The next morning (July 30th) we head (via taxi) over to the Paris for their breakfast buffet. It is one of the best in the city. Afterwards, we go back to the Rio and rent the car for the day. We headed down to Fremont Street. The Super Shuttle driver gave me tips on where to park for free. We parked at Binions and headed out onto Fremont Street. As it is morning, there is not much activity going on. We walked the street, did some shopping and then headed back to Binions. We had to gamble a little bit to get the free parking, then we headed out to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. And of course a road trip isn't a true road trip, till you do a u-turn; or in our case, drove around the block till the GPS unit could get it's bearings.


Debbie and I saw the speedway being built back in 1996, so it was going to be cool to see it now. I brought my GPS unit out with me, for getting around Vegas. I was glad that I brought it. It helped us navigate out to the track. I was hoping that we would be able to tour the track, and we did. We also got to do a lap around the track. We had a great time with our private tour guide, Summer. She loves her job and you could tell it. We had a great time and took lots of photos.

See more photos here.


Afterwards, we headed to Wal-mart to get some groceries and other items. Our rooms have refrigerators, so we could save money and have breakfast and lunch in our rooms. Saving this money, gives us more money to spend on autographs and photo ops. We get back to the hotel, turn the car in, and take everything up to our rooms. We then head back down to the convention area. We had planned on getting in line around 4:00 for the 6pm check in. It's now about 2:30, the line has started, so we decide to take a seat and wait. We take turns going back upstairs to get a spot of lunch.

We meet Chuck Gilmore. He sits down with us. This is also his first convention. We give him the low down on the do's and don'ts, ins and outs of convention survival. #1 rule - Drink lots of water. Good thing we sat down in line when we did. The line kept getting longer and longer. Even though we have reserved seating, we want to upgrade our seating for 2015. The way to upgrade is to turn in an upgrade sheet when you check in (Debbie being the smart one, printed out some sheets before coming; so we could fill them out in line). You get an upgrade number and then on Sunday night, they call you up by that number to upgrade. (if there are openings)

A little after 6pm the check in starts. To my delight Adam Malin, co-founder of Creation and our host (along with Gray Bearman) is greeting everyone has they check in. I think that is very classy of him to take time to do that. We get our creditials and upgrade number (43). We head on down to see the final reveal of the sets and hit the vendors room. We took a few pictures today; starting tomorrow it will be hard to get pictures without other people in them. One of the advantages of arriving early.

We stop at the Photo Ops room first and I pick up tickets for Conner Trineer, Anthony Montgomery and Rod Roddenberry. I had pre-bought, Karl Urban and Scott Bakula. We keep going down the hallway and get to the transportor, as that was not put together on Tuesday night. We each take turns on the transporter getting our pictures taken. Rob and Deb changed into one of the uniforms for the weekend. I also became the photographer for people who need their photos taken; imagine that.


Once inside the vendors room, we head to the Autogrpah table. I needed to pick up a Nichelle Nichols autograph ticket. I had my photo op with her in Chicago and wanted her to autogprah the photo in Vegas. As we stroll around, we find our Tribble guy. I knew I wanted to get a gray tribble, his name is Bak-u-la, for Scott Bakula. What's nice is the vendors will have 2 for $$ specials going on. So, when Deb and I each want the same thing, we split the special price. Then we came around and saw Richard Hatch, from Battlestar Galatica. We had seen him early and couldn't wait to see him tonight. Deb and I each wanted our picture with him. He is so sweet. He was also promoting a new movie, Axanar. He plays a Klingon in it. He was thrilled about playing a Klingon.


We wind our way to the Creation photo table to get 8x10s of people we are getting autographs from, as part of our Gold Package. I already have most of mine that I created and printed at home. There were only three that I needed to purchase. After that, we took a look at the "freebie/discount" list in our package. We started collecting some of them tonight and others said that they would not be ready till the next day. After the vendors room, we headed out. I believe we stopped to see if Chris, the photographer was in. He was and we said "Hello" to him. It was after 9pm, and I was a bit peckish. Deb and Rob, went upstairs and changed clothes, and I got us a table at the Grille. As we were eating several people were coming in for dinner that we recognized; Vendors, Creation Staff and Volunteers. Afterwards, we hit the sack. I checked my podometer and we had walked about 9 miles this day. No wonder my feet were crying. The convention was officially off and running for us, and this was just the beginning.

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