We had an AMAZING time in California. I will perhaps detail the awesomeness of Further Confusion at a later date, but first,  the_gneech needs to upload the video for  graveyardgreg's karaoke. Because it was just the best thing on a Sunday morning.

And the erotic donut. And meeting all the west coast folks I hadn't met yet but have known online for a decade+. And selling out of all my handbound books. And my goodness, guys, it was the best furry con I've been to in years :D I still have a callus on my right hand from drawing so much!

After the con,  tugrik,  spotweld and I drove down the coast to Disneyland. We tiki'd it up at Don the Beachcomber's, then tiki'd it up at Trader Sam's the following night ;) And Disneyland was an amazing amount of fun for everyone. Disney's California Adventure has grown up SO MUCH since the last time I was there (not too long after it opened). Cars Land is completely and utterly perfect, and my favorite land by far, probably of both California parks (and any land that can beat out Adventure Land, for me, is definitely worth taking note of!) and also probably of all Disney parks I've been to (which is 6 total; haven't gone overseas...yet). It is immersive and gorgeous, like you stepped into the movie. The only comparable land I can think of is Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Anyway, we got a ton of photos, and I'm gonna be taking the one of all three of us being dorky in front of the castle and put it on the fridge probably ;)

Spot and I got a romantic and snuggly Thursday to ourselves, finding a cute little hotel in Marina Del Rey, and just puttered around Hollywood and Anaheim. We saw Mann's Chinese Theater, plowing through the people trying to shove stuff at you (Hollywood: the Times Square of the west), and got a sundae at the Disney soda fountain there. We had lunch at Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant, which I am pretty sure has not changed at all since the last time I went there...25 years ago. I bought a silly amount of boysenberry candy. We picked up donuts from Randy's (the classic GIANT DONUT), chicken & waffles from Roscoe's, and found a little artisan brewery called Three Weavers that had a yuzu IPA that was bizarrely good (and I don't like IPAs). It was an amazing day.

Then, yesterday was filled with travel stress. The hotel's cute little parking lot had double parking where you were supposed to leave your key with the front desk. The guy who parked behind us...didn't. So despite being ready to leave at 4:30am, we couldn't until 5:30am due to having to tow the car out of the spot...and our boarding time was 6:30am. I didn't suggest that they crush the truck into a cube, but I wanted to quite badly.

Luckily, LAX's baggage check and security lines run like clockwork because of the sheer size of the airport. We got to our gate just as boarding started. We got to BWI at 2:45, grabbed a lunch at Duclaw (one of my favorite breweries ever, but I grew up in Maryland so...), went through security again, and waited. Our flight was set to leave at 6:45pm.

Then 6:55.

Then 7:05.

Then they cancelled it.

Not for weather reasons, despite an apparent incoming snowstorm. No, apparently there were simply too many planes, so they rescheduled it. This is the weirdest and most inconvenient method I can think of for this; why on earth was the plane even originally scheduled for that time? Surely they knew the schedule of everything going in and out of the airport.

So we got in line to wait for new tickets, for a flight due to leave at 10:05.

Then it got delayed to 10:40.

Then they loaded up the plane and there was a mechanical error, so we were stuck on the tarmac for another hour, hour-and-a-half.

We finally got into our home airport at around 1am.

The reason I booked us a ridiculously early flight out of California was so that we'd be home before midnight. Clearly, someone in the universe thought it would be funny and ironic for that plan to fail -- sigh!

We pulled into our driveway at around 2am, rolled in all our luggage, and then passed out.

It was an AMAZING trip, guys. But I'm totally taking this weekend off to recover, mostly from yesterday's travel fiasco! New art, a better con report, etc., will start on Monday...assuming I don't get the vacation crud ;)