LoneGunCon

Mags' Con Report

Lone GunCon 2006

This was a very long day at work. The previous day, I felt like a kid impatient for Christmas when time just doesn't move fast enough. Wednesday night, I had loaded as much stuff as I could into the crappy van and passed the dog off to my friend Margaret who had agreed to take care of him since my roommate, Mad, was in California.

Thursday morning, I got up earlier than I needed to load the rest of my stuff in the van and got to work earlier than usual. Once the kids finally left at 3:10, I still had time to kill since Amy's flight didn't come in until 6 p.m.

I dinked around in my classroom tidying it up for the substitute who would take care of my kids on Friday and Monday. Finally, it was time to head out to the airport.

Once there, I found a spot near the appropriate baggage carousel to wait for Amy. Her flight was a little late so I sat down with my book to wait. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen is always a good choice and kept me so engrossed that I didn't even notice Amy until she squealed in delight at seeing me.

Luggage in hand, we worked our way back to the van and returned to the same Denny's we visited last year to have dinner. A quick trip to Fred Meyer to buy some CDs for the trip killed the rest of the time until we could head back to the airport to pick up Linda. After the group hug and retrieval of more luggage, we headed north on I-5.

It's about a two-hour drive to get to Mad's family's cabin near Mount Vernon from the airport. Amy fell asleep in the back an hour or so into the drive but Linda managed to stay awake and keep me company the whole way.

When we finally pulled off the freeway, it was very dark and very late especially for Amy and Linda who were still on east coast time. We spotted Scanner's car parked in the driveway when we got to the cabin but strangely, there was no sign of him. Amy was peering through the windows of his car to see if he had fallen asleep inside when he came around the house. He'd been sitting out on the deck on the lakeside enjoying the nighttime view.

Here's a picture of where Scanner was waiting for us. I took this shot the next day.

Once inside the house, we pretty much just dumped our stuff and headed off to bed.

Early the next morning, I awoke to the sound of a heavy downpour hitting the metal roof of the cabin. I was worried we would be driving up to the border in this horrible weather but since the wind was also blowing, I had hope that it would be a passing storm.

I ran out to get milk and fresh fruit to go with the cereal I'd brought up. When I got back, Linda had the coffee ready.

Here's another shot of the lake. I was trying to get the sun shining through the trees across the lake but this didn't show up as well as I would have liked.

By 10 a.m., we were ready to head out for Canada. After a little side trip into the tulip fields to see some daffodils (the tulips were not blooming at that time but the daffies were spectacular) we once again headed north.

Linda took these two photos out of the window on the van. It was too muddy to get out of the car and we were anxious to be on our way.

In the second picture you can see the clouds that were occasionally dumping heavy rain on us.

The wait at the border wasn't too bad: only 20 minutes or so. Everyone had the correct ID and we were admitted into the country. We stopped to exchange some currency then sped north.

Since we were the first ones at the hotel, we decided to have lunch while we waited for everyone else to turn up. After putting the hotel bibles in our respective refrigerators, we headed over to the restaurant attached to our hotel. (Amy and I couldn't find our refrigerator but Linda came to the rescue and located it in a cabinet under the TV.)

Here's the studio across the street from the hotel. They film Stargate and Stargate Atlantis there.

While we were in the restaurant, most of the other convention participants arrived and came in to say 'howdy'. Here's Eve who settled into the booth across from us to chat for a while.

Later on, we gathered in Anndie and Surr's suite (the con room) to meet everyone we hadn't seen yet. We discussed which X-files and LGM locations we wanted to visit the next day and the twins passed out the darling little Chinese food take out containers they had filled with small tokens and treats for all con attendants.

We went to the same restaurant that we were at last year but this time they reserved the entire back of the place for us. It wasn't all that much more private but at least we were out of the flow of traffic.

I picked my usual spot at one end of the table to try to keep from blocking the aisle while the skinnier people sat with their backs to the wall. Mike Roberds came in and sat next to me and everyone else picked their seats. This left two empty seats across from me for Bruce Harwood and his wife Heather.

Bruce and Heather came in and greeted us like old friends. Some one gave Bruce a little stuffed Gromit dog (from Wallace and Gromit). Erynn had homemade 'Almond Roca' for all our guests. (This treat was made by one of her neighbors.)

Linda had brought a whole stack of $20 bills with her. I thought this was brilliant and wondered that we'd never asked Bruce to do this before. Although he would only try it on one of Linda's 20s, he worked pretty hard to try to get that little strip out.

He finally gave up and when Linda showed it to me later, I could see that he'd gotten it right down to the strip. It probably would have taken tweezers to get it out of the paper.

Bruce said that when they filmed that first episode they were in, they handed him a sack with 10 real twenties in it and told him he needed to get one of them to work.

I wish I could remember everything we talked about but most of it was pretty mundane. Mike and Bruce talked shop a bit. Bruce said he'd tried out for a couple of episodes of Supernatural. Mike had a recurring role on DaVinci's Inquest but neither man had done much work recently.

Mike gave everyone a DVD with clips of his talk show (no longer on the air). Heather asked me about my necklace and Bruce liked my bracelet. I wondered at their interest in my jewelry until Bruce told me that Heather was making necklaces to sell. He said she made the one she was wearing, which was beautiful. You can see it in the pictures of her and Bruce. Here's another with a really good shot of her necklace.

Linda was sitting on the other side of Heather. They were swapping ghost stories and Linda asked me to tell of my experiences at my school (the building is nearly 100 years old). I told the two weirdest ghostly encounters that I've had. (Something was tugging on my skirt during a St. Valentine's Day party when all my kids were in their seats. At that same party, we had the floating pop bottle. The other was the one about the little ghost that must have been told to stand in the closet as punishment and was still in there sighing when all the kids were out at recess. I gave it permission to leave the closet and never heard the sound again.)

Late in the dinner, Patrick Stark showed up. Mike got up to go talk to him and the people at the other table. Bruce got up to do something and Heather was talking to Linda and the people at the other end of the table. So, I just sat and listened until Bruce came back.

When he did get back, he sat down, smiled at me and started up a conversation…just the two of us, one-on-one. I was in silly fan girl heaven. At first I was nervous and tried very hard to keep the conversation going but after a while, it wasn't difficult at all.

Earlier when he was talking to Mike, Bruce had mentioned going to England for a con there. I wanted to ask him if he remembered meeting Alison but the conversation turned too quickly for me to do this. But I had now had a second chance. I asked him if he got to see many of the sights while in London.

He said they had very little time for sight seeing but he had hit some of the high points. I ran down the list of places I'd seen and we compared notes. I then mentioned that a friend of mine had been at the convention and that her name was Alison.

I then explained how Alison and I had talked on the LGM lists and decided to meet when I came to the UK. I also mentioned that she taught me how to hail a cab on the streets in London.

Here's Erynn. When I took this one, Bruce was asking me which way I wanted him to look.

Dinner was over far too soon. There were very few other patrons left by the time we gathered outside for a group photo. One of the waiters was kind enough to take our photo risking life and limb by stand on one of those white, stacking chairs that so many restaurants have at tables for patrons to eat outside. I was impressed when I saw Scanner's copies of the picture that he managed to get all of us in the shot.

We stood on the sidewalk talking for a while longer. Anndie ran off to get a poster for Bruce to sign. While we waited it started to rain and we were seriously blocking the sidewalk. Those of us that were left moved under the awning of the bedding store next to the restaurant.

Once Bruce had signed the poster, the others drifted off leaving only Scanner, Linda, Amy, Bruce, Heather and me. We talked out of the rain for another 10 minutes or so. During this conversation, Heather mentioned how much I looked like her aunt saying that way back somewhere, we must be related. I had heard her mention to Linda that she was Scottish so I told her that my father was born in Scotland. She figured that must be it then since all Scots claim to have some relation to the poet Robby Burns.

When Bruce and Heather said they needed to go, the rest of us piled into the crappy van and headed back to the hotel.

The next day, the whole group met up for breakfast. Then after some initial sorting out, everyone piled into Anndie and Surr's rental car and my crappy van. Since it's not truly my vehicle, it took us a while to figure out how to unfold the two back seats. Thank you, Linda for finally getting them opened.

We went out to Riverview Hospital first. Amy was really excited to see this place since at least one episode of Supernatural was also filmed there.

Yes, I know that's a really bad Photoshop manip but I hadn't planned on doing this when I took the pictures. That is supposed to be the front of the building.

We wandered around quite a bit taking many, many pictures: even some of the inside through the windows.

Amy and I wandered around to the back and I took some pictures there. In one window on our way back to join the others, we saw people where were working. They had a set all put together in one room there. Another room was full of racks of costumes.

We then went out to the diner that Mulder ate at in Jose Chung's From Outer Space. This was cool since it was easily recognizable. The waitresses there were not really surprised that we wanted to take pictures and let us get as many as we wanted.

From here, we drove out to the building in which Skinner lived. This was a spot we visited last year but this time I found a little parking lot across the street so we could get out and take pictures. Linda went across the street wanting to get pictures of the alley and some up close of the front door.

When she got too close, the doorman came out to ask her what she was doing. She explained that we were just taking pictures because the building was used in The X-files. He told her not to take any pictures from the entryway or the steps.

From here we tried to find the exterior of Scully's apartment. By this time I was getting frustrated with all the downtown driving through some of the busiest streets with many, many people walking around so was glad when we finally found the place after I made several wrong turns. That's Linda trying not to be in the picture.

Greatly relieved that our next stop was not downtown, we headed out to Queen Elizabeth Park where scenes from the LGM episode The Lying Game were filmed. We spent some time there by the duck pond. It was a nice sunny day but not terribly warm. Even I had to break down and put on my jacket.

That evening, we got together in Anndie and Surr's suite for the viewing of vids and old TV shows featuring the Lone Gunmen actors. Surr made some vids of some Stargate characters, too.

We had Bruce Harwood in some incredibly funny old TV series. Tom Braidwood in the Roundtable TV talk show DVDs that Mike Roberts gave us and Dean Haglund in a DVD of an improv performance from a convention that Erynn had attended.

I woke up Sunday morning with a cold so Amy and I headed over to the Shopper's Drugmart that we had passed the previous day when I overshot the road to the hotel. After sorting through all the Canadian medication, I found some cold stuff that worked quite well.

At about 10, those who had not already left, met for breakfast at our favorite restaurant (the one attached to the hotel). When we were done, we took pictures with our favorite waiter.

We quickly packed up and, saying our goodbyes, headed south. Those of us in the crappy van stopped at the overpass that leads to the Pt. Roberts Superport where they filmed the car crash scene from the LGM pilot.

We once again got across the border with no problem. The one odd thing was that, from a distance, our crossing guard looked a lot like Frohike. I thought it might be only me but Linda and Scanner agreed.

Passing through Bellingham on the way back, we discussed the fact that this was the town where Jimmy was in the hospital in the episode Diagnosis Jimmy. (It's also the home of my alma mater Western Washington University.)

We stopped at a big mall in Bellingham to visit a Circuit City there. Amy wanted to get a spare battery for her laptop so she could use it on the plane ride home. Once there, Linda and I both decided we needed one of the 2 gig 'jump drives' they had on sale. Amy got her battery and I bought a wifi card for my laptop. To do all this, both Amy and I had to bring our laptops into the store to make sure we were getting the correct items. It was a very geeky shopping experience.

We landed back at the cabin to relax and watch 'The Fifth Element' and generally veg out. After dinner at Red Robin, we went over to Cold Stone for ice cream the back to the cabin to watch a couple of episodes of Ghost Hunters that I had burned onto a DVD for Linda. (If you haven't watched this show, check it out! It's great! It's on the SciFi channel.)

Scanner took Amy to the airport and Linda and I finished the laundry at the cabin and closed it up. We stopped at my friend Margaret's house to pick up my dog, Riley. He was quite excited to meet Linda and very pleased to go home. Linda and I hung out at my house for the rest of the afternoon. She got to meet LittleMel (my cat) and eat my not terribly exciting cooking for lunch.

I dropped her off at the airport at about 4:30 and headed over to my parents' house to wait for the rush hour traffic to die down before I got back on the freeway to travel back through Seattle to get home.

It was a wonderful weekend and ended much too soon. It's always so nice to speak face to face with the friends that I usually only get to talk to online… not to mention to hug them and laugh with them.