If you ask my “Princess Leia” what the highlight of her life has been so far, she will probably say it was meeting Anthony Daniels, C3P0, in person, twice, but especially in Indiana. I have a picture of him with my daughter taken at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and another taken at the Star Wars convention in Indianapolis.

The trip to Indianapolis was wonderful. My daughter was not told of the trip until the day we were to leave. She had to play her flute for a judge that same day and we felt that had she known in advance, she would not have performed well out of sheer excitedness. My niece was with us and my daughter believed she was there for moral support since she had experience performing at NYSSMA, (New York State School Music Association). This was my daughter’s first time. While they were gone, I packed the car. My niece had known of the trip for months. How she did not burst from not telling is beyond explanation. When my daughter was told, and after she stopped crying, we all scrambled into the car, zeroed the odometer, put on the Star Wars soundtrack, noted the time, off we went.

The level of euphoria from the back seat was contagious, a natural high. Armed with printed schedules of the activities to be enjoyed at the convention, the girls were planning how we would make the most of our three days there. They were properly dressed with their Star Wars T-shirts, caps, and lightsabers. What self-respecting Jedi would leave home without one?

I had prepared sandwiches and drinks, plus we had bags of chips that had Star Wars characters on them; we also had yogurt packaged in glow-in-the-dark tubes made to resemble a lightsaber. The only thing missing to complete this most healthy fare was blue milk from Tatooine.

My husband did not want to make the twelve-hour trip to Indianapolis all at once so we stopped overnight in Ohio. It was easy getting the girls up early the next day considering they could hardly sleep with excitement.

Our road trip continued. The girls kept a diary of the mileage, the times we stopped and where, and the cities and towns we drove through. We drove through six states. They kept busy by reciting the movies; singing along to both Weird Al’s spoofs of the movies and my husband’s parody of NSync’s “It’s Gonna Be Me.” They were practicing their “Ewokese” and “Klingon”... oh, wait... wrong movie!

They were also very excited because they were going to meet a couple of friends that they made on a Star Wars site that were also going to the convention. They could not have been any more excited had they been set loose in a toy store/candy store and told to choose anything they wanted for free.

Being at the convention, after waiting hours on line in order to get into the center, was thrilling. Many people went in costume. It was impossible to see and do everything, but we managed to see and do most of it. The line to buy the special “convention only” Jorg Sacul figure would make any Disney visitor cringe in fear. We managed to get ours after a three-hour wait. Yes, it was worth it. Everyone was in high spirits and many friendships were made just by waiting on line with fellow Star Wars fanatics.

The concert by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra was incredible. It was amazing to listen to the Star Wars music live! There was a show, “The Star Wars Trilogy in 30 Minutes,” that was hilarious and superbly done. The words of the movies weren’t changed but the pace and how it was performed was superb!

We did not get to see Carrie Fisher but we did have the honor of seeing Anthony Daniels again. He decided to walk up and down the line of people waiting to get inside. What a wonderful, funny guy!

We left Indianapolis with dozens of pictures, souvenirs, and memories. We even met one of the girls’ internet friends and made a lifetime friend in Liz, whom I have since “adopted” as my daughter.

The trip back home was just as exciting. The girls had even more to talk about. My daughter started to write a Star Wars book. By the time we arrived home, she had written fifteen pages of which she has 87 pages to date. What a way to end a wonderful five-day adventure!

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a page.”
~Saint Augustine