The Family Roadtrip 2016: The GeekGirl Con Report

Last weekend, the family and I drove from the Bay area up to Seattle for Geek Girl Con.  Last year, my wife and our eldest daughter went and had a blast, so it only made sense that we would go back as a family this year. Thursday, we loaded up the Forester and headed for Seattle. One thing I learned along the way is that I have a fear of driving in the mountains for too long (four hours, in particular). My brain begins to contrive ways for me to mess up and send us hurtling over the edge. The sight of snowy volcanoes in the distance did nothing to encourage or hinder that frame of mind.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I’m not sure what any of us newbies expected, but GeekGirl Con exceeded my expectations. I ended up spending a lot of time downstairs at the gaming tables, trying out new games (where we also won copies of  Spirits of the Rice Paddy, Act Too!, and Small Star Empires). The vendor area was amazeballs (seriously, it’s a good thing I knew we had a budget. And responsibilities.), filled with just about anything you could think of for a geeky con, with a distinct tendency towards handmade crafts and art.

And that’s just scratching the surface. Here were people with a similar interest set, many dressed up, just milling around and being nice to each other. It was such a refreshing atmosphere that the only reminder that you had been walking around was when your feet started reminding you of their aches.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And that’s not even scratching the surface of the fun we had (as the pictures hint). We also got to sit in on a panel and listen to the voice of Lapis Lazuli, Jennifer Paz, from Steven Universe. The panel was great, like the rest of the con (btw, SU fans – the Thanksgiving episode is going to be longer and packed full of surprises!).

From Seattle we drove to Portland and stayed a day or so. I would easily chose Portland as my next home – it somehow managed to mix both the small town vibe old town Fredericksburg with all of the conveniences of a big city. We loved it. To boot, it was actually Autumn in Oregon, something we hadn’t really seen since moving to California. The trees were brilliant shades of red and orange, the air crisp, and we were happy campers.

I just have to give a shout out to my wife on this one. As always, she planned everything in advance, researching and plotting out everything so that we could just enjoy the vacation and now that our next stop already knew we were coming and had a warm place and bed waiting for us. How she does it I don’t know, but she is amazing. I also learned to appreciate how hard it is to find places to eat with the youngest’s food allergies. Finding safe places to eat on the road was a bigger challenge than I anticipated, but having great kids and an awesome wife made it all work out.

And now we’re back, slowly working our way back to the normal life of going to work next week. yay.