Kage Baker loved to travel. She loved conventions, she loved making itineraries and lists of places to see and be and eat things. She even loved packing – which was handy, because she did or at least planned all of ours, because she was much better at it than I am.

Tonight, I’m preparing to drive North for BayCon tomorrow morning. Huzzah! I shall be meeting the saintly and patient Neassa, who has been accompanying Kage and now me for years of our adventures, and is a very paragon of an entourage-member. And I shall be travelling with nephew Michael, who has spent his entire life training to be a a traveller, and is superb at it. From his days as luggage – a wee swaddled babe in a Moses basket – to nowadays, when he loads all the luggage and does the heavy lifting, he is my boon companion.

I’m pretty much on my own for packing, but fortunately Kimberly makes list and tries her best not to let me out of the house without all my meds and power cords and underwear. These days, in fact, I think making sure you have universal chargers is as important as having good socks.

All the fluids have been topped up on the Cruiser. The unfortunate contretemp with the raccoon-sabotaged alarm system has been repaired. There is a teeny hole in the dashboard now, where the balefully winking red light of the alarm has been removed, but I think I’m gonna replace it with a glass eye. That would be amusing.

I have Kage’s entire output on a thumb drive shaped like a small, black skeleton. Mine, too, including notes for everything I’m working on. I have my writing hat and my writing necklace. I am prepared for Muse luring. My laptop is in my nifty rolling luggage, and my knitting is in a handsome handy canvas tote. We leave at dawn! Well, 9 AM or so, actually … but it’ll feel like dawn, I’m sure.

Notes from the road, Dear Readers, when I arrive in San Francisco tomorrow afternoon. It should be a fun trip. And who knows what amazing things we’ll see at the new Con hotel?