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Viva la Vernal

When I was a kid a trip to “Dinosaurland” in Vernal was about the most exciting prospect for a Saturday imaginable. The sculpted dinosaur replicas at the museum there thrilled me as much as if they were originals.

Last weekend we decided to recapture some of that childhood dino magic with a group camping outing to Eastern Utah. Our friends the Bresees, Rowleys, and Ashleys all joined us. Now “camping” in this case shouldn’t conjure up images of a lean-to rigged together in some desolate wilderness 40 miles from anything. No, we weren’t exactly roughing it. We stayed at the Vernal KAO; the Rowleys brought their RV and Jason and I took advantage of the campground’s “cottage.” The cottage was an upgrade from the cabin that the Bresees and Ashleys shared because this baby had a small kitchen area and, most importantly, its own tiny bathroom. The plumbing alone convinced me that the extra cash for the cottage was a worthwhile investment even if that bathroom was so little I could only fit one of my butt cheeks in at a time. With a private restroom, microwave, fridge, stovetop, and TV, our accommodations may sound rather plush but, in my opinion, our plywood bed was practically worse than sleeping on the ground and definitely uncomfortable enough to justify that liberal camping classification.

Our cottage was basically a trailer. Its wheels were visible through the lattice around its base.
The stones of Red Fleet were stamped with 200 million-year-old remnants of a dino block party.

Our trip was packed with excitement, education, and educational excitement but also chaotic disorganization. Our group was a bit too large and kid-laden for schedules and rendezvous to really work, which made our museum expeditions a little tricky. Still, unraveling the ancient mysteries of this corner of Utah kept me generally satisfied with my situation even if our crew had to make more bathroom stops than a bus full of prune eating contest winners.

Impersonating our prehistoric predecessors, including the Utahraptor, required lots of teeth and vicious fingers.

Friday night we went to Red Fleet Reservoir with the Bresees to check out the trackway: hundreds of dinosaur footprints embedded in the sandstone near one area of the shore. Hunting around on the hillside for tracks was quite entertaining. It made me feel a bit like a paleontologist detective. (Note to self: you should never consider a career in paleontology. You can’t even tell the difference between a rock and an old acorn.)

I'm a squeaker so trying to be a squawker wasn't too difficult for me.
The quarry wall at Dinosaur National Monument was so unbelievably packed with fossils that it was hard for my brain to process it as reality.

Our Saturday was also filled with prehistoric intrigue. We started out at the Utah Field House of Natural History Museum. This is the place that dazzled me when I was a youngster. The museum had moved into a much nicer and bigger building since I’d last been there but they still had their life-size dino replicas outside, much to the delight of my youngish heart.

Here's most of our bulky group plus a bulky stegosaurus.

Next we were off to Dinosaur National Monument to check out their quarry wall filled with over 1,600 bones from hundreds of dinosaurs. Awesome! A hot hike on the Fossil Discovery Trail later we were more than ready to hit the murky waters of Steinaker Reservoir. Steinaker is located just a few miles out of Vernal and is touted for its nice sandy beaches. Despite optimistic accounts, we found more mud than sand on those shores but that didn’t stop us from jumping in. The kids quickly transformed themselves into filthy creatures and the adults willingly waded through sticky muck in order to hold cannonball contests off a floating platform. After all, a little lake slime never hurt anyone, at least not anyone outside a B-grade horror movie.

The kids were rather happy with the quantity of high quality mud they found at the reservoir.
The two Rowley boys, Milo and Silas, wasted no time sheathing themselves in a protective mud coating at Steinaker.

That evening our “camping” status compelled us to roast wieners and marshmallows around a roaring fire. Dang that camping for having such stringent terms of service! It was a yummy dinner and one of the highlights of the weekend. Chatting around flames + combusting marshmallows = one of life’s essential pyro delights.

No one can resist a good wiener roast, except maybe a self-preserving stick.

Hooray for Vernal! After a twenty-year absence, my dino buddies and I were able to get reacquainted. Our weekend was occasionally eye roll worthy but all in all we had a pretty great stay. In another 200 million years we’ll have to do it again.

Rachel August 24, 2012 1 Comment

The Return of the Con

Going to Comic-Con changes your perspective on life. You’ll never whine again about brief delays checking out at the grocery store when you’ve waited in line for hours and hours with literally thousands of people. Star sightings will seem mundane after you’ve been surrounded on all sides by celebrities. Sneaking ninjas and throngs of superheroes invading your personal space won’t even make you blink twice. Yes, once you have been to Comic-Con there is no going back to your pre-Con preconceptions.

The members of our large group went their separate ways for the most part during the day but we met up to share our daily tales over dinner.
I'm pretty sure that just being in Tim Burton's presence made my brother nervous. Watching Beetlejuice as a kid scarred him for life. I, however, enjoyed listening to crazy Tim.
Jason definitely belongs with these other scoundrels.

Last year Jason and I had our first stupefying Comic-Con experience. Our recount of its fabulousness must have bedazzled everyone because this year a group of friends joined us. My brother Drew, his wife Simone, Jeremy Rowley, his wife Amber, and Jason’s coworker Dan all decided to come and miraculously everyone managed to acquire those mythical tickets.

The streets outside the convention center were always congested with humanity.
All of the actual Batmobiles were on display at Comic-Con. Batastic! This is the 1966 version from the TV series.
This picture only represents about half of the Firefly panel members. I wouldn't want you to explode into fits of jealousy by showing you everyone that was there.

Comic-Con this time around felt very similar to last year. The eternal lines were everywhere, the elaborate costumes were as prolific as Mario’s mushrooms, and the smelly masses still hadn’t discovered deodorant. Once again we rose before the sun or the sane to claim our spots for the panels from our favorite shows. Yes, Comic-Con was the same mess of marketing and humanity but this time Jason and I had changed. We were no longer Padawans; we were the Comic-Con Masters. We weren’t awed and overwhelmed by the omnipresent famous. We knew better than to take volunteers’ conflicting directions as fact and we anticipated spending most of our time standing in line. With that said, it would be erroneous to assume that our Comic-Con familiarity led to letdowns. Just because we were Con veterans doesn’t mean we didn’t totally nerd-out from predawn to long after dusk. We expected chaotic awesomeness and that’s what we got.

Bumblebee and I were just little guys next to Optimus' massive trunks.

The most awesome of that awesomeness? Meeting Brent Spiner, AKA Mr. Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Lifetime dream fulfillment? Check. Brent was not disappointing in person; he was very witty and clever. Jason made me confess my teenage Data crush to him. (Thanks a lot for ratting me out Jason.) He took it quite well. My admission actually didn’t seem to surprise him one bit but he did appear a little stunned that I had followed up my taste for tasty androids with a marriage to a common earthman.

We traveled down 5th Avenue Flash style because we were just too fast to move any other way.
The exhibit floor at Comic-Con is full of surprises like meeting yourself.
The Bunker, South Park's art department, was full of friendly animators.
Our hotel room had a nice view of the bay. Not that we got to enjoy it much since we were never in our room.

Along with encountering celebrities up-close, we saw oodles of them on stage at the multitude of superb panels we attended: Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2, Frankenweenie, Oz, Wreck-it Ralph, Masquerade 101, History of the Modern Zombie, Legend of Korra, Spotlight on Ben Edlund, Designing for the Undead, and Minimates Turn 10. While I enjoyed learning about the psychology of the post-apocalyptic and hearing from Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, Mila Kunis, Sarah Silverman, and John C. Reilly, my favorite panel this time was Firefly: 10 Year Anniversary. Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, and a number of the other cast members were present. The audience was so appreciative and supportive of these stars that by the end our standing ovation had most, if not all, of them in tears. I was moved by them being moved so I ended up crying a bit myself. It was moving. What a fantastic panel! By the way, if you haven’t watched Firefly I would highly recommend it; then you will understand why the Fox network is run by morons.

Hasbro is launching a line of Star Trek toys soon. I'll be purchasing buckets of those no doubt.
A league of steam punkers? Now that's might misty.

While the panels were delightful, they didn’t monopolize our attention. We had to leave some time for the enormous and illustrious exhibit hall. The Comic-Con exhibit hall is as full of surprises as a Klingon in a barbershop. No matter how much time you spend wandering around the thousands of booths you’ll always discover more must-have geeky merchandise that you missed last time you wandered by. You’ll also stumble upon famous people left and right. That’s how we came across the members of The Bunker, which do animation work for South Park, and Max Brooks, the author of The Zombie Survival Guide. Needless to say, we purchased a lot of autographed wares on the exhibit floor. I even had an anime version of myself drawn by comic book artist Ashley Riot; I affectionately refer to it as “animeMe.”

Everyone needs a wooden moustache or two and the vendors at Comic-Con were happy to provide.
I never much cared for Sand People and their annoying vocals but I did appreciate this creative costuming.

Yes, our familiarity with Comic-Con led to less “wow” this year but not less enjoyment. We knew we were dumping ourselves into the stinky melting pot of nerd culture and that we might emerge with the white hand of Saruman painted across our chest but we wouldn’t regret it. And what about the noobs? They had a great time and are already plotting how to maximize their Comic-Con experience next year with less funds, less sleep, and less showering. Will Jason and I be there next year? If Picard’s crew can make it so we probably can too but I think we’ll stick with a Con plan that includes bathing.

Rachel July 20, 2012 1 Comment

Putting on the Gritz

You know that patriotic song that finishes with some line about the greatness of America from sea to shining sea? Well, Jason and I have witnessed firsthand the greatness of this country from one side of the continent to the other over the last month. Just a few weeks ago we were dipping our feet in the Pacific and last week we splashed into the Atlantic.

I had to travel to Charleston, South Carolina for a conference and good-natured Jason happily went with me to see a state neither of us had visited before. My seminar was just a two-day affair but we stayed a couple extra days to gluttonously savor the flavor of Charleston. Even though we’ve literally almost spent more time traveling the last month than we’ve spent at home, we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to explore some new territory.

The banks of the Cooper River were pocketed with swamp lands. Those marshes were surprisingly pretty.
The Nathaniel Russell House had ornate oval rooms and a three-story spiral staircase. I felt like I should start gossiping about Mr. Darcy in its hall.

Charleston is a quaint old town with a sophisticated Southern feel and a whole lot of humidity. Since I’ve been to the South many times I was not surprised by the thick wall of moisture that greeted us when we exited our airplane. Nor did the row of rocking chairs lined up in the airport for flight waiters to relax in astonish me. Jason was a little taken aback by both though. Ya ain’t in Kansas no more honey.

The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge's diamond-shaped towers looked interesting from any angle.
The Morris Island Lighthouse lies 300 yards off the shore at the tip of Folly Beach. It made for a nice backdrop.

Charleston’s significant role in America’s past was apparent from both sides of its narrow topsy-turvy streets. Its avenues were lined with tightly-packed antique homes and worn cobblestones. Porches with wicker chairs and rockers invited the world to sit back and take a load off under roofs that had quietly seen the passing of generations and the making of nations.

The shrimp and grits at High Cotton were highly delicious. How can you go wrong with fried okra, sweet corn, and a garlic broth?
Slightly North of Broad or S.N.O.B. was one of my favorite restaurants out of the many fantastic we tried.

With my conference taking up most of our first couple days, the only sightseeing we really got around to those initial nights was viewing delicious food as it traveled from our plates to our mouths. Charleston, it turns out, is something of a hotspot for fine Southern cuisine, especially seafood. The city seemed eager to ease into relaxation quickly in the evenings so everything closed early, except restaurants. Most shops locked their doors at 5 but bistros welcomed guests up to 1 AM. Therefore, Jason and I were forced to spend our nights eating. What a trial. We had fried oysters, apricot glazed flounder, crab cakes, stuffed hush puppies, and sautéed snapper with basil puree. That was all very good but what I craved most, and ordered almost every single night, was shrimp and grits. Too much of a Yankee to know what grits is? Imagine something along the lines of polenta but creamier. Grits is a tasty complement to pretty much everything. (And yes, grits is singular.) It’s hard to find grits that is cooked right and impossible to find it at all here in Utah. Too bad, I would trade wobbly green Jell-O casseroles for grits any day of the week. Even Jason, a diehard grits skeptic, was converted by the flavorful dishes I ordered in Charleston, which he readily sampled but was too cynical to get himself.

The walls of Ft. Sumter, where they were still standing, were 5 feet thick. Originally this fortress was designed to fit 135 cannons but it never got fully loaded.
This huge live oak tree stretched 145 feet across. It rested on the banks of the Ashley River long before colonialists did.

Even with all the extra grits weight we were carrying around we still managed to waddle through a lot of Charleston. We visited the Nathaniel Russell House, an antebellum mansion that had been skillfully restored and reminded me of something out of a Jane Austen novel. We walked along the shoreline at various parks and meandered down Rainbow Row where the pastel color scheme of the historic houses brought to mind tropical flowers and inviting Caribbean waters. We toured Middleton Place, a renovated plantation along the Ashley River that had grounds so expansive it took us a few hours just to walk through them. The maze of paths at Middleton Place wound through countless pockets of earth hedged by walls of camellias, magnolias, and bamboo so thick it was easy to imagine that if you held still for long enough you too would sprout roots into the fertile soil. We took a ferry out to Ft. Sumter where the first momentous shots of the Civil War were fired. We also made it to Folly Beach and sorry Californians, this water was warmer than what we waded through a few weeks ago in Santa Monica.

Cypress Lake was really a swamp that bordered one side of Middleton Place.
Middleton Place had so many picturesque plants and ponds that you didn't know where to point your camera.
This tree looked lovely bowing a greeting to the pond lilies.

If history enthralls you, if enormous live oaks draped in weepy vines give you that peaceful insignificant feeling, if shrimp and grits entices you to keep cramming up to your uvula then Charleston just might be the perfect place for you to visit. It has all the charm of the Deep South plus the friendly natives speak what can easily be identified as English while they feed you until your eyes pop. Sign me up and roll me home!

Rachel June 9, 2012 2 Comments
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