I was really looking forward to going to this show when I first heard about it at the Atlanta Pen Show. As ususal though, I procrastinated until the last minute. I didn't have a room and hadn't sent in my registration form. I've started doing the weekend registration so I can get in on the early days. I'm on a budget and didn't want to spend the $200 for the 2 nights at the show hotel. So around midnight on thursday I went online and got a room for $34 a night using Hotwire. It ended up being in Crabtree at a La Quinta. This worked out nicely as it was close to a mall and only a short 10 minute drive to the show hotel.

My 13 year old son was going with me so I got him up early on friday. We live in Cumming, GA about 40 miles north of Atlanta. We were hoping to get an early start so we could be at the show around opening time, but again as usual we got off a little later than I had hoped, around 7am. The drive was pretty straight forward. Get to I-85 and head north. Roughly 6 hours later we were at the show. We did stop at a nice biscuit place called Biscuitville in High Point where Fantasia (American Idol) is from. There were newspaper clippings on the wall about her.

We were warmly greeted at the door by Sonya Mawhorter and filled out our registration form. Friday was nice with a good bit of dealers present. I bought a few closeout items, pens, pen holders, etc. I also bought a nice Parker Lady (looks like a mini Parker 51 and I don't know if that's the right name) from Dan Lanford. Funny that I drive all that way and buy a pen from a guy in my pen club.

I got to meet quite a few fellow PenTracer's at the show and some local Raliegh pen folk. Jim M. (PenHero.com), Fran, David I., Deb Kinney, Ross, and many others. I bought an "Elizabeth" pen wrap from Fran as I saw him showing them to Ann Marie (inkpalette.com).

We were heading out around 5pm to go check-in to our hotel and got to the interstate ramp and traffic was backed up big time. So, I decided we'd eat around the show hotel first. Traffic was lighter after dinner and we made it to the hotel in short order. We got checked in and made ourselves at home. Free high-speed internet access, cool! Later we went and checked out the Crabtree mall. It was a nice mall and I even ended up buying a pen from Sharon Lugagge at the mall. A Tornado Big Shot in the cool blue swirl. Sharon Lugagge was at the show as well.

Saturday we woke up early, got breakfast and headed over to the show. We just mingled around and looked at all the cool stuff. I watched Tim Pierson's table for him a few times and Scott Franklin's (PenCity.com) table as well. Scott even said I could take a cut for any pens I sold, but alas there were no takers while I was there.

Traffic was a little on the light side and I don't know if that's because it's a new thing or just the area or what?

I stood and watched Roger Cromwell (penopoly.com) for quite a while as he did his repair thing. It's so cool to be able to go to these shows and watch this. He fixed a 51 vac filler, 51 special, and some other vintage pens while I watched.

My son and I wrapped things up around 5pm and headed back to our hotel. After we rested for a while we went and had dinner at the food court at the mall.

Sunday we got to the show a little late and Dan Lanford informed me that Lee Chait went to the hospital to get checked out for a pain in his arm. Later I saw Lee back at the show with some bandages where blood was drawn. Turns out that it was related to arthritis.

The rest of the day I bought some Noodler's ink from Chuck Swisher and gang (swisherpens.com), some pen sacs and the limited edition blue Diamine ink from Pendemonium, and some Ink Nix ink remover. Talked with Chuck and Bertie Canning, Jimmy Dolive (go-pens.com), Howard Newman, and Jim Hickman (newmanpens.com) from the Southeastern Pen Club.

We wrapped things up and headed out around 2pm. We made it home around 10pm and my son and wife packed a bag for my son's church camp trip which I had to bring him to at 5:30am.

All in all we had a great time and it's not a bad drive. We'll probably do it again next year.