A funny thing happened to me on the way through Customs...

"I may not go back to the convention tomorrow. I'm thinking a visit to the museum is in order instead, followed by a late-night trip to the airport to get myself through customs and checked into my flight for tomorrow morning, so as to dodge a 4 AM wakeup just to make it on time. (That, and to be entirely honest, a cold stone floor and a suitcase-pillow may be more comfortable. A Hilton this may be, and awesome to look at the room may be, but HOLY CRAP THAT BED SUCKS.)"

That was my prognosis for the last day of my Toronto trip.

The museum visit did, in fact, happen, and the convention was indeed skipped. I must say, the Royal Ontario Museum is awesome...I'd actually forgotten how giddy I got as a kid looking at dinosaur fossils, but even as cool as that was, it paled in comparison to the exhibit they had on China's First Emperor and the Terracotta Army. They even had a few of the soldier-statues there, and I must say, those things were damned impressive.

Then, as planned, I went out to the airport that night, got through customs with virtually nobody in line ahead of me, got to my concourse, got as cozy as I could, set my alarm...

( ...and things immediately went to hell in a hand basket after that. )

In any case, I've made it back to Anchorage for now, with my flight home taking off in about 3 hours, and I'm happy to say that I'm finally feeling a hell of a lot better, and much wiser for the wear.

Once I get home, I'll see if I can't upload the photos I took and share them, but in the meantime, let me just sum things up thusly:

TORONTO: Awesome city.
FLYING TO TORONTO: Sucks.