Dear #SPNfamily...

This is a love letter to everyone who contributes to Supernatural - cast, crew and fans. It’s a story of just how magical the #SPNfamily really is. If you’re involved in Supernatural in any way, please feel free to circulate it and spread the love.

Me and my friends Jenn and Helena are Supernatural fans based in the UK. We’ve been to three UK conventions and are booked for another two, but we always dreamed of attending one of the Creation cons in the US. Every time we saw reports from Dallas or Seattle or Toronto we talked about how amazing it would be to go, but how we would never be able to afford it. Transatlantic flights, plus more expensive tickets, plus accommodation - it was out of our reach. But then one day I’d had enough of all the ‘if only’ talk. I said that if we really wanted to go we should start planning it, decide that we were going to do it, and if we really believed it could happen, then we would make it work.

And, against all the odds, we managed it. Family helped out, we searched out cheap deals, saved up, got credit cards and we made it happen. And not only did we manage to get to VanCon, we extended it into a mega adventure.

For 25 years I’d been hoping to one day go to Washington State, to visit Twin Peaks filming locations. Well, Seattle was just a short hop from Vancouver, right? Might as well slip that in while we’re on the other side of the Atlantic. Then Jenn chips in that her idols, Green Day, are from San Francisco, could we possibly go there too? Well, in that case, we’d better make it a Winchester-style road trip, complete with ridiculously long drives and impromptu stops at dodgy motel rooms. We immediately started compiling classic rock playlists and agreed that I was Dean and Jenn was Sam. After all, I am the oldest and the shortest. (Helena decided not to road trip with us, but if she had done, she would totally have been Cas.)

And now, a little back story. I recently quit a full time permanent job to try and forge a career as a writer. I took a leap of faith, with amazing support from friends and family, and it’s been a struggle. Not just financially, but constantly fighting crippling self doubt and the instinct to give up and go back to a ‘proper’ job. Just before our trip, with my already tight budget stretched to its limits, I had a couple of jobs fall through just at the wrong time, which sent me into a free fall panic. I started seriously questioning whether I had the nerve and self belief to make it. The holiday was a watershed moment and I got on the plane knowing that I had some serious thinking to do about what direction to take once I got back.

We arrived in Vancouver on the Thursday before the convention and decided to go and find the venue so we knew where we were going for registration the next day. Almost as soon as we got there, we were approached by two other fans (t-shirts and bags are a dead giveaway) and sat down by the waterfront chatting about the show, as you do. After some time, one of the ladies took out some small cards with inspirational mottos that had been funded by Random Acts - she was handing them out to people as random acts of kindness. When I read the one she had handed me I couldn’t believe it.

“Believe you can and you will.”

I knew at that moment that there was no way I was going to give up on my dream of being a writer. Coming to VanCon had seemed impossible, but we allowed ourselves to believe it could happen and there we were, sitting by the convention centre overlooking the water. If we could make that a reality, then anything was possible. It was a truly magical start to the trip.

The convention itself was everything we hoped it would be. It meant so much to be there, in the home city of Supernatural, sharing the fun with so many other fans from all over the world. Highlights for me were the incredibly emotional showing of the trailer for the fan movie, Jensen’s stunning performance on Saturday night, Rob’s words of reassurance about a friend of mine who recently suffered a stroke and I even managed to speak coherently to Misha and explain the story of the card and to tell him how thankful I am for Random Acts and all the work he does. He gave me a high five and said it was awesome. If I ever think about giving up again, I’m going to remember that moment and redouble my determination to succeed.

We also went on a fan-organised pub crawl where I made a couple of new friends, in particular Jamie who lives in Seattle. We were due to start our road trip there so were picking her brains about what to see. She gave us her contact details and said to get in touch when we arrived, maybe she’d join us for dinner. More of that later…

Another highlight of our time in Vancouver was witnessing Supernatural being filmed. It was so special to be there, to see the crew working so hard for so long to set up for just a couple of short scenes. They were so kind and friendly and several came over to talk to us and explain what was going on. Seeing Baby drive by was particularly special. I love that car. Probably more than I should. The ten hour wait in the freezing cold with no food or toilet or even being able to see the action happening was so worth it. 

To know that yards away from where we were, our wonderful show was being brought to life. To hear the walkie talkie crackle with ‘Rolling - quiet on set’ and ‘That’s a wrap’, to see the immense care taken to get the lighting perfect and the atmospheric smoke just right and the right amount of leaves on the road. I really hope we weren’t a nuisance. At the end we waved the crew off into the night - I think their beeps and waves meant they appreciated the support. We certainly appreciated theirs. It’s going to be so special seeing the episode air, knowing we were there.

After the convention, we hired a car and spent a day driving round to various Supernatural locations. It was a series of surreal moments, being in the places where the scenes that made us laugh and made us cry and made us angry actually happened. Plus we got to see parts of Vancouver that we would never have seen otherwise - playgrounds, grocery stores, restaurants, scrap yards, dog walking parks. We laughed a lot at what our non-fandom friends and family would make of our slightly unusual holiday snaps.

By this point I had finished the book I’d brought with me, so stole Felicia’s book off Jenn and started reading that. It blew me away. Once again, Felicia’s determination and messages of perseverance and following your passions were just what I needed. It was as if the ghosts of Supernatural were all whispering to me not to give up, to always keep fighting. Who am I to argue?

When it was time to leave Vancouver, Helena got on a plane home and Jenn and I got a bus to Seattle where we were due to pick up a car for our road trip. We texted Jamie (remember, our new friend from the pub crawl) to see if she was still up for grabbing some food with us that night. Well, she outdid herself. She picked us up from the bus station, drove us around giving us an amazing guided tour of Seattle, took us up the Space Needle (where the staff turned out to be massive fans of the show too), took us out to dinner at an incredible restaurant and dropped us at our hostel. She then joined us for lunch the next day and took us to a Hot Topic store where we spent far too much on Supernatural merchandise - you just can’t get that stuff in stores in the UK! She was amazing. And we saw so much more of the city than we could have on foot. #SPNfamily isn’t just a hashtag, it’s real and it’s beautiful and Jamie embodies it.

I won’t go into details about our road trip. Needless to say we felt like true Winchesters - singing along to rock music, stopping for burgers at truck stops and pulling over at roadside motels when we were too tired to drive any further. 

Highlights included driving past a field of grazing alpacas and feeling compelled to turn round, pull over and take pictures. After all, they are the greenest animal. We also sang along, several times, to the Hillywood parody song, amending the ‘black Impala’ to our rather less cool ‘white Hyundai’. There was also no way we could drive past a restaurant called ‘Heaven on Earth’ without stopping. When the first thing facing us as we entered was a giant tower of pies we were in no doubt Dean has visited on a number of occasions. In all the places we parked up, only twice did we see any classic cars - one was a Continental and one was a Chevvy. How’s that for a coincidence? Most evenings we stayed in our room, writing up our travel diaries and watching episodes of Supernatural. Yeah, obsessed, we know.

But eventually every good road trip has to come to an end. We landed back in the UK on the 10th anniversary of the first episode, following all the fun from Dallas online and feeling so thankful for all the experiences we’d had because of our wonderful show and its amazing extended family.

Huge thanks from me especially to Felicia, Misha, Random Acts and @abbykylemor for renewing my determination to follow my dream. To Clif and everyone involved in the SPNFanMovie for valuing and respecting us so much. To Rob for his reassuring words. To the crew for turning up to the convention, putting up with us during filming and working so hard to make the show what it is. To Jamie for being so warm, welcoming and generous. To all the other fans I met and talked to and who made the convention so special. To Jenn and Helena, for being the Sam and Cas to my Dean. And to everyone in the #SPNfamily. 

I never thought I’d be, at the age of 42, driving through Oregon in the middle of the night with a 22 year old I met online singing at the top of my voice to AC/DC. 

(And, just for the record, when the passport control officers ask you how you know your travelling companion and you say ‘we met online’, you can see all sorts of incorrect assumptions being mentally processed behind their eyes. It’s very entertaining.)

Eric Kripke, you have a lot to answer for. And I will never be able to thank you enough.

All my love,
Alex