Comic-Con Day 2C: I can see for miles and miles

After the show, I was a starvin’ marvin. So I went to have dinner with my best friend. He was down in the super-swanky Del Mar area with his girlfriend, who I hadn’t met in person yet. We hung out for a bit and thankfully he paid for the whole enchilada.

After that, I switched tasks to find a place to stay for the night. This is where things went sideways.

I was in Del Mar and I knew I wasn’t going to find hotels that close. Certainly not ones that were less than what I got hit with the night before. I felt guilty I had blown it at the Radisson; after all, I needed EIGHTY friggin’ subscriptions to cover THAT blunder. (Did I mention Dungeon Runners is FREE?!?!) Overflowing with desperation, I hatched my backup plan.

I could run home to my mommy in Orange County.

First though I’d check out all the places to stay along the way. I called her to let her know just in case I needed to crash, but that was so remote of a chance, I figured she would be wasting her time getting anything ready for my arrival. At least if it came down to that, I would only be out some gas money, but I’d save an entire night of hotel costs and thus restore balance to the universe.

For those of you not familiar with SoCal, Del Mar was already twenty-two miles outside San Diego. Of course, it was booked solid.

I drove north, stopping and/or calling hotels, motels, and “other establishments” along the way, like truck stops and campgrounds.

Here’s my a running log of my drive:

Solana Beach: Nothing but sand to sleep on. Plus, sand gets everywhere.
Encinitas: Nada. Tack on a bunch more miles.
Carlsbad: Oh it was bad all right. Whole lotta nothing there.
Oceanside: Okay. By now I figured I was getting out of range of Comic-Con. No super hero blast could reach this far. No way.

Oh how I underestimated the superhuman power of Comic-Con!

I arrived, whimpering, at my mom’s place around 2:45 in the morning. I crawled into the guest room, which was a tad over eighty-six miles away from downtown San Diego.

For the record, all I had found that entire drive were the words “No Vacancy.”

Lesson learned: Never underestimate the power of Comic-Con.