WHAT WE DID!

FRIDAY

(Written by Nancy) After a very shaky start on Friday, when we were informed that a) it wasn't possible to hook up VCRs to any of the TVs in any of the rooms (contrary to what we'd planned for when the rooms were booked) and then b) that we could not hold our type of gathering in the rooms we had reserved because they were sleeping rooms and it was against hotel policy (again, contrary to what I had been told) a polite and helpful DoubleTree executive managed to save the day by finding us a small conference room which had an adjoining lounge with a big couch, comfy chairs and most importantly both rooms had TVs to which VCRs could be connected. PHEW!

Joy, Rick and Michele had arrived by plane on Thursday night, and on Friday were joined by Chris and Judy. In the meantime, Winter, Peggy, and Denise were driving up from New York and Violette and Carla were on their way from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, respectively.

The rooms weren't ready until 5 pm (because someone was using them for a silly meeting!), but Michele by coincidence had a room that connected with the lounge, so she let everyone hang out in her room. We spent the first couple of hours talking and getting to know each other.

Once we had the room, it didn't take us long to carry in all of the candy, chips, cookies, and sodas that would be needed to provide us with vital nutrients (sugar, salt, fat and chocolate) during the M7 viewing marathon we had planned. The conference room had a double phone jack for a modem, so a computer was provided so everyone would have access to their all-important e-mail.

At 6 pm, the last arrival, Judy, was picked up at the airport and shanghaied off to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of things that had been forgotten, like (DOH!) the tools to assemble the keychains!

Back at the hotel, the rest of the gang was already through the pilot and almost done with One Day Out West. There were 11 of us at this point, and everyone was there save for one attendee who would not be arriving until Saturday morning, so the goodie bags were passed out.

They contained name tags, the soundtrack and fanzine CDs, a small Native American sand painting, a stuffed lobster, cup, keychain, deck of cards, gathering tee- shirt, the Mag 7 tees that were our door prizes, and, since most of our group was Vixens, everyone got a bandana in their bag. (Chris, who is an engineer, ended up assembling ALL the keychains, bless her!)

When ODOW ended, we called for the hotel shuttle to take us to TGI Fridays, where we had a riotously good time while enjoying a good meal. We returned to the hotel at around 11 and watched more M7 until 1:00 am.

Saturday Sunday / Monday

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