Conventional Wisdom

(Historical Notes: Okay, this is another one where I really do wish I knew what Past Me said, because looking back at it now, I feel like the comic itself really undersells what a head trip this moment was.  This was only my third AWA, and the previous one wasn’t exactly good weather for running around outside, so it doesn’t sound all that surprising for me to not know about a stretch of kinda-sorta park behind the hotel.  But you also have to factor me spending literally my entire childhood in this place to properly grasp what a shock this was.  As far as I know, this wasn’t some new development that just sprang up a year or two earlier, I’d learned to cope with being disoriented by those.  But discovering some big new things that, by all appearances, had been around WHILE I LIVED THERE yet somehow completely escaped my notice?  That was just plain disorienting.  Leaving that aside, though, this probably was the single best “have your cosplay meetups here!” location a convention could ask for, especially one as pressed for space as AWA.  Also, look at Past Me getting better and better at photo backgrounds!)