Goodness, where do I start? This past weekend was such a blast and adventure. Might as well tell it in order as a story of sorts X3

Got on the train early Thursday morning. Opted for the train to make it part of the adventure and save some money in the process. Was very comfortable all the way to Chicago and the food on board was quite tasty. I think the theme would be "Amtrak: Quietly one-upping every major airline". The only drawback would be that it's not as rapid. Knowing that, I would probably line up my schedules a little better as most of the timing issues were my own bad and not the fault of them. But it was almost magical at times seeing the countryside going by and met some interesting folks along the way.

Got in Friday morning and met up with  agentgrimm, who I was rooming with along with  anjuneko and  leonkatlovre in one of the secondary hotels, which made for a bit of a walk, but wasn't too bad. Leon was down getting ready for the Artists' Alley at the time, so I wasn't able to catch up with him until later in the day. Also met up with  padunk,  swiftjames,  tabykat, and  limitedvision before they needed to head to the basement to get ready for the Artists' Alley as well. Was great to see Taby again and meet Padu, Swift, and Skee in person for the first time ^^

After registering, I waited in line for the dealers den to open and happened to cross paths with  wintersnowolf and  littlebluewolfleo. To pass the time while we waited out the last few minutes before the door opened, I offered to have Rain do a quick sketch in my sketchbook, since I had it with me ^^ I hope to have that scanned and posted sometime soon, in addition to other sketches I had done. I'll have some previews of those on my Twitter later tonight, hopefully.

Much of Friday midday was spent just catching folks I could find and saying hello and getting the lay of the building and dealer/artist rooms figured out. So many artists I know of that I kept seeing o3o A squeaky possum was I. The evening was spent hanging out with the Swifts and sketching before Grimm, Anju, and I departed back to our room with Leon before turning in for the night.

Saturday started a bit early, heading to the Artist Alley with the goal of getting an image from  strype, though I'll admit I was a bit nervous since I'd never had the chance to get art from him before. Anju gave me a few nudges of encouragement to follow through while I stood there pondering ideas. I'm very glad he did, as the result that I picked up later that afternoon was so very worth it~ owo

Bought a couple other things in the dealers' rooms and wandered around some more, watching the suit parade with Anju before heading up to get some rest then meeting up with Padu and crew to go get some Chicago deep dish pizza. After getting back, Padu and James decided to call it a night, since Taby was already worn out from the day and sleeping by that point. So, bidding goodnight, Grimm and I headed up to hang out with  badgerben,  popalopolis,  blyzzarde,  ritts,  rowyin, Leon, Anju, and several others who's names escape me at the moment, up in one of the suites. Sat around and watched them draw for a while before Grimm, Anju, and Leon started to wear out to the point that they wanted to head back to get ready for bed. Being the odd one out in that regard, I was fine to stay up longer and continue hanging out, but I decided to tag along back rather than try and sneak in a late hour once they were asleep. Out in the hall, we thought someone had spilled something while doing some cleaning. We shrugged and carried on, opting to take the skybridge series back since it had already been rather cold and breezy when we'd been out for pizza several hours prior, and I hadn't taken the bridges yet during the convention. What a decision that proved to be. As we crossed the first one, we saw a bunch of emergency vehicles down below pulling up to the main building's entrance, with more coming down the road. That's when we started to realize that something might be more amiss than we had thought. Sure enough, by the time we got back to our place, siren after siren could be heard racing down the street as the main hotel started to be cleared out. It seemed like half of Chicago was showing up to take care of the situation. We kept in touch with folks as things became known.

I still marvel at how good our timing was with the event o.o; I had several people get in touch about my safety and wellbeing, both during the incident and the next morning, and for that I'm grateful. I really appreciate that, guys. As shown above, I could have just as easily been caught up in the thick of it had a couple things been just a tiny bit different, as we had been up near where it started. I'm just glad everyone was alright when all was said and done.

Anyway, next day we headed over to resume the convention and see how things had faired and get updates. Helped Padu, James, and Skee empty their room so they could check out. Artist Alley was pretty quiet since many were sleeping in after being evac'd that night. Crossed paths with  geckoguy123456789, who gave me his last couple buttons that he'd been passing out to artists X3 That was a cool surprise, indeed, as I also hadn't realized until the day before that he was even attending, me being tipped off that he was around after seeing his buttons at the tables of a few folks.

After parting with Gecko, I picked up a couple more things in the dealers' room before we all went up to hang out and draw for a bit more before Padu, James, and Skee had to leave for their flight. In the process, saw Strype again, as well as  daigo,  iko, and a couple others ^^ After seeing them off, a few of us met back up with Ben's group and we drew some more and watched a few movies before finally parting ways to get our respective bags packed up to head out. Got a couple more sketches in my book by that point, as well, in addition to asking Leon about a couple of his prints and getting two of them.

Monday was pretty uneventful as I watched the remaining part of our groups trickle out the doors to head home, myself being the last to leave since my train wasn't until evening. The trip itself was likewise uneventful for the first part of the journey, though as a neat highlight, a gentleman offered to pay for my dinner after I let him tag along with my reservation in the dining coach. He said he'd pay and to just go ahead and pick whatever I wanted o.o I was quite surprised and thankful. 't was very polite of him to offer.

Tuesday got interesting, as we stopped near a station in Maryland to give a few passengers a smoke break a couple blocks from the station. As we started forward to continue to the station, the train suddenly lurched to a halt, the conductor coming up shortly after to demand to know who had pulled the emergency brake. Turned out one of the passengers, rather than wait and catch up with the train once it had stopped again, had opened an additional door on the way out -- which was already breaking the rules -- and had jumped back aboard and yanked the cord (at least, from what we could gather from the reports by the crew as they got things going again later). Since no one was quick to own up, we got delayed a full hour, police involved and everything. But, once he was found out and removed from the train, we got back underway, though the crew was certainly fuming, as almost undoubtedly the crews of two delayed freight trains that were just up the tracks were, too. There's a reason pulling that brake cord is taken so seriously.

But aside of that, got home with few other issues. Just a weather delay on an inbound train to DC where it was to pick folks up to continue south.

*Whew* So there's my convention journal X3 Probably my longest in quite a while. As I said, I'll see about scanning the sketches sometime soon and getting them posted. I'll drop a link here for the Twitter previews when I get that done, as well. (Edit: Twitter link https://twitter.com/IdahoFox/status.....22178779406336 ) And pardon me if I left out a name or two. So many cool peeps that I met, and still others I wanted to but wasn't able to, that I've just been losing track trying to remember them all o.o;

Anyway, take care all ^^ And perhaps we can do it again next year~ I had a blast!~