Another Great Adventure

Wow, what a weekend! The Free Comic Book Day festivities at CAPE 2 (Comics and Popculture Expo) in Dallas, TX, were sponsored by Zeus Comics. We drove down from NE Arkansas to participate in an event we hadn't attended before, but had heard great things about it from others.

The first part of the trip was rather uneventful: nice weather, not too hot, not a lot of traffic, and didn't have to speed to make time because the roads are not under construction right now. We didn't get away from town quite as early as we first planned, but we had enough leeway built in that we didn't feel rushed to get going. My car was well-loaded down with the display rack for the quilts, tshirts to (hopefully) sell, my sewing machine, K's artwork, and what I now believe to be a lot of good karma.

We only stopped a few times, once in Texarkana, TX, to get gasoline and some sketchpaper and pens (ooooo! New Stardust Pentel pens!) and make a pitstop. K read Good Omens to me as I drove. That was so much better than listening on tape or cd! We decided to take a break one more time around dusk somewhere between Greenville and Dallas. It wasn't until we got to our hotel that K realised her wallet was missing.

For some reason, I didn't feel panic at all, probably because it was not MY wallet and life that wallets tend to contain. I called my ex, and asked him to pull up the Subway sandwich shops website and see where they were located along the interstate. He gave me the phone numbers, and we called all of them to see if the wallet had turned up. No one had seen it. I had a feeling that possibly there was a shop that was too new to be on the website, so we jumped back in the car and drove some forty-odd miles back across Dallas and out to look for where we had stopped.

It was not the first couple of places we saw, because we remembered it being connected to a service station/convenience store, although we didn't remember what brand of gasoline they sold. Finally, we spotted the right Subway/Exxon station combo across the freeway, and went to the next exit to turn around. The news was good. The person who spotted the wallet told the store manager that there was a wallet in the restroom, and she didn't want to pick it up, just report it. Everything was still in there. Good people still exist out there.

Breathing a collective sigh of relief, we went back to the hotel and decided not to try to attend the mixer on Friday night, because we had some things to do and were already tired. I worked on some braille t-shirts and K worked on some sketches.

We arrived at CAPE a little before 8AM for setup. They were just finishing the tent setup, and we waited a few minutes for the tables to be placed, and to find our spot. We were on the outside edge of this huge tent in the parking lot, near the power source so I could run the sewing machine. We had good neighbors with the guys from Stumblebum Studios on one side and Larry Dixon on the other. Very nice setup, very smooth, and the folks who put on the show from Zeus Comics had plenty of staff to help out with anything and everything. They had portajohns on site, lunch provided (really good pasta and salad!), table covers to make the show look more polished. They are quickly learning how to run a great show. And to think that this event is FREE to the public to meet the guests and to pick up comics, and FREE to the guests as far as setting up tables and attending the parties. You can't beat a deal like that all the way around.

More soon.