The St. Louis Preamble

 Technically, St. Louis's Holmes in the Heartland symposium starts this afternoon. On Friday.

But back when planning for this, I accidentally asked for Thursday off, so with a lot of prep to do for weekend, I added an extra day to my hotel stay and just went early. A little extra vacation isn't usually a hard choice. What came as a bit of a surprise was the number of Sherlockians who did likewise.

After settling in at the hotel Thursday afternoon, I went down to simply get my bearings, and immediately saw two Sherlockians in the hotel bar. By the time I took my first sip of a ginger ale and Malibu rum, five more wandered in. Several brave souls were headed out to a Cubs-Cardinals game on a hundred degree evening, but I happily stayed in the nice cool hotel.

Heather Hinson and Olivia Kirkendall were sticking around as well, and since the Westport Plaza Sheraton is a part of a complex of restaurants and shops, we only had to walk outside for about half a block to get to the Trainwreck Salloon, where a bison burger and sweet potato fries awaited. After dinner, I used the ruse of "Anybody want to do crafts?" to get my dinner companions to work in my programs and name badges sweat shop, and by 9:30 we had everything sorted. Time to call it a night, right?

We all thought so, and they went on their way, I turned on the TV and settled in, getting sleepier and ready to change into my bedclothes. But I did not consider the Monica factor.

Doing one last check of Facebook, I saw a message from Monica Schmidt about a cocktail outing earlier in the evening, to which I replied that I was sorry I missed it. Only Monica and Bill had moved their party to their hotel room. You won't see Sherlockian hotel room parties written up in histories of our hobby, but they are a tradition in this hobby. If there are Sherlockians gathering for an event and spending the night in a hotel, there's usually a few cooking somewhere. I've heard the goal of staying up until the Canonical 2:21 AM (2:21 BM is a different thing.) is sometimes a goal, but since I got talked into heading up for drinks at chat around 10, I just made it to 12:30 AM, when a certain pair of gentlemen bid their adieus.

Someone is going to have to remind me of the name of the scion society I now belong to who held a meeting at 7 AM the next morning. Steve Mason will remind me, of course, being the leader of the society for Sherlockians who break their fasts with other Sherlockians at Waffle House. I have only dined at Waffle House with Sherlockians, and you know that in addition to Steve, Rich Krisciunas was at the Waffle House as well, being one of the currently reigning Omnipresent Sherlockians.

After Waffle House, it was back to the hotel lobby where more Sherlockians were showing up, and it's been a consistent meet and greet since then -- I'm almost been unable to finish this! So I will drop it for now.