We leave St. Cloud around two-ish. Jared is the trip's official chauffer, Amber is the official navigator and I'm stuck in the back essentially little more than ballast, although I do pull a little "make sure the piles of luggage stay in one place and don't fly forward, hitting the driver in the back of the head, sending the car careening off of the road to crash in a pile of flames" duty every once in a while, (every time we pull a sharp turn, for instance.) The trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa takes us about 7-8 hours. Highlights of it include:

Having to pull off the main highway and take a 17 mile detour around a broken stretch of road which (we swear) was about 100 yards long. (Oh, that wonderfully wacky Iowa Highway system! And is a direct highway route from Albert Lea to Cedar Rapids really too much to ask for? All that stair-stepping and highway-swapping. Ick.)

Stopping at a Burger King which caught on fire just as the food we ordered was about to be handed to us. (Good thing we ordered it "to go".)

Having a run-in with the Creepiest Man in the World (Yes, creepier than all the slobbering fanboys we ran into at AnimeIowa put together). Said man was driving a red economy car in the lane next to us and Amber swore she saw this man jacking off while he was behind the wheel. Jared and myself were (fortunately) not privy to this sight, as the man's car was only in our range of vision for a few brief seconds, but the sheer thought that someone would feel compelled to whack his mole while driving, even at the risk of his own life and the lives of those around him on the road, made us shiver SO badly, that we found it necessary to turn off the AC for a while. (Good god, pull off to the side of the friggin' road if you're going to do something like that. Or at LEAST get a car with tinted windows.)

At long last we pull into the Collins Plaza hotel around ten-ish. The hotel was well-situated and easy to get to. (Unlike the hotel at the last con I went to, which was in a much bigger city and was located in a labyrinth of toll roads which looked like something out of a dyslexic Escher etching.) My friends and I are somewhat surprised at the scale of the hotel. It's nice, but dinky. The same can also be said for the two-room suite that we had reserved for ourselves. We are forced to haul our luggage up to the 6th floor by ourselves (thanks to a keen shortage of bellhops and luggage carts,) and along the way, we get a good view of the hotel's central courtyard. It has a nice restaurant in the middle, and with a several-stories waterfall on one side situated between a pair of glass elevators. Here's a view from the elevator side:

Nice, huh? We find our suite, and are soon moved in. Jared and Amber share the King-sized bed in the main bedroom. (The bed was the only thing about this room which WAS king-sized.) And I get the fold-out couch in the ante-chamber. The bed is surprisingly comfortable for a couch-dealie. And I get my own TV set, as well as a fridge and a microwave (which we had to call down to the front desk for. We were lucky. It was the last one they had.) I had remembered to bring with me tons of food for us to cook in-house. (after recalling how I had to spend approximately 85 percent of my time last year at AnimeFEST, meandering about the hopeless Dallas tollway system, foraging for food. I was damned if I was going to let anything like that happen THIS time.)The night passed by uneventfully, except when I almost froze to death on account of the all-too efficient air conditioning. I woke up in the middle of the night, my teeth chattering like maracas. Had to call down to the front desk for an extra blanket. Feh.

And thus, Day Zero of AnimeIowa 2002 drew to a close...

 DAY ONE: Friday, August 23, 2002

Breakfast is at a Panera Bread conveniently located a few blocks away from the hotel. On the way back, we spot some Amish people going into an Insty-Prints and are about to remark bemusedly about the funny-ness of their clothing---and then we remember that later that day Amber and I are going to be wearing cosplay outfits consisting of pink and purple wigs, a blue blazer worn over red bicycle shorts and a sleeveless red ballgown worn over a hoopskirt. THEN who was going to look ridiculous, eh?

Once back at the hotel, we decide to pay the pool/hot tub room a visit. We had it all to ourselves and generally had lots of fun, frolicking. Unfortunately, it was going to be the only time I got the chance to use the hot tub facilities all weekend since Auntie Flow showed up for a visit immediately after I showered off. (*Sigh* it happens during every convention, doesn't it girls?)

Rule #1 of Convention-Going.(Female Edition) You will ALWAYS get your period when the convention begins. Doesn't matter if it's scheduled to come or not. So bring plenty of pads along.
Rule #1 of Convention-Going.(Male Edition) The female members of your party will ALWAYS get their periods as soon as the convention begins. So bring plenty of pads along with you, (lest those female members of your party who have FORGOTTEN to bring pads send you out to the nearest convenience store to have YOU buy some for them. And you'll have no choice but to do it, you poor pussy-whipped dope... )

Ahem. Anyway, after drying ourselves off and getting dressed, my friends and I headed down to the main floor of the hotel where the wheels of the convention were just beginning to grind into motion.

The Dealer's Room opened. Whilst standing in line for it, I ran into a bunch of Slayers cosplayers who looked at my Amethyst Angel name badge and who recognized me as the author/artist of Hamlet the Manga. Then they went all fangirl on me. Wow. I mean. I hadn't been expecting this.(Hoping, yes, but not expecting.) I signed autographs for them and everything. My shrivelled, wrinkly little ego suddenly found itself flooded with attention and began to bask like a cat in a patch of sunlight. It was nice, really, to find out I had something of a name around here. Made me almost wish I had bothered to set up a table in the Artist's Alley. I might have made enough money to cover the cost of my dinky, but nice, hotel room.

Since AnimeIowa is a small and intimate con, the Dealer's Room was rather small and intimate as well, but nicely stocked. As per my usual consumer behavior in dealer's rooms, I forsook all the licensed merchandise (which I figured I could get on ebay anyway if I really wanted it) and went straight for the art supplies (which I could also buy online, but if I bought them now I wouldn't have to pay any pesky shipping charges.) I was somewhat disappointed that Comictones.com hadn't been invited to this con, but at least I found a FEW merchandise dealers peddling art supplies like "How to Draw Manga" books and screentones. Not a big huge selection of them, but enough to keep me happy and my wallet exposed to the outside world for a good long while. I drop around 80 bucks during my first visit to the Dealer's Room and hurry back with my haul to my hotel room. Jared and Amber stock up on figurines, posters and other licensed merchandise. The amount they haul back to the room is staggering, (but it IS their first convention and the only chance they'll get to do some wholesale anime-themed shopping for the entire year. Still, I AM wondering how we're going to get this all into the car.) We have lunch and at some point, we also step up to the con-suite to partake of the free eats which are located therein. They have a big selection of snacks there (consisting mostly of pretzels, cheese balls and 172 kinds of sugar-based cereal). They also have a pop dispenser and big, comfy couches. (I only wish the con-suite hadn't been located on the top floor of the hotel. When the con was in full swing and the wait for the elevator was at the 20-minute mark, it made one wonder if trudging all the way up there was truly worth it. Especially when there was a Panera Bread located right down the road. Mmmmm.)

The rest of that day is something of a blur, but I do recall that around 4 o'clock, Amber and I had decided that it was at last time to get into our cosplay costumes.

You'll pardon the inherent crappiness of this picture. It was taken with my camera, which has the amazing ability to have every picture taken with it look as if it had been taken by Ansel Adams. (If he had a burlap sack tied to his head and were being hung upside-down in the middle of a mine shaft.) There are other pictures on this site you will see which are NOT crappy. Those were taken by Jared with his snifty-keen digital camera. Anyway, the gal with the purple hair and the red dress is me, cosplaying as Rose Bride Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena. And the girl on the right with the pink hair is Amber, cosplaying as Utena herself. Kudos to Amber who did such a great job with our makeup. I myself never wear make-up, and probably never will unless it's either to my own wedding (should it ever occur) or to my own funeral (unless it's one of those closed-casket type affairs.) Anyway, it was while Amber and I were riding the elevator down to the first floor of the con that I learned the First Rule of Cosplay:

Hoopskirts + Crowded Elevators = chaos, dirty looks from other con-goers, and me thanking God that at least I wasn't wearing WINGS with this friggin' thing.

We reach the first floor and are immediately mobbed by packs of camera-wielding maniacs (some of whom are in costumes themselves.) We spend a large portion of the next few hours posing for pictures, and taking pictures of our fellow cosplayers, some of whom had put a great deal of thought into their outfits.

At one point, I had decided to give the Dealer's Room another once-over. Only this time around I learned the Second Rule of Cosplay:

Hoopskirts + Crowded Dealer's Rooms = OH GOD OH GOD HELP ME ICAN'TBREATHENOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Somehow, I manage to make it out alive, (and with my internal organs still intact) AND with another hundred dollars worth of art supplies in my humble possession. Speaking of art, I did, at some point during the evening, visit the Art Show. I brought with me a 3-D picture of Vash the Stampede (which I had tried to sell at the Art Show at AnimeFEST last year, only there were no takers,) to try and sell here if I could. After filling out a few forms and finding some free space on the wall to hang my fanart on, I meandered through the art show, taking in all which was hanging around me. Most of it was typical Anime Convention Art Fair fare--crappy pencil tracings mixed in with some stunning CG and cel paintings. And even a few painted paper lanterns thrown in for variety. After perusing for a while, I headed back outside to join my friends.

Other highlights of that night include my showing off my art portfolio (which I had brought along with me to the con) to the fans I had met in the line to the Dealer's Room earlier, my getting chewed out by Jared and Amber for bringing said fans into the hotel room without their knowledge or permission. (Whoops.) And dinner, which we had at a nice (but extremely cold,--again I almost fall victim to another over-efficient air conditioner--) Chinese food place located near the hotel. All in all, I'd have to say Day One went rather well. Not overly exciting, but not fraught with disaster either. But there were still two days left in the con, and plenty of things that could still go wrong. Would they, I wondered?...