Baltimore 2009 - Setting up and settling in...

We left Portland bright and early(ish) on Tuesday. The drive was as nice as an eight hour drive can possibly be. We landed at Ned Sparrow's (of Ned Sparrow Books fame) around 8pm. There was fresh pizza waiting and Ned sauteed and thinly sliced some venison to top it....amazing. The next morning, we were off in time to be at the Balt. Convention Center by 10AM.

We were allowed in with no waiting at all and were able to park *right* next to the booth. So far, so good. On the other hand, when we arrived we only had our case and one 4 foot table...our six food and eight foot tables were no where to be seen throwing a major monkey wrench into our ability to begin. We ended up getting a standard six foot and 2 sixes that are only 2 feet wide (allowing us to stay within the rigidly enforced 10 foot booth size limit...but we are able to "violate" it at the back, as we abut big load bearing pillars). It took an hour or so to get our tables, during which I build the glass display case and cleaned and prepped the trophy case.

Set-up took about 8 hours. the booth looks pretty good, I think. The trophy case is a bit "dense", but that seems to resonate with more than it annoys. The pictures show most angles of the booth (small pictures are small, but blow up if you click them...also, sorry re the order, I could not get them to lay out correctly and am too tired to figure it out). I'll post some close ups tomorrow.

I'll try to figure this out, but it seems as if there are *more* book dealers this year than last. The other booths I was able to poke about look good (Brian next door looks great as usual). It is shaping up to be a great show...hope attendees do their part .

We checked into the hotel...a mere 2.5 blocks from the show. Thus far, I can not recommend the Hotel Monaco highly enough. It is in the old-fabulous-B&O Railroad headquarters building. It is a great deco building (more images of the building also likely). The room is lovely and large, the decorating touches on the buildings history without being camp (e.g. nightstands have the look of steamertrunks, the bathroom door is a slider). We were very lucky to be offered a "we just renoed the building and would love to have warm bodies in it" rate of just $99/night. As with most of their (Klimpton Hotels), we were offered and readily accepted "pet goldfish" for the duration of our 5 night stay. I've named them SushiK and Hiro (hat-tip to NS).

Dinner from the hotel gastrobar was really quite nice (pepperoni and arugula flatbread and bbq meatball sliders) and the dessert was exceptional...a long, thin brulee with finely diced candied ginger, cocoa, peaches, strawberries and mango. Absolutely wonderful.

We are going over around 9am tomorrow morning to finish tweaking the booth. The show opens and 11 and runs until 8pm tomorrow...long day. I'll do my best to post after.