Boskone Trip Report (part 1 of 6)

Just returned from Boskone, the Boston area annual fantasy and science fiction convention. I loooove this convention. In response to my last post, Miss Erin asked for a detailed trip report. So to avoid an endless blog entry, I'm going to divide my report into parts, beginning with my journey to Boston:

Episode 1, Friday afternoon: Sarah leaps to freedom over the sea

I live on Long Island. Best way for me to reach Boston is to take the Port Jefferson ferry to Bridgeport, then an Amtrak train from Bridgeport to Boston. I had thirty minutes between when the ferry was supposed to dock in Bridgeport and when my train was supposed to depart. Not a problem. The ferry was ten minutes late. Still not a problem. The ferry was unable to dock because they'd loaded so many cars on that the boat was several feet lower than the dock.

This was a problem.

"We have to wait for the tide to rise," the ferryman said.

This was such a mind-boggling statement that we all repeated it back to him slowly, as if we'd simply misheard, "We have to wait for the tide to rise?"

He shrugged helplessly, as if the tide was some sort of freak phenomenon that only occurs with the frequency of, say, Halley's Comet, but less predictable. Once this had sunk in, we all promptly whipped out our cell phones to spread the news about how tides had managed to surprise our crew...

I called Mission Control (a.k.a. my husband), who sprang into action...

My husband plots a new travel plan

... and went online and came up with about six different combinations of trains that I could take to reach Boston. I believe one of the plans may have involved the Hogwarts Express.

Alternate transport from Bridgeport to Boston

A half-hour later, the tide had risen enough to allow the walk-ons, myself included, to leap (okay, step) from ferry to dock, and I put one of those plans into action. I ran, with my suitcase weighed down with three bajillion bookmarks, across an icy parking lot and then jumped like a horrendously out-of-shape gazelle onto a train. (The conductor had to reopen the doors for me, that's how close it was.)

I was not quite this graceful...

From there, I took the Metro-North to New Haven where I caught up to my original Amtrak train (which sits scratching its caboose in New Haven for a half an hour -- no one knows why). As I wrestled my suitcase up onto the overhead rack (a feat the required head-butting it as I shoved), I let out a cheer of victory.

And that was the least exciting event of my trip.

Episode 2 will feature my arrival at Boskone, in which I hunt for a pink ribbon and encounter Tribbles...