Some Quick Cabin Trips

Trip 1:

  While we waited for my dad and Bill to get back from running some errands, we found out that Jake from LingoNetworks drives an '88 Pontiac usually.  His grandparents have a similar place to ours and when he was 8 years old, his grandparents had deer that would eat from your hand.

  Later that day we met Carol, Rick, and Buddy from the Boys Home Christmas tree farm.  They were very nice, the kind of people you invite over.  Rick offered to let Bill try his thermal scope, but warned him that it'll probably end up costing him money because there will be a good chance he will want one of his own.  They had really good timing because it was just before we started packing up to go out to dinner.  They had seen the new mailbox and had decided to take a chance.  They were hoping that we were full-timers, but we had to disappoint them.  Though with how often Bill and I have been out last month, we are almost there.

Trip 2:

  Got in and then quickly unpacked the car so we could enjoy a fire.  There is supposed to be a big meteor shower on Saturday night, but it got started on Thursday.  I saw about 11 shooting stars the first night we were out there.

  The coyotes were wandering around and yelling at each other.  One was even about 275ish yards away at one point.  Bill confused it with his flashlight.  It seems that either the tree frogs or the whippoorwills get to call to each other.  So far I've heard one or the other, sometimes both in one night, but never at the same time.

  I made some savory oatmeal while Bill did boring work stuff.  On our way out to get some parts to fix the mower, we saw a FedEx and a UPS truck making a delivery at the house with the pony and really cute cows.  We hadn't seen the animals out front lately, but we saw them back again today.

  The first place, Pleasant View Repair Shop, lost their storage facility to a fire at the end of December and are rebuilding it.  So while that would be a good place to go to in the future, they currently don't have any stock.  They do have a very cute cat who came right up to me for pets and rubbed against my legs.  There was also a pug in the office that Bill gave some attention to.

  We tried one other place, but they also didn't have stock at the store.  To make ourselves feel better, we got ice cream at Smiley's.  The Coconut Pie ice cream was really good.  We saw an adult and a young turkey when we were almost back to the cabin.

  Bill played around with his new metal targets while dinner cooked in the slow cooker.  I found a small black snake on and in the big stump by the front door.  From the size, I think it's the one I got the whole shed of.  I was then rude to him and tried to take some pictures with flash.

  We ran out of time to make another fire, but we did manage to play Future Me Problems.  We've brought that game with us about 3 times now and have never played it before.  It was a pretty fun, chill kind of game.

  On our way out we saw about a dozen turkeys.  Some were younger and smaller.  It's fun seeing all the various wildlife.

Rocky Takes the Garden State

Thursday

  Missed seeing Mamma Mia being shadow casted, which sounded interesting.  There will probably be another chance to catch it at another Rocky Convention.

  We stopped in at the big rest area and got some quick dinner that we were all a bit disappointed by.  Steven managed to order from Nathan's Famous hotdogs before their ordering kiosk stopped working and they didn't know what to do.  Wendy's was then swamped and the food took quite a bit of time to get out.

  One last thing we did was that Steven and I used the massage chairs at the rest stop.  All the various delays, including being stopped by a car accident on a bridge, meant that we didn't get in until 12:34am.  The first people we ran into that we knew were Alex and Husband, which is funny because they were the first people we saw that we knew at the last one.  The lady who checked us in used to work at the larger hotel and said she liked doing the event check-ins and that ours was no big deal.

Friday

  While I was curious what all Rocky Fit Club would entail, there was no way I was going to be up and ready to go to be able to get down to the registration table by 9am.

  Our shower was interesting.  The temp was either a bit too cold or a bit too hot.  When you switched it from bath to shower only about half of the water switched over.  At one point I had noticed that the tub was slowly filling up, but once I had finished shampooing my hair, I noticed that the drain had caught up.

  The price of breakfast at the hotel was a bit steep, so we went to Pierce Street Bagel Cafe.  I got the Egg Sandwich with Beef Bacon on an egg everything bagel.  We then saw Alex and Husband again.

  We found out that late last night one of the elevators got stuck with some people in it.  Turns out one of them was claustrophobic, which is why there are signs on there today saying a max of 6 people at a time.  It didn't really help anything because there were many times the elevators would move up and down slightly when the doors were still open and everyone onboard was standing still waiting for the doors to close.

  Since there weren't any panels we wanted to see at the time, we stopped in at Bottle Republic to see if there was anything we couldn't get at home we could get here.

  While putting some Worry Worms out I found out that one group was leaving tiny plastic ducks around and another was leaving 3D printed dicks.  I love the fact that I'm not the only one leaving things for people to find.

  I got to see more people I knew before going to Stateside Tap + Tavern for dinner.  It turns out there were 30 casts represented at this con!  That's kind of crazy to think about people coming from Texas and California!

  It was unsurprising that Shock Treatment was really good.  Everyone always puts a lot of effort into their costumes and performances.

  At one point when I was hanging out in the smoker's area, someone came up to me and told me that I was really cool because I had a cigar.  I hadn't meant to, but I ended up staying up until 3:30am.

Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver in 302 Kaleidoscope - Hook: 5.5mm

Saturday

  Since I got to bed so late, it was a slow morning.  On our way out one of the elevators tried to smoosh me between the doors.  Got a bite for lunch and then hung out briefing before Repo the Genetic Opera.

  It was another great showing of Repo this year.  One of the people who played the grave robber did it again this year and I was really excited to see them do it again.  There were some great callbacks and while I would like to remember them for next year, I will probably forget them.

  Lubrano's Pizza was our next stop before it was time to get onto the bus for the big show.  We took the First Student school bus to The Brook Arts Center.  While waiting outside one of the people in line in front of us went to Tacos Pizza for a quick slice.

  We were told that the theatre has lots of ghosts.  Their prop bags had little poppers in there for the Frank/Rocky wedding scene.  They had a bit of trouble raising and then lowering the screen.  It became everyone's favorite character, and we chanted Screen often.  Sal Piro got one of the Guiding Star awards, it was passed around to everyone so we could all be part of it since he's not with us anymore.

  During Eddie's scene they had 6 Columbias, 6 Eddies, and 4 Franks to then kill the Eddies.  We also learned a new callback of "It stuck to her thigh, like a whole stick of butter" and I might be using that from now on.

  We hung out for a bit more when we got back to the hotel but made sure to get to bed before 3 am this time.

Sunday

  Nothing officially was going on, but lots of people were loitering in the lobby getting some last minute hangout time with new friends or anyone they hadn't seen in a while.

  Since it's a callback we do, and we were near one, we stopped at a White Castle on our way out.  I've actually never been to one before now.  I got the cheese sliders and some chicken rings.  The chicken rings were the best part, though now I've tried it.

  It was so much fun to see all the people I met last year and to also make some new friends.  Friday Nite Specials held a good convention, and I was able to get 30 worms distributed.  I already miss being there, even with the scary elevators.