This morning, the ALA stacks opened. This is the giant vendor area that looks almost exactly like the San Diego Comic Con. In fact, the first place we went when they let us in was the 'graphic novel pavilion' where we met representatives from Image, DC, Marvel, Dark Horse and more, and they gave us free trade paperbacks. Retail trade paperbacks. IDW was there also, but they were just a bit of a tease, because all their promotional images screamed Transformers, but all they had to give away was Star Trek comics.
Google has a huge booth, but not many giveaways (apparently Google was the place to go in past years). Between the various publishers and other vendors, I carried at least 100 pounds of free books and swag back to our hotel.
Then we went back for more, systematically this time. Microsoft was giving away Nalgene bottles. Posters. Books. Buttons. Stuffed animals. Bookmarks. More graphic novels. Our bags were overflowing again when we went back to the hotel for lunch.
It was awesome.
Lori had to leave us for lunch because she actually had work to do at the conference. Lorin and I went to Qdoba with Veronica, then walked through the Sculpture Garden and played in the fountain on our way to the Natural History Museum.
Veronica fell asleep before we got there. We walked inside, went to the dinosaurs, realized that without Veronica, it wouldn't be any fun, and left.
She woke up when we got to the Air & Space museum, which is much, much cooler. Veronica was absolutely thrilled with the planes, with the missles, with the space vehicles, with everything. Her favorite part was inside the aerodynamics section, where she played with a beachball suspended by air currents. Unfortunately for us, she broke down a little bit after that, and we had to cut our visit short (that didn't stop us from going to the gift shop, which perked her up a bit).
We met back up with Lori at the hotel and went for dinner to a place in Arlington called the Hard Times Cafe. Lori wanted chili, and chili was on their menu; hence the trip. It was perfect - our waitress was superb, the food was fast, they brought Veronica's out first, and our drinks never ran dry. I got chili dogs, which I couldn't even finish.
We drove back through Georgetown so Lori could see it, then dropped Lorin off at her car. After some driving hijinks, we made it back to our hotel and called it a night. Wow, my feet are sore, but Lori, Veronica and I are having the greatest time.
Previously: