An eventful Shore Leave

I’m back home and recovering from my trip to the Shore Leave Convention at its new location, the Wyndham Lancaster Resort and Convention Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The drive out was clear and uneventful. Since I’m no longer able to stay with my cousins in the DC area the night before, and since I don’t currently have to worry about money, I split my trip over two days and stayed at a motel which, by chance, was the same one I stayed at on my return trip last year. It was a simpler drive, if a bit costlier, since it was pretty much straight along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and then to the Lincoln Highway (which, coincidentally, is referenced in “The Monsters We Make” in my upcoming collection Aleyara’s Descent and Other Stories, although the story’s setting is a couple of hundred miles further west along the highway). The hotel is pretty nice, bigger than the old one, but it’s weirdly structured, with stairs up to the lobby from the entrance and half-flights to get down from the lobby to other places. I’ve heard and read a number of complaints from conventiongoers about the accessibility issues; there are elevators and ramps here and there, but not many. That initial flight of stairs was not a welcoming first sight even to me, a weary traveler with a rolling suitcase, let alone to anyone with mobility issues. It’s bizarre that they designed the hotel that way.

I couldn’t get wifi in my room at first, but it cleared up later. I also found that you couldn’t get streaming video on the room TV, even though that seems to be pretty standard these days. So it’s a little backward in that regard. For food options, there was a Starbucks concession with sandwiches, vending, and the like, smaller than the one at the old Hunt Valley Inn, and a food cart opposite it offering burgers, pizza, pretzels, mixed fruit, and the like. There are also various fast-food places within walking distance, though when I tried the Arby’s on Sunday, I was disappointed to find that they didn’t offer my favorite turkey and Swiss sandwich anymore.

At first, I kept my mask on, but I finally got up the nerve to take it off, at least for panels and often for hanging around with other writers. I’m freshly vaccinated, the hotel seems reasonably well-ventilated, and while there does seem to be a relative increase in COVID rates this month, they’re still pretty low nationwide, and the death rate is virtually zero. So it seems my odds of coming down with COVID aren’t that high, and if I do get infected, my vaccination will probably ease any symptoms. So I decided to take the chance. I went back and forth between masked and unmasked, trying to limit my exposure, but I kept the mask off more than I thought I would, particularly in the vendor’s room where it got very sweaty to wear. I hope I didn’t take too great a risk.

My first day, I only had a couple of panels, one talking about science fiction for young readers (a chance to tout my Tangent Knights audiobook trilogy, age 13-up) and one talking about The Marvels, which also unexpectedly gave me a chance to talk about Tangent Knights, because I was probably unconsciously influenced by Kamala Khan’s superhero-fangirl-turned-actual-superhero personality when I wrote Cory Kagami in TK. I spent some time getting acquainted with the new, spacious dealers’ room, and at 10 PM we had the regular Meet the Pros group signing event for the author guests. I only sold four books, but it went the usual way, where the final 30-45 minutes of the 2-hour event is the authors chatting with each other because the guests have already been and gone. The new room, where our tables were arranged in two concentric rectangles with an aisle between them, made it easier for us to mingle than the old long hallway. (Someone suggested shortening the event to maybe an hour and a half, and I could get behind that.)

Saturday, I didn’t have a panel until 8 PM, so I spent much of the day in my room or mingling more in the dealers’ room. I had a talk with eSpec Books’ cover artist Mike McPhail about the cover in progress for Aleyara’s Descent and Other Stories. It’s taking so long because he had to acquire and learn new software for the specialized work of creating a 3D model for the Biauru. I really appreciate the extra effort he’s going to for this, though it’s a shame we didn’t have the book ready to debut at the con. Oh, and he also plans to revisit his digital model of Arachne’s avatar for the upcoming Arachne’s Legacy cover, and for future editions of the first two Arachne novels. With my input, he wants to create a model that’s more detailed and more accurate to the text.

At 4 PM, I did a signing stint at the table for Aaron’s Books, our new book vendor for the convention, but there weren’t many conventiongoers around at that point, so I only sold one book, and that was to a neighboring author who wanted to learn more about writing hard science fiction. I arranged another session for 2:30 Sunday, but if anything it was even more dead then. Next year I’ll have to sign up for an earlier session or two.

At 6 PM Saturday, a couple of groups of writers went out to try new dining places in the vicinity. Since I was a fan of our annual visits to Andy Nelson’s BBQ in Hunt Valley, I went with the group trying out a local BBQ place. Since we were a large group, there was a long wait for our order, so we went outside to wait at the outdoor picnic tables by the roadside.

What happened next was rather disturbing. I only caught a glimpse of it, mercifully, but two vehicles on the road collided right by the entrance to the parking lot. The crash sounded nothing like the usual TV/movie sound effects, more of a loud pop, so it took a few moments to realize what had happened. I don’t want to go into details that are probably private and that I’d probably get wrong, but there were serious injuries sustained.

I was shocked and dumbstruck, and on the farthest edge of the group from the collision site, but my fellow writers and friends leapt heroically into action, rushing over to see if they could help. I watched in admiration as various members of the party called 911, tended to the injured, asked if anyone nearby had medical skills, directed traffic around the accident site to clear the route for emergency vehicles, cleared the road of debris, comforted a traumatized eyewitness, and advised emergency personnel and made statements to the police when they arrived. I initially wanted to honor them by name in this post, but after talking about it with one of them, I figure it’s not my place to identify them. I was on the outskirts and remained there out of squeamishness, so my account would be unreliable. I’d probably omit some people too, which wouldn’t be fair. So I’ll just say that I was really impressed by how my friends stepped up, and I feel proud to know them. I’d like to think I would’ve taken action to help if I’d been closer or if there hadn’t been so many others there, but I’m glad I didn’t have to, since they did better than I probably could have.

It’s a lucky thing that the wait for being seated indoors was so long that we decided to do takeout and wait for it at the picnic tables. The restaurant is a fair distance back from the road, so if there hadn’t been a group of 15-16 smart people with a range of skills and experience happening to sit right there near the roadside, help would’ve been slower in coming.

Later that evening, I heard someone offer the opinion that we’d been there for a reason, that fate had arranged things to put us there at that moment. I don’t believe in that kind of destiny — what does that say about all the accident victims that didn’t get helped by nearby strangers? Why didn’t the hand of fate just prevent the accident in the first place, which would’ve been far simpler than arranging the convoluted chain of coincidence that put us there? I don’t think the universe has a pre-existing meaning or purpose in mind for us; I think that we create meaning through our choices and our actions. We are the consciousness of the universe, the part of it capable of having a will and making choices, and that gives us a supreme responsibility to the world and the people around us. My friends and colleagues fulfilled that responsibility admirably. They were in the right place at the right time by sheer chance; what gave the event meaning was the way they used that opportunity to make a positive difference.

It was surprising how quickly our mood got almost back to normal once the injured had been taken to the hospital and we collected our dinner from inside. Perhaps we were relieved that the accident hadn’t been worse. I wasn’t sure I’d have an appetite, but I do tend to stress-eat, so I managed just fine. (They didn’t have an equivalent of my usual pulled turkey BBQ, so I tried a black bean quinoa veggie burger that was pretty good. Although I had to ask a friend what quinoa was, and got corrected on the pronunciation.) The conversations at dinner were a mix of talk about the accident and talk about other things. Those of us who had 8 PM panels had resigned ourselves to missing them, since the crash site was blocking the exit from the parking lot. But as it turned out, they cleared the exit in time for us to get back only some 20 minutes late. (On the way in from the hotel parking lot, we passed a group of at least four cats, two of whom were mating rather loudly right out in the open. It certainly wasn’t a boring evening.)

Ironically, my 8 PM panel was about writing action scenes, so I had a fresh perspective to bring to that. Mike McPhail moderated that panel, and it turned out that he’d been the only panelist there until I arrived, so it’s a good thing I didn’t miss it entirely. Afterward, I found a group of writers in the lobby, where those who’d helped out after the collision related the story to those who hadn’t been there, and to those like me who only knew part of it. We then moved on to discuss other things like our new books. I sat with them, mostly listening, until past 10, since I needed time to let my big dinner settle before going to bed.

Fortunately, the rest of the trip was less eventful. I finally managed to get some sleep Saturday night, and I fended for myself for breakfast, since apparently the traditional Sunday morning authors’ breakfast wasn’t arranged this year. (I’ve skipped it the past several years anyway due to the cost, but now that I’m no longer broke, I would’ve gone this year if they’d held it.) The checkout time at this hotel is 11 instead of noon, so I had to get my stuff out to my car earlier and then just keep one bag with me, as usual. I’ve decided that for next year I should by a second, smaller rolling case, which should make things a little easier than carrying my usual five items: one suitcase for my clothes and pillow; my backpack for my laptop, water bottle, and various stuff; an insulated shopping bag with perishables and ice; a bag of books to try to sell; and my Shore Leave tote bag for the rest.

Then I hung around chatting in the dealers’ room for a bit, then tried checking out a panel one of my friends was holding. It was in a gigantic ballroom despite there only being one presenter and under ten people in the audience, which suggests to me that this hotel doesn’t have as many small meeting rooms as the old one. The ballroom’s ceiling light fixtures were lovely swirly glass tube sculptures, but the wall light fixtures were blindingly bright.

At 1 PM, I attended a panel where the eSpec Books authors and our editor/publisher Danielle Ackley-McPhail talked about our upcoming books, but we ran out of time and I barely got to talk about Aleyara’s Descent, and not at all about Arachne’s Legacy. After that came my fruitless signing session at 2:30 (though I did have a nice chat with the author sitting at the next table). Afterward, I finally got up the nerve to go over and introduce myself to David Gerrold, who’s never been at a Shore Leave I’ve attended before, and tell him how his novel The Galactic Whirlpool had always been my favorite of Bantam’s Star Trek novels, and how his The World of Star Trek and The Trouble with Tribbles (the nonfiction book about the making of the episode) helped spark my interest in the creative process and may have influenced my choice to become a writer.

So then I hit the road, and I drove very carefully at first, both because of the accident being fresh in my mind and because I remembered my tire blowing out on the Sunday after Shore Leave a couple of years ago. The car had been sitting in a hot parking lot for hours and now I was driving on a hot day, and I didn’t want to drive too fast and risk overheating the tires. But the tires held up fine, and my timing worked out well; once the setting sun was on the verge of shining into my eyes, I reached the same motel I’d stayed at Thursday night (and the previous year), which I decided to stay at again rather than gamble on an unknown commodity. It was a bit pricier than another option I had, but I could afford the peace of mind. This time, it was less busy, so I could get a room on the ground floor, a shorter trip from my car.

I got some sleep Sunday night, but not enough, so I needed a lot of caffeine and sugar to stay alert for the drive home, and there were moments when my alertness lapsed. (At one point, I drove right over a piece of tread from a blown tire almost before I realized it was there. I’m lucky it wasn’t something bigger.) I promised myself to drive carefully after the accident, but it’s hard to stay focused on such a long drive. It didn’t help that there are no rest areas along I-70 in Pennsylvania between the Turnpike and West Virginia, and the first two rest stops on westbound I-70 in Ohio were both closed for rebuilding, which strikes me as very poor planning. I’d bought a sandwich at a Turnpike travel plaza and was saving it to eat at a rest stop come lunchtime, but I ended up having to pull off the highway and eat in the parking lot of a gas station/minimart. It may not have been appropriate to eat food bought somewhere else on the minimart’s property, but I didn’t have much option. Later on, once I was on the final leg taking I-71 from Columbus to Cincinnati, I planned to stop at the rest area at mile 67, which was about halfway between my previous stop and home, but it turned out to be closed too, leaving only the stop at mile 33. I was tempted to just barrel through and drive all the way home, but I realized I needed the rest, so I made one last stop before home. I do appreciate that these rest areas are being rebuilt to be bigger and more modern, but it’s still an inconvenience that so many are closed at once. And it’s frustrating, because I made a point of looking up and writing down the locations of all the rest stops along my route so I could plan ahead, but most of the closures weren’t reported on the official websites I checked, so much of my careful planning was for naught.

There were a couple of times when my phone popped out of its cheap mount, but fortunately I didn’t really need GPS on this familiar route, except for keeping track of speed limits and traffic issues. Still, a new, better phone mount is another thing I’ve decided to buy.

So here I am home again. I went to bed early Monday night, and though I was still sleepy Tuesday morning, I decided I wanted to take a walk to the grocery store to pick up some necessities. Exercise is good for the immune system, after all, and I’m still hoping I avoid coming down with anything after the con. (There were moments when I was concerned about my throat feeling scratchy, but I realized it was from the dry air in the hotel.) Since then, I’ve been catching up on streaming shows and goofing off, though I also got around to unpacking, and I just finished giving my robot vacuum a session to make up for being turned off over the weekend. (Recently I tried to make sort of a ramp of duct tape along the edge of the carpet to help the vacuum get over it, which only made things worse, but since removing the duct tape, I’ve found that the vacuum has regained the ability to surmount the edge. My best guess is that some residual adhesive from the duct tape is holding down some of the carpet piles against the metal lip so that they don’t register as an obstruction to the vacuum. So it worked, just not the way I imagined. And it may not last.)

Overall, then, our first Shore Leave at our new location was a success. The accident nearby was unfortunate, but it’s a good thing we were there to help. I gather the convention has a 2-year contract with the hotel, so I presume I’ll be back in Lancaster next year, and then we’ll see if the contract is renewed. I could get used to the new hotel, and the moderately easier drive. The Wyndham has its quirks, but no more so than the Hunt Valley Inn did.