ApollyCon 2022 Recap: Day Four

I am finally done writing ApollyCon recap posts! Huzzah! And this one is the biggest one! Not in terms of how much happened. That was Day Two. No, this was just the biggest because it was, in my opinion, the best of all of the events.

So we actually got to sleep in a bit on Sunday too. Yippee! Though there was still more walking. But most of that came later. Our first stop, though, was the last and best event of the convention: The JLA panel. We didn't get the brunch tickets to get the swag bag with the exclusive book and the early breakfast brunch, but it was all okay. (I'll explain later.) So we basically just chilled outside the panel room until it was time to line up for the event. My friend and I took some photos together to commemorate the trip, and after an hour-plus of waiting, we finally were in.

I ended up taking quite a lot of photos and videos, and for some reason, the photos all look terrible. But, anyway, Jennifer was on a panel with the two 1,001 Dark Nights publishers she works with, Jillian and Liz (I think that may be her name...?). Most of the information JLA shared in this panel was stuff I'd heard before, like writing advice (my least favorite question ever for authors), how she came up with FBAA (the summer olympics), and the inspiration for characters' names (Poppy = Poppy from L.J. Smith's Night World and Cas = Castiel, just the name inspiration, not the actual personalities/looks). The big reveals she shared included the new Adult fantasy book that she'd talked about in her Facebook group a little bit but not a lot. It's going to be published with Tor and she's had to rewrite it multiple times. Also, a compendium book/bible for the FBAA world will tentatively release in May 2023. It will be told in Miss Willa's narrative voice, and it will have a sneak peek of book five. Also, a Kieran POV might be included. And JLA also talked about adaptation rights and how there will be some news soon.

After the panel, the staff/volunteers announced there would be limited brunch bags on sale So my friend and I booked it to wait in the last line of the convention. Thankfully, we were successful, all because we had cash! If you had cash, you got to go in a much shorter line. So I got my FBAA ApollyCon exclusive edition and the swag items for $50. I was so happy. And now I'm so sad that I didn't manage to get tickets to the 2023 ApollyCon. Getting the matching sequels off of resellers is going to be a bummer. I hope I can snag an extra on sale in the JLA Shop instead.

And after the bag purchase, ApollyCon was officially over. Which was both sad because the fun was gone and happy because my feet couldn't take another day. My friend and I went back to our AirBnB to drop off our stuff, change our clothes, and rest up a bit before we did the major D.C. touristy stuff. Then, we took the metro back to the National Mall and saw as many sights as our feet would allow. First up was the Washington Monument. It's very tall. Oh, and it was raining. I don't want to forget that detail, as it becomes very important later on.
 

  The Lincoln Memorial was next, though of course we did walk by the World War II Memorial, I just didn't take pictures of it. It seemed disrespectful. I did take pics in front of Lincoln, though. Because it's a giant Lincoln. The rain wasn't terrible at this point, but my umbrella had just gotten a workout trying to swat mosquitos and gnats away from me as we walked by the water.

And this is me posing in front of the White House. We didn't get any closer than that, as 1) our feet were killing us, and 2) it started pouring. We were so soaked on the walk back that the insoles we'd padded our shoes with had started getting weird white soapy looking stuff all over the outside of our shoes. Well, it was either the insoles or poorly rinsed socks from the washing machine. Either way it was icky and wet.

On the metro ride back, I ordered us a margherita pizza that we ended up not being able to finish, sadly. Though I do believe I had a piece for breakfast the next morning. But to end the day, we just packed up our stuff and set our alarms for the next morning. When we did get up, it was to carry our box of books to the post office to ship home, and then we arranged a Lyft to the airport. Unfortunately, I had to stay at the airport for quite a long time, as my first of two flights wasn't until later in the day. I even tried to get on two earlier flights, but I just didn't make it. I did manage to get on a 3 p.m. instead of a 5 p.m., so that was nice. My connecting flight was still around 8 p.m., though.

Well, that's all. It was six days of utter chaos. Four at ApollyCon and two for travel. I can't believe I made it out of all that tourist-y walking stuff alive though. My feet hurt just thinking about how much walking we did. But it's all good now. I came back and all of my shipped books arrived (as you can see by my lovely FairyLoot packaging). None of the books I packed in my bags were damaged, and nothing got lost either. Overall ApollyCon 2022 was a success! Even though I do wish I'd gotten a better pic with JLA. Boo. I'm planning on it for 2024, though. If nothing else, getting a good photo with her will be the #1 priority.