Sorry for the delay, but my website has been down due to a change in hosts. Add to that the joys of TGRT itself and that leads to slow updates on my part. I’ve been creating the posts, just not putting them here. Mea Culpa.
To somewhat correct my failures, I’m going to put up all of what I have thus far and work hard to keep up with the updates.
Pre Trip 5/20/24-5/22/24 – Castle Rock, WA
OMG, but the pretrip on the 2024 version of The Great Road Trip is at least twice the headache I’ve had in past trips. My troubles started well before the dates above here but continued until almost the time I left.
Firstly, I found that I had a hole in the skylight in my trailer bathroom. Well, not one hole but at least six that I counted. I didn’t see this until much after the damage when I was at a convention (where it was raining hard) and a rivulet of water rolled across the floor at my feet! It didn’t take long to find the base culprit was the skylight as it was dripping down around the inside portion of the window (double layered).
New skylight, equipment to take old one off, bits and pieces to put the new one down, dry out the space so it doesn’t mold… took nearly two weeks to get it all done.
If that wasn’t enough, my trailer brakes weren’t working. So, I tried adjusting them and that did diddly AND squat. As my time was limited, I took it to Les Schwab to fix them. They told me the wiring was disconnected and they didn’t have the waterproof connectors to fix them. Again, with time to leave limited, I crawled under and connected the wires myself. It wasn’t a difficult job, just rough on my aging body. After some tests, I was finally ready to go from an equipment perspective.
I’ll note that I got a general checkup on the trailer by the same folks as well as a repack of the wheel bearings just a month ago. (this will be important later in the story)
With only three days to launch, I worked like a busy little beaver with a leak in his dam—standard convention load, decide how many extra books to carry for the months, where should they be stored, how should they be stored, clothes, food, toiletries, and so much more!
With my loving wife’s help, I was ready on time… whew! What gymnastics!
5/23-5/24 Castle Rock to Missoula, MT 543 miles
Easy trip all in all. I stopped for a nap in Yakima (I was tired from all the prep work). I intended to stop about 2.5 hours short of Missoula on the first day but the rest area I was counting on was closed. I drove for another hour until I found a truck stop. So the next day was an easy jaunt into Missoula.
5/24-5/27 MisCon Missoula, MT
This convention was a rollercoaster, not because of the con, but because of things going on around the con. Overall, the convention was a bit of a disappointment after the feeding frenzy of last year. I only did about half the gross I did last year. I attribute that to the fact that we had about 30% more vendors than last year. The hotel opened up more space for the convention committee to parse out.
So, what caused the rollercoaster? ♪ He’s going to tell. He’s going to tell. ♫
“No SINGING!”
Oh, alright… Well, when we showed up Friday, I’d planned on setting up and then putting my trailer in the back corner of the parking lot like last year. Best laid plans and all that. The parking lot was filled with shipping containers. The hotel was doing a remodel. There weren’t even a third of the parking spaces from before and the precious space to park my trailer didn’t exist. Shucks and other dirty words.
I unloaded and got mostly set up before I drove around a good portion of the city looking for a place to park my truck and trailer. I eventually found one but I had to bike to the con about 15 minutes away… in the rain… and the cold… in my kilt. At the time, I had no idea where I was spending the night. I did the morning by setting up and the evening by visiting and selling. I went back to my trailer (fortunately still light out), and found a truck stop about 15 minutes away. Off I went and made dinner and had a decent night’s sleep. Good thing for what awaited me in the morning.
On Saturday, I woke up and did my ablutions. I jumped in the truck and drove off toward the con. I had hopes of getting a much closer space because of the signs reserving places M-F. But it didn’t matter. I didn’t get that far. I’m driving down the freeway and someone pulls up alongside me and points back. I look back to see I’m streaming a cloud of white smoke behind me. I waved at the people giving me the information and pulled off. The smoke was coming from my wheels (primarily from the hub where the bearings were (yes, WERE)). Oh, and I’ll note just before this, my car informed me that my brakes were disconnected again.
As Les Schwab did repack (lubing) the bearings, and there was a Les Schwab in Missoula, I took it to them. This wasn’t an auspicious start to TGRT24. On the plus side, I had a place to park. On the minus side, I had to wait to find out exactly what was wrong, what it would cost to fix, and how long it would take… Christ on a cracker! On the plus side, they let me park my beast in their lot and let me camp out there as long as I didn’t do it while they were working on it.
Leaving my lame trailer, I drove back to the con. Late in the afternoon, one of the ConCom members of RadCon showed up and informed me that it is official. I’m to be the Publisher Guest of Honor at RadCon in February 2025!!!! Obviously, it’s early days so we don’t have all the details yet, but I’m tickled pink. Only took 13 years 😊.
So, a very up and down Saturday with sales about equal to Friday.
Sunday was more even-keeled and a slightly better sale day (no data on the trailer as Sunday and Monday the shop was closed for the holiday).
In the end, I did about 2/3rds of what I did last year. From a straw poll from the other vendors, I found they also had the same lower sales. This still makes MisCon a good convention, but a minor disappointment this year.
5/28-29/24 Fixing the TrailerCON Missoula, MT
After running a number of errands during the day, I returned and sat for the afternoon watching nothing being done on the trailer even with the parts lying on the ground next to it. I just kept getting more frustrated. As my wife pointed out, “You think they might have other clients?” Meh… I’m more important (hahaha). As they were about to close up, the guy working on my trailer and I talk and he said he will finish up tomorrow morning.
While I was waiting, I talked to the Mgr who told me that conversations with the other Les Schwab had amounted to… nil. They weren’t going to cut me any break on the price but I could file a claim if I wanted to do so. Sigh…
The original Les Schwab approved my brakes once they were connected. They very recently did the wheel pack on the bearing but didn’t want any of the blame. That’s not like Les Schwab… at all. I’m guessing that I’m going to have to move over to the other Les Schwab franchise store in our area. I can’t trust the one I’ve been doing business with in the future.
Off to a hotel, a cost I’d planned to avoid the whole trip by using the trailer. By this point, I was a zombie. Had some Chinese buffet and into bed by 8:30 and didn’t wake until 6:30… I must have needed the sleep.
As predicted, my technician had my trailer up and ready by 9:30. With a total bill of $1465. Sigh. On the plus side, they only charged me for one hour of labor when I personally watched him put in over six. Now this was more like Les Schwab.
Had many things to accomplish today so spent most of the day in a parking lot working on misc things that every life has 😀
5/30-5/31 Missoula to Spokane 198 miles
One of my friends, Bruce Graw, met me along the way. Bruce is a constant traveler and a consummate geocacher. He had been at a caching event and decided to join me for at least some of my journey.
6/1-3 Lilac City Comic Con
This show was different for me in a number of ways. First, I had a minion (Bruce). That made load in, set up, and load out much easier and quicker. To add to this, I had a vendor booth rather than an artist table. This was more convenient to put everything out, but its location wasn’t stellar. I did get signs made that showed my GOH status for RadCon next year.
Another difference was that I parked my trailer about 3 blocks away from the convention center and just kept it there the whole weekend. This worked quite well.
All in all, the show broke even for me. It was disappointing. I wonder if people were looking for me in the artist alley and not making it to the dealers room/finding me in my little nook that seemed invisible. Something to contemplate for future years.
After loading out and prepping to leave, my buddy and I splurged on a Brazilian Steakhouse. If you’ve never had the pleasure, I highly recommend it. Go with a big appetite. Basically, servers come around all night long with massive skewers of different types of meat and ask you if you want some. Oh, my. A carnivore’s delight!
6/3-6/6 Spokane, WA to Altoona, PA 2344 miles
This was the most difficult of all the trips (at least so far and likely in the future). 14 hour days of driving swapping between Bruce and myself to get there. I’m so thankful for Mr. Graw. I don’t think I’d’ve made it doing it myself.
Even with that, it was drive, drive, drive, sleep. Not much more. Oh, it was nice to have company to chat about things, but the whole trip was a drain. Fortunately, no disasters along the way.
6/7-6/9 SciFi Valley Convention
This was a very large show. Two floors of vendors. And it was more of a media convention than a scifi convention. I was one of only four book vendors and one of only two authors. Unfortunately, a large number of people didn’t seem much interested in books.
The one downfall of this convention is that they put me right under the air conditioning duct for the entire facility. Therefore, it was windy and so cold that I got rid of my kilt and sandals and work a jacket, long pants, and shoes. Even with that by the end of the day, I was wiped from the drain of the cold.
I did make a tiny profit, but nothing to write home about. I am hopeful that some of the people who did buy books will be back to buy more in the future.
6/9-6/10 Altoona, PA to Kettering, OH 359 miles
We chose to leave Sunday night (after a big meal), and also decided to ironman it back to Bruce Graw’s home that “night.” We did pretty well. We spelled one another and held a good long set of conversations to keep us awake. We got in about 2AM.
6/10-6/12 Misc Visiting in Kettering, OH
Nothing much to say here except one thing. I stayed at Bruce’s in my trailer and we went out and had dinner with the Graw family. We watch a couple of movies. The exception to the nothing much was a trip to see the live “Mama Mia.” Bruce invited me and even paid for my ticket.
Let me preface the next section by saying I’ve been to two other live “Mama Mia” shows. They were both the same. They encouraged us to sing along with the songs. As someone who loved much of the ABBA Greatest Hits soundtrack through the eighties, I know many of the songs and do belt out the lyrics. WEEeeeeeeel, this wasn’t the way they did it here. I got told to “shut up” and was politely told not to sing by the usher during intermission. I restrained myself for the rest of the show.
After it was over, I talked to the couple who had asked me to stifle myself (and who also sicced the usher on me). I explained that I’d always seen this as a sing-along. In the end, I apologized for impacting their enjoyment. They were surprised and appreciative of my apology. So, it turned out OK in the end.
6/13-6/14 Kettering, OH to Owensboro, KY 255 miles
This should have been a gentle four-hour trip that turned into an eight-hour marathon. First off, there was a tanker truck that had somehow fallen partially over the barrier between the N/S lanes of I75. It had been there for at least two hours before we came along (taking Bruce to his car in Mason). The delay was significant even that long afterward and the truck was STILL in place when we crept by.
Problem number two: My trailer’s waste water tanks were VERY full and my water was almost gone. I had mapped to a dump station. The place was closed (even at 11 on a Thursday). The dump locked and I didn’t even see potable water. Finding another one was out of the way. I did finally find a “pay station” but it put me almost two hours behind schedule. But, at least I was ready to travel again.
Wonderful issue number three: Remember when my wife asked me to have a drama-free trip? I’d already had a major issue with my trailer. So I got another joyful fun item… the dreaded “check engine” light on my dashboard.
I spent another couple of hours finding out what it was (Diesel Exhaust Filter Failure). Unfortunately, no local Ram dealer could get my truck in until late next week. On the good side, this failure only degrades my gas mileage rather than being debilitating. I called ahead to Norman, OK (my stop next weekend) and got an appointment to get it fixed there.
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