This will still be just a quickie. Metalligirl, Idahogirl, SJJCM, and I all arrived in Vancouver on Thursday. MG actually found me in the baggage claim area at the Vancouver airport! No sooner had we gotten to the hotel and checked in, into adjoining rooms, no less, than the door across the hall opened to reveal SJJCM, who’d heard our voices and figured out who we had to be. IG, driving up from Seattle, made it in time for dinner, and we also rendezvoused with immie, who’s a Vancouver local. Dinner was followed by everyone returning to my room to watch the Sin City episode (which I promise to do a commentary on, but not for a while, I fear!) and talk until far too late in the night! I don’t think I need to say that we all loved it.

On Friday, MG, IG, SJJCM, and I hit the road to find the studio and to search for shooting locations that wouldn’t be included in the location bus tour scheduled for Sunday. The word we’d gotten was that they were shooting at the studio, not out on location, so our chances of seeing anyone were miniscule, but the sun was out and it was lovely. We didn’t see the boys, but we did meet and get to pet Jared’s dogs! Two girls were walking them outside the studio, and Harley and Sadie, not being on leashes, came right up to us to say hello where we were taking pictures on the sidewalk. We got photos of them only as they were walking away, but it was a fun experience!

From the studio in Burnaby, we took a little purely tourist road trip through Surrey and Whiterock, and then went on to Fort Langley, where Croatoan and the opening scene between the boys in Hunted were shot. We got photos of the corner of Mavis and River Road, where Dean drove the Impala into town and made the turn to park in front of the clinic; the exterior of the building used as the clinic (which actually doesn’t have an interior – it’s just an opening into an interior courtyard!); and best of all, the path beside the river where Dean finally confessed to Sam the secret that John had loaded on his shoulders. Our best local source hadn’t realized that the confession scene had happened there:  we found it only because the place we parked our car gave us an elevated vantage over the river that let us spot the pilings lining the path where the boys had stood, and we were able to figure out how to walk there!

Friday evening was registration for the convention, dinner with the organizers to prepare for the following day’s screening of Jensen’s film Ten Inch Hero, which he shot last year (the four of us had all volunteered to help with logistics), and then a mixer for the convention attendees in the hotel bar. This turned out to be the smallest convention I had ever attended, with only 30 people turning up. Something Wicked lost a number of attendees when Creation Entertainment announced its Burbank Supernatural convention for the same weekend, and Creation cancelled that one far too late for people to change their minds again and make it to Vancouver instead. But the folk who turned up came from as far away as Scotland, Spain, and Australia, and we made for a very convivial crew!

The highlight of Saturday was the screening at a local Vancouver theatre of Ten Inch Hero for about 80 attendees, followed by a hilarious and extremely informative Q&A with director David McKay. I’ll say more in a later review blog (which I promise will NOT contain spoilers for the film!), but suffice it to say that the film was DELIGHTFUL, something I’ll definitely want to see again and eventually own on DVD, and not just for Jensen’s performance, either. It still doesn’t have a domestic distributor for the U.S., but McKay is hopeful that will change shortly.

Saturday night was the con’s costume-optional party. The winner of the prize for best costume did a superb recreation of the dead silent film starlet from Hollywood Babylon. We also had a Woman in White. Me? I went as the Impala, all in black with silver jewelry including Chevy bowtie logo earrings and necklace and with Chevy logo stickers on my hip side panels and my … trunk. *grin*

Today we took a bus tour in the Vancouver rain to various exterior locations used in the show, including the private home used for the Winchester residence in Home and What Is and What Should Never Be (you wouldn’t recognize it, absent all the set dressing; the freaky tree isn’t really there, and the house doesn’t have rosebushes or a picket fence!); the historic Rosemary Mansion used as the inn in Playthings; the St. Andrews-Wesley church used in Salvation and Houses of the Holy; the Riverview mental hospital used in Asylum, In My Time of Dying, and Folsom Prison Blues; the Old Terminal Pub used in Asylum and The Magnificent Seven; the studio in Burnaby, which was redressed as the Oklahoma Gas and Power Company office in Bugs; the Lu Lu Island trestle bridge, which appeared in Hookman and Salvation (we saw the Hookman side); and the gas station (now a bottle recycling depot!) where Dean made his emotional call to John in Home. We saw additional locations that didn’t allow for us to stop and take photos, including the carpark where they filmed the closing scene of Nightshifter; the west building at Riverview that provided the front steps for the coroner’s office in Bloody Mary and the hospital in Something Wicked; the exterior of the building used as the psychiatrist’s office in Asylum; and the park that was redressed as the graveyard where Dean stood at John’s grave in What Is and What Should Never Be.

We returned to the hotel for a discussion session, a trivia competition, and farewells. The discussion wound up being a fascinating one, because there were two university professors (also fans!) in attendance who were researching the fandom for an academic book on the phenomenon. Their questions about what made us fans, what drew us to the show, and what determined our fandom expression (ranging from just enjoying the show to blogging/commenting to doing meta analysis on episodes and topics to writing fan fiction) made for a spirited and free-wheeling conversation!

Most folk are leaving tomorrow. SJJCM and I are staying until Friday, and MG extended her stay by a day, so tomorrow she’ll join SJJCM and me in the hunt for location shooting. Tomorrow will be day one of shooting on episode ten. We don’t know where they’ll be, but we’ll be on the prowl! We’ll also try to hit some of the locations where the bus couldn’t stop today, so we may have more photos for the collection.

How quickly I can get photos up will depend a bit on how lucky we are in the location hunt, and how late we’re getting back to the hotel. But you can trust that we’ll be having fun!! And you will be hearing from us as things develop.