Best of 2009, Day 1: Best Trip

There's a great meme/writing prompt/thingy going around, called the Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. I love reflecting on the year in December, so I'm all over this. I don't know if I'll make every day, but I'll do it until I get bored or distracted by a bunny or something.

December 1 Trip. What was your best trip in 2009?

This is a tough one. Just last month I took an amazing trip to Roan Mountain, TN for the ARGH unschooling gathering. I stayed with my friends the Bannisters, and it was a wonderful time. Tennessee in the fall is probably the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen (or at least, it's tied with Sedona), and I loved being with a whole ton of people for Halloween.

But I think I'm going to have to give the best trip prize to another trip, just because I did so many different things and met so many people. In late August/early September, I went to the Northeast Unschooling Conference in Boston, and Dragon*Con in Atlanta. I consider this one trip because it was all planned together, and because I barely had time to breathe in between! A few highlights:

-At NEUC, I got to make some great friends, including Idzie and her mom and sister, Eli, Michael, Jean, Hannah, and a whirlwind of other people! It was my first unschooling conference, so I really had a great time.

-Also in Boston, I got to stay (a little bit) with my friend Valerie, who moved up there last year. She also came down with us for Dragon*Con. The first afternoon I was in Boston, we sat at her house for a few hours just playing a stupid old fighting video game where I kept making my dude act stupid and grab people for no reason. It was funnier than it sounds in writing.

-This was my first trip to anything remotely resembling "the north" (farthest north I'd been before was Virginia), and also my first time taking a train, a taxi, and a city bus. People from big cities are laughing at me now, I'm sure, but I was SO excited to be on a train. I did make sure to put on that "I'm not a noob please don't mug me" pokerface, though :p

-At Dragon*Con, I got to see a lot of really awesome famous people in person: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Patrick Stewart; Terry Gilliam of Monty Python; and Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick, the creators of The Venture Bros., which is one of my favorite shows.

-Also at Dragon*Con, Valerie and I learned the entire Thriller dance in three hours to participate in an attempt to break the world record for most people doing the dance at once, organized by my friend Kimber (who I didn't know at the time, but we've become friends since). It was one of the most fun things I have ever done, and reminded me how much I love to dance! Unfortunately Guinness didn't accept us for the record (there's been a LOT of controversy about that, long story), but we did get into several other record books.

-Finally, after Dragon*Con I made a bunch of friends on various forums that I never would've gone to if it hadn't been for the con. Some of those forums helped a *lot* in keeping my spirits up when my mom died.

So that was my favorite trip this year. What was yours?