Fannish travel arrangements should involve no more than one person, and preferably fewer.

On Tuesday, we (Joyce, Peter, Stu and I) set out from Chicago at 2pm, not 11am, for John and Joni Stopas’ place at Wilmot, WI. What kept us in Chicago I know not. The con had ended the day before, most people had long gone, what were we doing?

I seem to remember a late breakfast, though, so maybe that’s what we were doing. None of the set breakfast choices immediately appealed and it seemed like a lot of effort to make a decision, so I thought, I’m in the land where the customer is king and customer service is a profession not looked down upon. I’ll say what I want. So I reeled off a list of breakfast items I’d like. The waiter seemed bemused by this approach – not on menu, does not compute – but he did know his menu. “Why don’t you have the Big Country Breakfast [or whatever it was called] and hold the mushrooms?” I glanced at the Big Country Breakfast on the menu and said it would be fine. And it was, to be fair.

Having flown from London to New York, and New York to Chicago, the next stages were to be by car, specifically Joyce’s Ford Pinto, a car designed to be smaller and cheaper than the average American car, a result of which was the fuel tank being put in a vulnerable position at the back, with a tendency to explode if involved in even the mildest rear-end shunt.

While I was with Shell in Manchester, a new person joined us. He turned out to be the brother of a colleague at my previous employer, but that’s a side point. He had been a research chemist at ICI, working on a new anaesthetic. The substance he developed worked fine in its primary function, but had a tendency to explode. Without necessarily needing a rear-end shunt.

[You can probably tell I’m working with free association here.]

I sat in the front of the car, furthest from the fuel tank, having successfully deployed the ‘I’ve got the longest legs’ gambit. Peter and Stu were in the back and all our luggage filled every available space, both in the boot (sorry, trunk) and around us. The journey to Wilmot was around 70 miles (thank you, Apple Maps) and where we ended up was not Wilmot itself, but Wilmot Mountain, a ski resort all on its own to the south, established and owned by Walter Stopa (thank you, Wikipedia). And it wasn’t just us; lots of people from the con ended up there. I say ‘lots’, but that’s a comparative term. We didn’t have all 5,000; around twenty, maybe. Being a resort, it had space for that many to sleep and a kitchen easily able to cook dinner for us all.

John and Joni took us out to see the ski slopes. It was September, so there was no snow, but you could tell where the ski slopes ran by the lines of sprinklers standing about a metre high and going right up the mountain. If it’s cold, but there’s no snow, you can’t disappoint the paying customers. Just turn on the sprinklers and hey presto – instant snow. John talked casually about moving a chunk of the mountain from here to there to give a better run.

I’m writing this (first draft) the day after the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics closing ceremony, and an abiding image of the games for me was the bright white rivers of artificially created snow on the ski slopes, against the backdrop of dark mountain tops.