A journey that will bring me to a strange and dark place, to the edge of the sea, high atop Widow's Hill. To a place called Collinwood.

Or at Least to Anaheim, California, that is.

I joined my first DS on-line community in early November 2001 (The Dark Shadows Files).  Several of our members went to the annual Fest in New York in 2001.  They shared their fond memories of how fun it was to meet the stars, take pictures with them, and get autographs.  Instead of it being in New York, this year it would be in Anaheim.  Many of us got to talking that we had to see about going to the Festival in June.

Hi ho, hi ho, I simply had to go.  Packed my bags and to the tower straight until dawn.

A world I've never known, with people I've never met.

Saturday's Events.

Not ever having been to a Festival, I didn't know there were events on Friday evening.  The way it was advertised it appeared that everyone was going to Disneyland.  As a Los Angeles native, I had had my fill of the place.  Not to mention, my ankle never healed from the injury that caused the first surgery I had in 2000.  I was in bad shape physically.  There would be no Disneyland for me.  I elected not to go Friday.

I did get a pain injection in my ankle that morning.  Thank God I did. (More on this later.)

But I missed the bloopers segment and my favorite DS movie, House of Dark Shadows.

I arrived part way through the Louis Edmonds tribute.  I loved it.  I always loved Louis Edmonds on the show and this particular video was a beautiful and fitting tribute to a great actor and friend to the Dark Shadows fans.

My first "live" speaker was Roger Davis.  I was introduced to one of the Festival traditions, never starting on time.

Here is Roger showing a video of his latest real estate project....

If you really want to see his Viewmont video again, it's been moved to ViewmontNorth.com. Apparently, they have all sold as well.

Our next speaker was David Henesy's mom, Jeanne Avery.  But I thought I would get a bite to eat since I was really hungry.

After Jeanne's Q&A, there was a charity auction but I decided to cram my lines for the evening's costume event.  (I didn't want to use a cheat sheet.)  So, I participated in the next really big Festival tradition, standing in line. It was a good thing that I had had that pain injection the day before...

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