My youngest daughter’s big conventions this year were within a week of each other. Comicon (dressing up – oops, excuse me, “cosplaying” like comic book characters) was the last weekend in March and Sakura-con (dres- uh, cosplaying like anime or Japanese cartoon characters) is always Easter weekend.

For Sakura-con we made it a whole “thing.” I’d pack the snack trough, get a hotel room and spend the weekend in the lobby. When we got there in the morning, it took all day to get into the room, only to have to pack up the next morning and check out of the room.

I don’t know about you, but driving to downtown Seattle with 100,000 or more additional people, is not my idea of a fun weekend. Although I always went to Sakura-con with my daughter and her friends, when Comicon was added to the list, I resisted.

In the midst of Sakura-con a year ago, I realized the only reason we got a hotel room was so the kids could go to the ball Friday night. But knowing my daughter won’t actually go anywhere where dancing might break out and never coming out financially even on the hotel room, I wondered why I was still going.

I only agreed to Comicon last year if I could drop them off. With food and water packed into their backpacks it worked so well, I broke tradition this year and decided they could do it again not only for Comicon but for Sakura-con as well.

I also decided I wasn’t going to drive them. They are 16 and 17 years old and could navigate public transportation making my life more convenient. Since they had taken the light rail to get home a few times in the past, they could take it to Seattle, too.

The weekend of Comicon the light rail wasn’t running into Seattle. No matter the thoughtlessness of shutting down a major avenue of public transportation for maintenance when a city is expecting several thousand people, I had to have another plan. The first day, one of the other moms drove them, hung out in Seattle all day and brought them home. I was not willing to do that.

But there was a bus I had been enlightened to a few months before – bus No. 150. It picked them up at Kent Station, delivered them to Seattle, then dropped them off at Kent Station. Bus  No. 150 became my new best friend, not only was it closer to my home than the light rail, it was easier to navigate.

So Sunday morning of Comicon, I dropped my daughter and one of her friends off. My youngest texted me to let me know they had arrived. Getting home was probably more complicated as they had to figure out where to get the bus, but they were grown up enough to ask directions.

I was stressed waiting for them and it reminded me when my oldest daughter didn’t get off her bus on her first day of kindergarten. As the bus driver drove back to the bus garage, he pondered where she had gone (a whole other issue and a cause of mass hysteria) when he looked up to see her little hands on the back of a seat. She didn’t recognize the stop because it was different from where she was picked up.

So you can imagine my relief when my daughter and her friend stepped off the bus; safe and sound; sold on taking bus No. 150. It turned out it was actually easier than the light rail (aside from the varied reactions to their costumes).

My little cosplayers don’t need me like they used to – thanks to bus No. 150.