Yes! After years of saying, “I really want to go to Dragon Con and see (insert actor/actress here)”, this geek girl finally got the chance to attend the biggest sci-fi/cosplay event in America. And what’s even better, Mama Bear has trained her padawans well, as they were more than excited to attend the convention. Costume talk went on for several weeks, and in the end, we opted for the cheap, whatever we could put together from our closets, route. As it was our first time, this seemed the best thing to do. However, plans for next year are already underway.

We only attended one day this year (it’s a four-day Labor Day weekend event). We road MARTA into town early, early to get our Saturday ticket and make it to the parade. We found a place right next to the street which was AWESOME! However, it was also close to the end of the parade route, which was not so awesome considering we had to wait forever for the parade to reach us, and it was hot. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, but that was possibly the longest parade I have ever attended. My camera, however, was ready for every minute of it, and my vantage point allowed for some great close-up shots.

Now, I am a geek girl at heart, but I am not exactly familiar with all of the games, shows, and fantasy realms of fandom. My darling padawans had to educate me during the parade and later when going through the pictures. I am now considerably more familiar with the new sci-fi/fantasy elements, and I am eagerly awaiting next year’s convention when perhaps I may get a chance to actually peruse the vendor hall. For now, however, I will share with you the treasures of my adventure.

My greatest treasure, to the joy of all of you Star Wars fans, was this awesome shot of a very well-done Darth Mal who stopped and posed for me.

There were some great Star Wars costumes, and I caught some pretty good shots of a couple of wookies, a storm trooper, and an emperial fighter. My daughter came home with a not-so-great souvenir from this portion of the parade. She learned that it is not a wise idea to fist bump a storm trooper, as trooper gloves are a little rough on soft girl hands.

For the Star Wars spoof fans, there was, of course, Spaceballs.

And somehow, Jack Sparrow managed to get himself caught up in all this Star Wars business. I’m not quite sure how that happened. Too much rum would be my guess, however.

Of course, being a Whovian, I was waiting for the Doctor Who portion of the parade. I had already caught a glimpse of The Doctor and Rose before the parade…

And we were seated behind a cute,red dalek (I thought she was a ladybug at first, until she stood up to take pictures.)

Eventually, the Whovian portion of the parade came around, and I got a few decent shots.

Later in the day we ran into Amy Pond. She had tally marks all over her. We weren’t quite sure why, and then we noticed that we had them too. I wonder what it was all about. Let me find the pic.

Oh…it was because of that guy. I totally forgot him. Why did I forget him?

Sadly, we missed the Time Lord Fest. It took place on Sunday, so we were a day early. However, we did get to see the Premiere of Episode 2 of the current season that evening with 2000 other fans. That was “Fantastic!”

As the parade went on for quite some time, I will refrain from boring you with the details and simply share some of my favorite photos with a little snippet about who they were perhaps. Every fandom I could think of and many that I had never seen before were represented, and it was a blast.

Mandelorian Mercenaries:

Halo (I think):

And some Ghostbusters…

And a few ghastly creatures for them to vanquish (though I’m pretty sure Sam and Dean Winchester might be better equipped to handle these guys)…

Disney:

Steam Punk:

Planet of the Apes:

A few super-heros:

A few more I don’t know but got good pictures of:

And the Star Trek crew had a band:

My son and I also got to attend a session on cryptography and a panel with the Ghost Hunters. Our whole family got to see the Warehouse 13 crew, and we ended up the day with a little karaoke at the Hilton. It was an awesome day, and we had tons of fun. Can’t wait till next year!