You might ask: What happens at a license plate convention? Hundreds of collectors busily scattering around dozens of tables and dozens of displays; wandering and talking, buying, selling, and trading. It's essentially the same as a coin show or baseball card convention...just a bit bigger, grimier, and more fun.
The ALPCA festivities started the day before with an informal "meet and greet" in the convention center's parking lot. I didn't bother showing up until noon, just in time to see other people packing up and leaving. Soon, I understood why: I felt like I was wearing a damp sponge, and it was no fun at all to linger outdoors in the 35-degree southern heat.
On Wednesday, the actual convention began...and I was ready. I had a pair of two-panel foldable displays that I had prepared for this convention. I pulled them out of the car...and stopped. There was no way I could get them inside, and carry my grocery box of loose plates in one trip without having at least three extra hands. But I could work my way to the entrance incrementally, taking one or two of the bulky objects at a time. That's the tactic I use to carry groceries from the car, after all.
Eventually I succeeded, reserved a table for myself, and got to work. I had a mission in mind: I was going to find each and every one of the 29 states missing from my marriage equality run...or do everything I could to shatter the stereotype of the collector as a geriatric homophobe in the process.
The rest of the day was a complete blur. I chatted with a number of long-standing collector acquaintances, including Royce Williams, Eric Tanner, Ross Day, Dave Nicholson, Joe Sallmen, and Andrew Osborne over everything from license plates to Ontario restaurants to Subaru mechanicals. I also spent six hours parsing through the tables of half the hall (spending nearly no time at my own table in the process), and was so busy that I forgot to eat lunch.
But the day's efforts weren't in vain. By the time I walked out the doors, I had found license plates from Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Virginia, West Virginia (!), and Wyoming for my run. Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee had been acquired in the parking lot the previous day, pulling the tally of missing pieces down from 29 to 15.
Could the next day be just as productive? I'll have to wait and see.
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