Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Apr 26, 2004

15/16 April: Pre-Convention Part 1

Filed in BX Convention 2004, Book Crossing

15 April

Sometime after nine I heard female-sounding footsteps and the unmistakable sound of heavy luggage being dragged along. I thought, “I bet I know who that is,” and was halfway to the door before the knock came. Tzurriz arrived, big smile, looked knackered. She had books. Lots of them. ;-)

We did basic helloes, but after talking on LJ for a while there wasn’t much need for ice-breaking. She was hungry; I’d only had a vending machine dinner, so was up for something real. So, first we tried the 24-hour diner I had seen on the way up, only to realise it really wasn’t open. So then we saw that the Holiday Inn had a restaurant, so we gave that a shot. We
had half an hour until it closed, and being classy, they let us sit around eating long after it closed to new diners.

Nice hotel, too.

So we chatted, and got to know one another a bit, and laughed, and ate. The waitress was great and had a genuine sense of humour. The food was good, too.

Then we went back to the room and it wasn’t long before bedtime. Was going to read but got chatting instead. It was kind of like being at school camp - lots of things to blather about, and the sleep can wait. Pretty fun.

16 April 2004

Woke up way too early, especially given the time zone change. Went down for the free doughnuts and coffee because the cleaning crew never bothered to clean out the coffee machine properly or replace the coffee. Tzurriz bumped into jfroebe and so I got to meet him and we chatted a bit. Packed our bags, checked out, went to the next hotel down the street, and as it was (sort of) too early to check in, let them hide the bags for us. We got to hang out in his room (he got there early this morning) and look at strange reality shows and gadgetry. We talked and expressed disgust about the not-so-great Book Burning Controversy and got to peek a bit at stuff like email and the forums. When I realised that I had received 40 emails in the two days I was away, I decided to not even think about it at this stage. ;-)

First impressions of Jason: very smart, wicked (and moderately sick ;-) sense of humour, quiet on the surface but I don’t think his *mind* ever goes quiet. He has a vivid imagination. ;-) He’s also a gentleman: see below.

Sonora was there needing help to bring in boxes and goodie bags, so we all helped. Jason seemed to get most of the boxes. There was a certain amount of moving up and down elevators and along corridors to deliver Stuff. Voyager, her husband, showed up too. They were staying in the hotel for the weekend. I also met Marina (w), First-Noel, solittletime, and a couple of others. There just didn’t seem to be any ice-breaking like when you meet strangers; all of us have gabbled on so much online that it just felt like going from a 2-D friendship to a 3-D friendship. We laughed a lot.

I particularly enjoyed bumping into TracyShannon because of our mutual friendship with AmberLee and the fact that she is a seriously cool lady. :-)

I quickly heard that Voyager has a motorcycle and had ridden it here, so got to check it out. 1300cc Kawasaki Voyager - it was very cool indeed! Another fun vehicle to admire was Jason’s BX-mobile: an SUV in Book Crossing yellow with book crossing gadgets (licence plate, cling, etc) and a nice penguin (Tuxedo the Linux penguin).

The general idea was to head out to lunch. I went down there with Voyager and Sonora, and I believe Marina, somanybooks, and First-Noel. I am pretty sure Grover3d was in there somewhere, but wouldn’t swear to it. For those
who are reading this story and know you were missed, just throw a sponge at me. It was all happening kind of fast and furious and there were a lot of names and places to get used to. ;-)

We headed to University City with lots of cool old buildings, including a Scientology church and a very big old synagogue which just about had to be the B’Nai Temple. The city hall was also an intriguing round building. Before I left, I had noticed a place called Blueberry Hill which I thought was going to be a cool place to eat. I was quite happy when I found out
that we were being taken there. As luck would have it, we found two parking spots together, we pooled quarters for the meter, and off we went down the Delmar Loop Hall of Fame: stars and plaques for all people remotely associated with St. Louis and environs. I had a minor panic attack trying to figure out how all that could possibly fit into Markeroni, and solved it by ignoring it completely. One day when I have a lot of time I can come and log them all, and some very keen Markeroon can log each one individually if they choose. For now, I don’t even want to think about it: it is a landmark geek’s nightmare. ;-)

Blueberry Hill was fun. It’s a rock memorabilia place and the walls are stuffed with dolls, pictures, cards, and well…rock memorabilia. (Duh.) We met with Nelle and Miss Efficiency there, all the way from Toronto. Seating was first-come first-served, but a smart waitress let us know there were some long tables in the darts room that we could take over if
we could handle eating where people smoked. Everyone compromised, and the smoke wasn’t that bad anyway. So we all got to sit together.

A bit later we were joined by The Wheelbarrow (she’s far too nice to be a wheelbarrow, but that’s the name of her nifty Book Crossing project: she pushes a neon yellow barrow round Sonora farmer’s market and it happens to be full of books. ;-)

We had fun, getting to know one another, chatting, and the like. It was kind of loud in there and I quickly lost track, but not to worry. We were just getting to the point of “how the heck do we figure out the bill now” when a few of us ran off and got taken to the basement, down steep horror-movie stairs, to see the locked Elvis Room. Which is a room full of…guess what? You got it. Elvis memorabilia.

When we got back, Jason had paid the entire bill for all of us. Told you he was a gentleman.

With lunch over, the group split into component parts depending on transportation and preference. The zoo seemed awfully tempting, as did access to a vehicle just in case (my foot status was :: ouch ::). So I hooked up with Jason and Tzurriz and we went to the zoo, not too far round the corner. I got acquainted with Tux the Penguin in the back.