of a city street was a far cry from any place I had ever lived (or even where the vast majority of the human population live).

I did find myself wishing I hadn’t listened to the weather forecast that said it was going to rain all week and had brought shorts instead, since the weather was fine and sunny, but by the time I got back to downtown, the wind had come up and made the ferry ride over the water chilly enough to be glad of the sweater and pants I had with me.

Disorganization struck again at dinner time. We (the Stephen King people) were supposed to meet in the lobby and go for dinner together, and I found one other King person, but neither of us saw anyone else who we recognized (and I’d been to enough of the panels to know most everyone by sight at least). So there we were a half hour later, hungry, and ready to give up on everyone else. Which we did.

We wandered the Gaslamp district, trying to find someplace that looked reasonably priced, not too loud, and not too spicy… an Irish pub seemed like just the place. Well, the not too spicy was borne out, as was the reasonably priced, but the place rapidly became so loud that we couldn’t hear each other from across the table. We decided desert would have to be somewhere else, and continued wandering, coming across a place that was part bar/part restaurant. We specifically chose it because it was almost whisper quiet and it was possible to have a good conversation. Within a half hour however, the restaurant tables were cleared away, a dance floor set up, a sound system jacked in, and bouncers with red velvet ropes deployed onto the sidewalk. Within another fifteen minutes, the collective length of women’s skirts was reduced by half, the music doubled, then trebled in volume, and then they turned it up even louder. It was time to go. The blood on the sidewalk in front of the same place as I passed it the next morning said that leaving had probably been a good call.

So I came home.