New Orleans to San Antonio: PAX South Adventures Part 2

To read Part 1, click here

Sometimes the journey is more than the destination, but that was not the case when two friends journey together for the inaugural PAX South in San Antonio. 

Pete (Ackote from previous post) lives a little over an hour southwest of me, which is in the general direction of New Orleans; therefore, we decided that I would swoop down and pick him up in Houma, LA. It would add negligible time in getting into San Antonio.

Our first major stop was Buc-ee's. What is a Buc-ee's? It is a giant, nay ginormous chain of gas stations that are growing like fungus in the triangle of Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas. It takes the simple idea of a gas station/convenient store and pumps steroids to a ridiculous level. With that said, their gas was $1.59 in Baytown, and I bought some homemade beef jerky for convention days. I might sound like a hypocrite with my seemingly derisive description, but there is a love/hate relationship with Buc-ee's. I like to the think the the apostrophizing of "Buc-ee" is showing ownership of me, since it doesn't clarify what Buc-ee actually owns. They have large bronze beavers at the two side entrances. Here is Pete getting friendly with one of them. This was his first time experiencing Buc-ee's, and it wouldn't be his last.

Fueled up, waste released, stockpiled, and ready to go, I pushed forward to our final destination- San Antonio.

A quick rant: I have driven in Houston a fair amount, and decided that 7pm on Friday might not be a good day to travel through the heart of Houston because of all the elements that create gridlock traffic. Also, with the construction on I-610, I thought our most prudent coarse of action was to take Tollway 8. There are signs that state 'No Cash' above the EZ Tag sign along the road once you get on Tollway 8 from I-10, but I figured those were the EZ Tag lanes only as I have experienced in the northern section of Highway 8. So, if you want to take Tollway 8 North from I-10 East, you CANNOT without an electronic Tag. I realized this as I was passing through an area with cameras going off as each car passed through. What the f@*k, Houston. Trying to circumvent the horrible traffic put me in a violation. Here is what you do Houston, you put a big sign that reads verbatim, "Do not enter on this part of the Tollway unless you have a toll tag. I don't care if Google is telling you to go that direction because it doesn't understand that although you are O.K. with paying a toll to avoid sitting in mind-numbing traffic due to our inefficiency with road construction, you have to have a special toll tag to enter here. Trust us you don't want to enter here because we like to create arbitrary violation fine amounts." See what I did there? It is very clear, concise message, and you could get Google to sponsor the signs in exchange for product placement.

Once we got on the other side of Houston, it was soothe sailing. It was so soothing that Pete was snoring in no time. That man can fall asleep at the drop of a head, and he doesn't need to be reclined. No worries, I had Dan Carlin's Hardcore History cued up to learn about Genghis Khan. At the time of this writing, I have finished parts 1-3 of the Wrath of Khan series. Dan's ability to weave a narrative is confounding, bewildering, but mostly entertaining. He is a gifted story teller, and pulls from many sources to construct a vivid story that feels compelling. He offers information and a doorway into my academic prose on the subject matter. I have not listen to anything else, but the three (so far) of Wrath of Khans, and can't speak to quality of the other ones. Keep in mind he is an entertainer doing history not the other way around.

We arrived to our destination in San Antonio around 10:00 PM. As this is my first experience with an AirBnB, I was really delighted. The owners of the home, which was a large home, had several rooms for guest. We had two rooms with a total of three beds. The house is older with lots of character. Harvey and Sylvia were very kind and generous host. We did not interact with them much as they kept to their side of the house, and we were just there to relax. I don't think these pictures do justice of the rooms, but you get the idea. With a quick bite to eat and a couple of celebratory beers, we soon found ourselves in a deep sleep hoping that tomorrow would come sooner.




































Part 3

Until I ramble on again. . .

New Orleans to San Antonio: PAX South Adventures Part 1

The preparation for any trip has its difficulties. From hotels, routes, driving vs. flying, what to bring, wear, and a whole host of other details that go into having fun. In the summer of 2014, three friends decided to attend the inaugural PAX South, and this is my story- part 1- the preparation gibberish.

PAX is the Penny Arcade eXpo, which started in 2004 located at Bellevue, Washington. This convention is simply a gaming convention with publishers, studios, developers, and fans congregating together to share in the love of all types of games. It became so popular that in 2010, PAX East was created, thus we have PAX Prime in Washington and PAX East in Boston. Not satisfied with providing two of the largest gaming expos in the United States with over 70,000 attendees* each, PAX Aus was created in 2013 for thousands of Aussies to have their own PAX down under. When it was announced that there would be a PAX closer to home in the form of PAX South, my friends Ackote and Madlaugher (names withheld for legal reasons[not really]) became enthused, nay, enthralled with the idea of traveling to San Antonio for a weekend of nerd-gaming fun.  The three of us have bonded over playing video games. You can see a short video of us playing Dead Island (2) together here. I quickly jumped on board especially with there being a fair amount of board gaming action, which do not display my pitiful eye-hand coordination like video games, and tickets were purchased. We agreed on Saturday and Sunday, since three day passes sold out quickly.

Finding a room can be difficult around a large convention, plus prices are increased because capitalism, free market, blah, blah, blah. So the market has responded to this ability for people to take advantage of situation. Ackote handled the room arrangement, and he is an avid user of AirBnB, the online website for people to turn a room or rooms in their home into a Bed and Breakfast, of sorts. Basically, it is a cheap way to find a room in lieu of a hotel or actually Bed and Breakfast establishment. This was my first experience with a room obtained through Air BnB. Analysis to come later. So, tickets purchased-check, room reserved- check, and now how to actually get to San Antonio.

The only problem with traveling in a group is that I can't ride on my motorcycle- the best way to travel. I, oddly, have the only car that could handle this trip, a 2001 Honda Accord with over 190,000 miles, a slight gasket leak, and transmission situation. I say a transmission situation because I have no idea what the actual problem is, but it works well enough that I do not feel an overwhelming desire to get it checked out. It also does not have A/C either- so a real gem of a car. When the weather is warm and raining is the worst because the only way to keep the windows from fogging up is keeping the door windows down, and then you get wet from the rain. Remember, this is the best of the three of our cars.

The only problem in the preparation phase came within three to four weeks of the trip and Madlaugher for personal reasons had to drop out the trip. Ackote and I searched for weeks for a replacement, but in the end we could not find a worthy enough person (that is what I'm telling myself not that people didn't want to take a road trip with me), and the tickets were given to a young man. The time came, arraignments, routes, and all where concretized, thus the adventure began and fun was calling like a Siren's Song. Oh, I will willing and warmly step into your gentle embrace PAX.

Part 2

Until I ramble again on again. . .


*It seems that PAX has cease to give out the number of attendees since 2011, or getting a final count with vendors, exhibitors, and fans, so this is the last officialish count since that year. The limited 3 Day Passes appear to usually sell out within 24 hours.