Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Creation Entertainment, one of America’s longest-running convention companies, runs an annual Star Trek gala in Las Vegas that invites scores of Trek cast and crew members to mingle with fans at Vegas prices and at a considerable remove from more than a few states. As a sort of outreach to us faraway fans, in 2024 Creation has launched a “Trek Tour” comprising much smaller versions of that vaunted Vegas show on the other side of the Rockies. This past weekend it was Chicago’s turn. The location was convenient and the guest lineup included so many missing names on Anne’s Trek-actor checklist, we did something we haven’t done in ages: we attended all three days, from the opening minutes Friday morning to the very end of the final panel Sunday night.

“Star Trek to Chicago” (Creation’s official name for the show; official abbreviation “ST-CHI”) was our first hotel-based con in a good while. We understood Creation handles some con aspects rather differently than the other companies we’re used to seeing annually. For Anne’s purposes, that guest list was worth setting aside our mild concerns and giving it a shot. We’re happy and relieved to report the show far exceeded our hesitant expectations.

Some of my past convention write-ups have been unwieldy in length because I’m prone to relating all the stories, including any quotidian ephemera outside the show itself. (A couple of those epic-length narratives were linked to on pro comics-news website, which only encouraged me to keep doing that. It’s been a while, though.) My congenial verbosity works much better if you pretend this writer is a caffeinated Aaron Sorkin character, but I can’t really adjust your internal monologue’s speed settings for you. For the sake of potential new readers, I tried paring down the daily recounts to the most relevant, Trek-forward anecdotes.

Here in the finale: the parts I skipped. Also: actor photo outtakes!

Friday we left home at 6:30 a.m. EDT with Hurricane Helene’s outermost torrents chasing us through the first hour of our drive, from Indianapolis nearly up to Lafayette. Beyond that point, we had dry skies the rest of the weekend, though the winds could be vicious at times, especially Friday night after Anthony Rapp’s concert.

We gained an hour crossing into Illinois and arrived at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare shortly after 9 a.m CDT. Though we’ve been to the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center across the street about a dozen times, we hadn’t been inside this Hyatt in over a decade. Last time we stayed there, the prices were more competitive with other hotels in the area.

Friday night between the Keating/Trinneer panel and Anthony Rapp’s concert, we called time-out and left to go check in at our hotel. We’re not party people and nearly never stay within a convention’s preferred hotel blocks. Some things are more important to us than convenience. For budget’s sake we stayed ten minutes away in Schiller Park at the same place we’d used for Fan Expo Chicago five weeks ago. Service had improved since then — this time our room had two whole trashcans, and none of the elevators tried to murder us again.

Dinner was five minutes the other direction from our hotel at Mr. T’s Gyros, who make a pretty bulky gyro burrito. Imagine The Bear but without the side room, arcade games, or Cousin Richie’s obnoxious bellowing. It’s the sort of place where they only have one TV, it’s turned to sports, and one guy is watching really intently.

Saturday morning we stopped at a Walgreens on the way to the Hyatt because Anne forgot to pack her hairbrush and cannot show up for a photo op with grooming, like I can. I have naturally curly hair like Frieda from Peanuts, except I keep mine shorter and don’t dye it red.

We arrived at the Hyatt around 8:30 and walked in to the overhead P.A. accompaniment of Chvrches’ “Leave a Trace” reverberating through the garage’s connector hallway. I never thought of it as an entrance theme, but it worked. For breakfast we splurged on their expensive breakfast buffet, just the once, to save time and satisfy our curiosity and appetites, in that order. I was tempted to take a pic of my first plate because we’re middle-aged bumpkins, but resisted the temptation. (I did take a pic of my Friday gyro burrito, but decided not to post it because it looks exactly like ten billion other burritos. See, I do have self-control.) But the offerings were above and beyond prepackaged continental-breakfast fare — multiple forms of scrambled eggs mixed with chicken sausage, tofu, or Italian beef ‘n’ giardiniera; fancy bagel toppings like lox and capers; blintzes; a latte/cappuccino machine; and several fruits I ignored. That was enough to hold Anne nearly all day long.

Saturday night before the Rat Pack concert, that restaurant was closed and we weren’t in the mood to venture blocks away to other Rosemont options. After the “Women of Strange New Worlds” panel we and a couple dozen other fans had the same idea and convened on Red Bar, the Hyatt’s own watering hole, who weren’t ready for a stampede like ours. Eventually the two of us were seated at the bar, between dudes who ignored us. The bartender was possibly a little disappointed I only ordered a Diet Coke and a sandwich rather than a “real” drink, while Anne ordered only an appetizer and no drink at all, content with the remains of her bottled water. The bartender brought her a glass of water with a lemon slice in it anyway.

With Sunday morning came two more errands before the show: cheap breakfast at the Dunkin Donuts inside a gas station one minute from our hotel, and a fill-up at same. Gas cost sixty cents more per gallon than back home (THANKS, CHICAGO), but I knew we wouldn’t be in the mood for extra stops that evening.

Lunch all three days was at Perks, the Hyatt’s coffee shop — mostly ready-made deli fare, plus a small selection of flatbread pizzas if you don’t mind waiting some minutes’ cooking time. (Friday they ran out of barbecue chicken flatbreads; as my substitute, the pepperoni was what it was.) Friday’s Soup of the Day, tomato bisque, definitely beat Campbell’s even though all the extra ingredients sank to the bottom. Service was pretty fast for a crowd our size unless you had to wait on something to be cooked. By Sunday we’d learned to stick to the ready-made. The tuna salad sandwiches exceeded expectations. Bonus points for carrying Mountain Dew Zero Sugar among their bottled drinks.

If you’ve made it through all five previous chapters and have stuck with us this far, thanks for paying attention to us! Please enjoy a selection of bonus photos of the actors in their various panels. Some of these could’ve fit into those other chapters just fine, but I was being fussy. In many cases, seating distance plus awful lighting was too high a hurdle for us to vault. We could often get the star’s face in focus, or their hands, but rarely both at the same time. We did what we could with the resources at hand.

We left the Hyatt upon the conclusion of the D&D scenario at 7:00, swerved through the nearest McDonald’s drive-thru for cheap supper (earning enough reward points to nab me a free breakfast the following Wednesday), and headed directly home without further incident or tourism, losing our bonus time-zone hour along the way. We pulled into the garage at 11:15 p.m. EDT and were relieved to find Hurricane Helene’s remnants, which had wreaked extra-severe thunderstorm havoc upon much of Indy in our absence, had left our property undamaged apart from knocking branches off our two trees. My son confirmed our power never went out, unlike 100,000+ other central Indiana residents. We got off easily, especially compared to millions in other states.

…but that, dear reader, is the story of how we spent Anne’s de facto 2024 birthday weekend. Longtime MCC readers know we usually have some kind of outing in honor of our respective birthdays. Last year for hers, we had an overnighter in Cincinnati to catch Patrick Stewart live — on this very day one year ago, in fact. Because ST-CHI was so extremely her and because it cost as much as it did, we agreed this would count toward her official celebration. Suffice it to say the birthday gal was beyond tickled pink, apropos of her new holy sash.

The End. Lord willing, we’ll see you next con.

Other chapters in this very special miniseries:

Part 1: The Stars in Our Galaxy
Part 2: Cosplay!
Part 3: Friday!
Part 4: Saturday!
Part 5: Sunday!