Dallas Road Trip
Originally posted 13th February 2014 in 2 parts * Greg T. Miraglia
Road to Dallas and Back
On the fifth I left for Texas. I drove from New York State to Texas with one stop on the way down and two stops on the way back. I had planned to go to the Dallas Scifi Expo, which I did, but I did not plan for the weather. When I left, one of the worst winter storms this winter hit Central New York. It wasn’t until Ohio that I was safe from the snowfall.
Route 71in Ohio was the best built and maintained road I drove the whole trip. Cincinnati was beautifully constructed with fantastic architecture. Western Tennessee had the best weather, no ice and no snow. Route 40 in Arkansas was all patched up like a Raggedy Ann shirt. I have never seen so many colours on a road before. They had snow in Texas, but not smart drivers (only Texans would speed up when they’re being blinded by snow).
On the way back I had 16 hour stretch between Texas and Virginia, which seem to increasingly get worse. I woke up two hours late. Traffic was bad in some spots. Outside of Nashville, TN I was stopped by police. Usually in New York State, police treat people like they are immediately guilty and as if anybody not wearing a uniform is beneath them. I was shaking from both the cold and my own anxiety, and these policemen were comforting me while doing their jobs. They wanted to search my car. They politely asked, they did not demand.
It seems a New York Stater driving to Dallas and back with a mildly flashy car is common for drug runners and arms dealers. I was neither of course. They were nice though. I don’t know if they were State or Nashville police, but they were just doing their job. I wish police in New York State could just do their jobs. I saw out of state family and friends, and arrived home safely.
Dallas Scifi Expo
Last weekend I went to Irving, Texas for the Dallas Scifi Expo. When I first bought my 2-day pass I was as hoping to see Alice Eve and Karl Urban, but Eve must have had conflicting obligations and on day two, Sunday of the Expo Urban’s Q&A was earlier than my associates and I could arrive.
We still had fun with plenty of things to keeping us entertained. The cosplay was fantastic. Day one, Saturday of the expo I saw three different groups of Teen Titans, also props to the Raven that didn’t dress as the cartoon and dressed instead as one of the comicbook incarnations. One of the Jean Grey’s was accompanied by a Commander Riker from the Enterprise, but mixing and matching wasn’t uncommon. I saw a perfect Barbara Gordon, but I’m not sure she meant to cosplay that character. Day Two there were a couple of Leeloos from Fifth Element, and both days had lots of Dr. Who coplayers, my favorite were the two or three 10th Doctors.
This weekend of all weekends there were camera (and cell phones) malfunctions, and losses, so I don’t have pictures. I’m surfing online for decent stock photos I might have ended up in. The Defiance Q&A and the Dr.Who Q&A filled the convention center with lots of Scots. Sylvester McCoy was humorous and playful alongside Karen Gillan.
Toward the end of day one was Stephen Amell's Q&A, which was fairly average until an over picky DC comic fan pointed out the Arrow was nothing like the Green Arrow comic series and plotline. Amell handled it very well. I would have like to ask him about whether they were going to bring Cyrus Gold back to Arrow, but everybody seem to have questions; several of which had nothing to do with the television series. Artists there included Ethan Van Sciver, Chris Sprouse, and Brian Stelfreeze. The venue, the Irving Convention Center was a bad facility for the Expo. People were bottlenecked in a lot of areas and Exit only signs were not helping all the crowd jams. It was nice though.