[PANK] Went to Mission Creek

Posted on by

and it was awesome.

I could sum it up at that, but I’ll go into a little more detail: ten hour drive, bookfair, reading, BBQ, concert, ten hour drive.

I can go into further detail still:

Dubuque Iowa in the sunshine is perhaps the prettiest Midwestern city I’ve seen.
And Old Chicago is perhaps the best franchised pizza I’ve ever eaten.

Other lessons learned while driving: (1) driving ten hours alone after not having owned a car for over a year is more stressful than one might expect, (2) it is bad etiquette to pass a hearse, in my opinion, and, (3) sometimes they have condom dispensers in gas station restrooms.

A bookfair at a bar is a great idea. Especially when said bar also has free beer and frozen yogurt samples. Thanks to The Mill for hosting. Your space rocks.

Also, Mission Creek has the best volunteers at any bookfair ever. They will go and get you coffee if you cannot leave your table.

The Lit Crawl Saturday night was harried and chaotic and great. We started out the Lit Crawl co-hosting a reading with Uncanny Valley and draft: the journal of process at White Rabbit. Thanks to all the readers, the crowd, and White Rabbit.

Mark Polanzak, killin it.

The crowd ran deep.

No cold feet here.

Then for round two we moved on to the Black Ocean reading, catching only the second half we saw Janaka Stucky and B.J. Love. Round three led us to El Bandito’s for the featherproof press reading. One word: hilarious.

Then The Antlers at The Blue Moose (isn’t that artist/venue name combination great?). Next stop, a beer at Deadwood Tavern (because, according to Aaron Burch, “You can’t visit Iowa City and not go to Deadwood!”). And finally, a slice of pizza for the walk home. Because you always have $3 for a slice of pizza at 1 am.

Lessons learned while driving home: (1) The time difference between CT and EST will always kick you in the ass on your way home, no matter how “used to and prepared for” it you are. (2) Wisconsin really likes roundabouts, this is common knowledge. But a double laned roundabout seems a little dangerous. (3) Sometimes, in a random Wendy’s restaurant on Sunday afternoon they host senior citizen BINGO where a BINGO gets you a free chili.

(4) We can’t wait for Mission Creek 2013.