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Well, we’re back. Four days of craziness, business, and hotel food. And, most of all, fun. I’ve been to ConiFur five years ago, but its events which have kept me away in the meantime, not a lack of desire to go.

The trip up on Thursday was also the first time I’ve ever been on an airplane. With my odd and unpredictable acrophobia, I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d react. The good news is that it didn’t bother me. Not even in the jetway which was bouncing up and down and side to side a bit (which is exactly the type of thing to set me off). On the other hand, the seats were tiny and cramped. CalTrain is a lot more comfortable, which is a good thing, since I have to do that trip five times a week.

So we got in early Thursday, and got settled in pretty quickly. We met up with Gerald and went on an outing to the Woodland Park Zoo. We got through maybe a third of the place, and got real lucky. We arrived at the Raptor Center just in time to see their hunting birds/raptors put through their paces on free-flight exercise.

Friday morning, Smudge finally got the final word on the Ebin & May graphic novels: Go. Despite a regrettable single-page snafu, the graphic novels were as good as they were going to get. We got everyone’s names, and will be shipping out corrected pages to be slipped into the book. Sales on the GN were strong, with somewhat less than a third as many coming back with us as we took to the show. In fact, table sales and the art show were pretty good for us overall.

The hotel was nice and close to the airport. In fact, it was in easy driving range of a lot of things. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a car with us, and it wasn’t really in walking range of much. So, we ate at the hotel restaurant (decent) a bit more than we would have liked. The hotel staff was very nice and cheerful, so full marks there. However, it’s due to be demolished for a mass-transit station in a couple months, so ConiFur will be starting the search for their fourth hotel.

All in all, a good show for BackBreaker, and a nice chance to relax and see some out-of-state friends.