Moonridge report - Thursday and Friday
In which the TS fen gather and get their squee on...
Thursday, June 18th
Went to bed at 1 am after doing all my packing and getting ready to leave, then got up at 4 am for a 6:30 am flight to LA. The first leg was to Cleveland and it was fine, although we left a little late (I only found out later about the Continental pilot dying on the overseas flight; I don’t know if that was what delayed us). I slept a little, but I was in the very back row so I couldn’t recline my seat. It was a short layover; I had about thirty minutes to make the next flight in a different concourse, and when I got there it was already boarding.
The Cleveland to LA leg was VERY BUMPY THE WHOLE WAY. I think there were storms in the Midwest and apparently it’s usually bumpy over the Rockies and coming into LA. The pilot was good, though; he kept coming on the intercom to apologize and explain that we were experiencing “light chop”. I’d hate to experience “medium chop” or “heavy chop”, if that’s the case. I managed to sleep some, finished Turn Coat, and watched some Merlin.
Landed, got my bag, and got on the Hertz bus. Kathy (maaaaa) called me on my cell phone; she was already at the Hertz place. There was much squeeing when I arrived, and much talk about how cool it was that you can go two years without seeing someone but, when you get together, it’s like you’ve never been apart.
Fortunately the line for the cars was way shorter than last time. I opted for a Prius but it took me a little while to figure out how to run the darn thing - there’s a power button (instead of turning the key) and you only have to tap the drive shaft to get it into drive or reverse. But then we were off.
I handed Kathy the maps I’d printed out from Google Maps (which henceforth I’m calling Google Vague) and she informed me that it was a bad decision to have her as the navigator. I reassured her that she would only have to read me what was on the printed maps. The first glitch, however, was that I had neglected to get directions to Chris (chriselora55) and Karen’s (vamysteryfan) hotel leaving from the Hertz place. I’d gotten them leaving from LAX instead. So the beginning directions were totally off.
I asked the woman at the Hertz check-out kiosk where “World Way” was (the first street) and she looked totally confused. We clarified that we were going to Marina del Rey and she said we should just turn right out of the lot and then turn right on Sepulveda, and that would take us straight into Marina del Rey (having perused a few maps since then, I have determined that this is a total lie. Sepulveda does NOT go straight into Marina del Rey). But since Sepulveda was one of the streets mentioned in the directions, we figured that was the right thing to do. According to Google Vague, the hotel wasn’t far from the airport.
After about thirty minutes on Sepulveda, we were forced to acknowledge that we were heading in the wrong direction. Although we had passed several streets that appeared on the Google Vague map, we seemed to be moving farther and farther away from the actual water, which, if you are going to something called a “marina”, is not a good sign. Kathy, in particular, will never be able to see Culver Blvd. again without screaming. So I stopped at a realtor’s (because who knows the area and how to give directions better than a realtor?) and we asked how to get to Marina del Rey. The folks there were very nice and printed out directions to the hotel for us. I’d been trying to call Chris and let her know we were running late, but (in spite of the fact that I had called Sprint before I left and specifically made sure I could make international calls) I couldn’t get through.
Hey, we weren’t lost, we were just 15 miles in the wrong direction!
It was at this point that we decided that the theme for the weekend was “An Enhanced Sense of Adventure”. More on that later...
We finally made it to the hotel in Marina del Rey, loaded up Karen and Chris’ stuff, and got on the road to Big Bear! We met up with Sally (shiredancer) at Highlands, had a quick bite to eat at Subway, and caravanned up the mountain. We all checked in and rested for a while, then met up and walked around looking for a place to eat. We settled on an Italian place a few blocks down from the Best Western. Karen and Sally and I had some excellent local beer called Red Ant Hill Red Ale. Then we retired to Chris’ and my room (aka The Party Room) to watch TS episodes and squee over Jim and Blair. (I’ll just mention here that Sally and Kathy’s room was The Kink Room, due to the large mirror on the ceiling-ahem, over the fireplace...) Then we all headed to bed with plans to meet up for breakfast in the morning.
All weekend we had a ritual when knocking on anyone’s door - the person inside would say “Who is it?” and the person knocking would say, “Ellison”, and then we’d all start laughing. No doubt the hotel staff who saw this thought we were all totally nuts. Or all named Ellison.
Friday, June 19th
Well, we gathered for breakfast only to find that the hotel doesn’t serve breakfast any more except on Sundays! We were disappointed (Kathy and Sally were particularly sad about the loss of the excellent Best Western hot chocolate) but decided to go to the IHOP. The hot chocolate was quite acceptable there as well, apparently.
(Click on the picture to get to a downloadable version)
When we got back, Sally and Kathy thought they’d go for a brief dip in the hot tub (and Karen and Chris and I came down to keep them company), but they couldn’t get the jets to go on. Oddly enough (what about this hotel is NOT odd, I ask you?), the control for the jets is in a metal box on the wall marked “Emergency Power Shutoff”. So you don’t exactly want to go in and start flipping switches at random. But Karen was courageous and gave it a try (and only set the alarm off once). However, still no jets.
Sally went upstairs to shower and Kathy went to swim in the pool. Karen and Chris and I followed her over there, and that was when it was decided that we were Kathy’s entourage for the weekend. I was the not-so-bright one, Sally was the good one, Chris was the rebellious one, and Karen was the scribe.
Kathy went up for a shower and Karen, Chris, and I sat around the hot tub waiting for her and Sally to come back. About ten minutes after she left, the hot tub jets suddenly roared into life. When Kathy and Sally came back down we had a good laugh about that.
The two of them had been making a list of all the TS AUs they could think of, and we were all astonished at the idea that there had never been a lumberjack AU in TS. How can this be? When it’s canon that Blair has chained himself to a tree? As you might imagine, this started us in on Monty Python’s lumberjack song, which earwormed its way through everyone’s head for the rest of the weekend.
Then we went for a walk up the road towards the Zoo to check out some of the shops along the way. We were also checking out some of the other cabins and places for rent - there’s a lovely bed and breakfast called Apples that might be worth checking out next year. We ended up at the Big Bear gift shop, because: “It’s not just a gift shop, it’s an adventure!”. They had a bunch of old signs and ads on the wall, and I was struck by the Pony Express one - Blair would make a great Pony Express rider! Why has no one written this before? Young, wiry, under 18 (okay, so he’ll have to be a little younger than in canon), orphans preferred, willing to face death daily.
And so the Pony Express AU was born...
We went up to The Village and browsed around in the shops there for a while. Of course, Kathy insisted that we had to check out the Leather Depot first - she said she was looking for some chaps. We then lost Chris to the upper floor, which was a maze of different tiny shops. We had to send in several search parties, but eventually we managed to get her out. We ate at a cute place called Michelle’s Café. They were out of practically everything, but that was okay as none of us were really that hungry after the large breakfast we’d had.
After lunch we did some more shopping, and did happen to come across a pair of ALCs (assless leather chaps) which we all agreed would be perfect for Vice!Jim. There was also a Ken doll for sale dressed in jeans and ALCs. We tried to get Kathy to buy him as a model for the Vice!Jim story she’s going to be writing for Caro, but he was more expensive than the actual ALCs themselves - nearly ninety dollars! Plus, he didn’t have the right facial hair for Vice!Jim.
We also went into a Native American shop where Sally bought a book with a ritual for finding your spirit animal (which we never ended up doing). One thing that was odd to me was that we didn’t see any other TS fen. Last time it seemed like we bumped into tons of people when we were shopping, but I guess there weren’t as many folks here this time.
We went back to the hotel; Chris and Karen decided to have a nap and Kathy and Sally and I went for a drive around the lake. We went to the Discovery Center, but it was already closed (which I think happened last time, too). We had wanted to figure out if this plant we’d seen at the side of the road up to the Zoo was sage, because we needed some for the spirit animal ritual (on Sunday we found out that it was - Great Basin sage). We also tried to get to the Solar Observatory, but it was closed to the public. So eventually we just pulled over on the side of the road and walked out to the lake. We all waded around in the lake and took some pictures, then found four stones for the ritual.
When we got back to the hotel, Christina (luna_61), Rae, and Gerri had all checked in and we met up and decided to go to The Log Cabin for dinner that night. For those of you reading this who don’t know, I wrote a story based loosely on our adventures at The Log Cabin in 2007 called “Table For Nine”, which you can find here.
Sadly, we were only eight this time, with four muses present in spirit only and three new muses. Our gorgeous waiter had apparently moved on to bigger and better things. But we did sit out on the patio again. The woman who seated us told us that they had bought the place last July and just reopened in December. We explained about the last time we had been there and the German Chocolate Cake shots we had had. She got her husband to look up how to make the drink, and he actually went out to the liquor store and bought one of the ingredients so he could make it for us! The food was terrific - this time they had everything available - and we had a great time laughing and sharing TS stories. Rae and I are working on the premise for the sequel to Table For Nine, so stay tuned.
The German Chocolate Cake shot recipe is: shake or blend 1/2 oz Bailey’s Irish Cream, 1/2 oz Kaluha, 1/2 oz Frangelica, and 1 1/2 oz half and half or cream. It really does taste like German chocolate cake.
At dinner, Rae told us that, back in the spring, one of the wolves appeared to be pregnant, but the zoo workers weren’t sure, because this wolf was pretty old (nine years old) and had had several false pregnancies before. But, lo, it turned out she really was pregnant, and she delivered NINE wolf cubs on April 9th, 2009. And the zoo has named one of the cubs Blair! Rae said they had taken pictures of him, as well as pictures of Garett with him and the other cubs.
Rae also said that the Forestry Service had rejected the second Environmental Impact Statement from the zoo, based on some complaints from people who don’t even live in Big Bear, as well as issues with keeping a path to the lake open for wildlife. This was sobering news. Rae said the zoo’s lease is up in February, and she wasn’t sure what they would do if they couldn’t stay there. At the least, it delays them building the new zoo even longer. It was a little scary to contemplate that this might be the last Moonridge Sentinel Day ever.
We went back to the hotel and sat out on the terrace and had some drinks. Debbie (stoneygirl777)came by with her daughter Melissa and we all sat and talked for a while. Sally was distracted because there was a group of line dancers that had taken over the bar - apparently the hotel has a guy on Friday and Saturdays that does a mix of live music and recorded stuff. She had us all laughing when she imitated how serious and dour the line dancers looked. It was true, though - they had a very serious vibe going. You didn’t even want to go in and get drinks, that’s how serious it was.
Eventually we headed back to The Party Room for more TS episodes and chocolate. Since the hotel restaurant wouldn’t be open, we discussed calling room service and asking them to bring the food out to the terrace. Rae, Gerri, and Christina said they needed to get to the zoo early, though, so they’d see us there.
More pictures of Big Bear and environs at my flickr account here.
Next up - Sentinel Day at Moonridge!
Thursday, June 18th
Went to bed at 1 am after doing all my packing and getting ready to leave, then got up at 4 am for a 6:30 am flight to LA. The first leg was to Cleveland and it was fine, although we left a little late (I only found out later about the Continental pilot dying on the overseas flight; I don’t know if that was what delayed us). I slept a little, but I was in the very back row so I couldn’t recline my seat. It was a short layover; I had about thirty minutes to make the next flight in a different concourse, and when I got there it was already boarding.
The Cleveland to LA leg was VERY BUMPY THE WHOLE WAY. I think there were storms in the Midwest and apparently it’s usually bumpy over the Rockies and coming into LA. The pilot was good, though; he kept coming on the intercom to apologize and explain that we were experiencing “light chop”. I’d hate to experience “medium chop” or “heavy chop”, if that’s the case. I managed to sleep some, finished Turn Coat, and watched some Merlin.
Landed, got my bag, and got on the Hertz bus. Kathy (maaaaa) called me on my cell phone; she was already at the Hertz place. There was much squeeing when I arrived, and much talk about how cool it was that you can go two years without seeing someone but, when you get together, it’s like you’ve never been apart.
Fortunately the line for the cars was way shorter than last time. I opted for a Prius but it took me a little while to figure out how to run the darn thing - there’s a power button (instead of turning the key) and you only have to tap the drive shaft to get it into drive or reverse. But then we were off.
I handed Kathy the maps I’d printed out from Google Maps (which henceforth I’m calling Google Vague) and she informed me that it was a bad decision to have her as the navigator. I reassured her that she would only have to read me what was on the printed maps. The first glitch, however, was that I had neglected to get directions to Chris (chriselora55) and Karen’s (vamysteryfan) hotel leaving from the Hertz place. I’d gotten them leaving from LAX instead. So the beginning directions were totally off.
I asked the woman at the Hertz check-out kiosk where “World Way” was (the first street) and she looked totally confused. We clarified that we were going to Marina del Rey and she said we should just turn right out of the lot and then turn right on Sepulveda, and that would take us straight into Marina del Rey (having perused a few maps since then, I have determined that this is a total lie. Sepulveda does NOT go straight into Marina del Rey). But since Sepulveda was one of the streets mentioned in the directions, we figured that was the right thing to do. According to Google Vague, the hotel wasn’t far from the airport.
After about thirty minutes on Sepulveda, we were forced to acknowledge that we were heading in the wrong direction. Although we had passed several streets that appeared on the Google Vague map, we seemed to be moving farther and farther away from the actual water, which, if you are going to something called a “marina”, is not a good sign. Kathy, in particular, will never be able to see Culver Blvd. again without screaming. So I stopped at a realtor’s (because who knows the area and how to give directions better than a realtor?) and we asked how to get to Marina del Rey. The folks there were very nice and printed out directions to the hotel for us. I’d been trying to call Chris and let her know we were running late, but (in spite of the fact that I had called Sprint before I left and specifically made sure I could make international calls) I couldn’t get through.
Hey, we weren’t lost, we were just 15 miles in the wrong direction!
It was at this point that we decided that the theme for the weekend was “An Enhanced Sense of Adventure”. More on that later...
We finally made it to the hotel in Marina del Rey, loaded up Karen and Chris’ stuff, and got on the road to Big Bear! We met up with Sally (shiredancer) at Highlands, had a quick bite to eat at Subway, and caravanned up the mountain. We all checked in and rested for a while, then met up and walked around looking for a place to eat. We settled on an Italian place a few blocks down from the Best Western. Karen and Sally and I had some excellent local beer called Red Ant Hill Red Ale. Then we retired to Chris’ and my room (aka The Party Room) to watch TS episodes and squee over Jim and Blair. (I’ll just mention here that Sally and Kathy’s room was The Kink Room, due to the large mirror on the ceiling-ahem, over the fireplace...) Then we all headed to bed with plans to meet up for breakfast in the morning.
All weekend we had a ritual when knocking on anyone’s door - the person inside would say “Who is it?” and the person knocking would say, “Ellison”, and then we’d all start laughing. No doubt the hotel staff who saw this thought we were all totally nuts. Or all named Ellison.
Friday, June 19th
Well, we gathered for breakfast only to find that the hotel doesn’t serve breakfast any more except on Sundays! We were disappointed (Kathy and Sally were particularly sad about the loss of the excellent Best Western hot chocolate) but decided to go to the IHOP. The hot chocolate was quite acceptable there as well, apparently.
(Click on the picture to get to a downloadable version)
When we got back, Sally and Kathy thought they’d go for a brief dip in the hot tub (and Karen and Chris and I came down to keep them company), but they couldn’t get the jets to go on. Oddly enough (what about this hotel is NOT odd, I ask you?), the control for the jets is in a metal box on the wall marked “Emergency Power Shutoff”. So you don’t exactly want to go in and start flipping switches at random. But Karen was courageous and gave it a try (and only set the alarm off once). However, still no jets.
Sally went upstairs to shower and Kathy went to swim in the pool. Karen and Chris and I followed her over there, and that was when it was decided that we were Kathy’s entourage for the weekend. I was the not-so-bright one, Sally was the good one, Chris was the rebellious one, and Karen was the scribe.
Kathy went up for a shower and Karen, Chris, and I sat around the hot tub waiting for her and Sally to come back. About ten minutes after she left, the hot tub jets suddenly roared into life. When Kathy and Sally came back down we had a good laugh about that.
The two of them had been making a list of all the TS AUs they could think of, and we were all astonished at the idea that there had never been a lumberjack AU in TS. How can this be? When it’s canon that Blair has chained himself to a tree? As you might imagine, this started us in on Monty Python’s lumberjack song, which earwormed its way through everyone’s head for the rest of the weekend.
Then we went for a walk up the road towards the Zoo to check out some of the shops along the way. We were also checking out some of the other cabins and places for rent - there’s a lovely bed and breakfast called Apples that might be worth checking out next year. We ended up at the Big Bear gift shop, because: “It’s not just a gift shop, it’s an adventure!”. They had a bunch of old signs and ads on the wall, and I was struck by the Pony Express one - Blair would make a great Pony Express rider! Why has no one written this before? Young, wiry, under 18 (okay, so he’ll have to be a little younger than in canon), orphans preferred, willing to face death daily.
And so the Pony Express AU was born...
We went up to The Village and browsed around in the shops there for a while. Of course, Kathy insisted that we had to check out the Leather Depot first - she said she was looking for some chaps. We then lost Chris to the upper floor, which was a maze of different tiny shops. We had to send in several search parties, but eventually we managed to get her out. We ate at a cute place called Michelle’s Café. They were out of practically everything, but that was okay as none of us were really that hungry after the large breakfast we’d had.
After lunch we did some more shopping, and did happen to come across a pair of ALCs (assless leather chaps) which we all agreed would be perfect for Vice!Jim. There was also a Ken doll for sale dressed in jeans and ALCs. We tried to get Kathy to buy him as a model for the Vice!Jim story she’s going to be writing for Caro, but he was more expensive than the actual ALCs themselves - nearly ninety dollars! Plus, he didn’t have the right facial hair for Vice!Jim.
We also went into a Native American shop where Sally bought a book with a ritual for finding your spirit animal (which we never ended up doing). One thing that was odd to me was that we didn’t see any other TS fen. Last time it seemed like we bumped into tons of people when we were shopping, but I guess there weren’t as many folks here this time.
We went back to the hotel; Chris and Karen decided to have a nap and Kathy and Sally and I went for a drive around the lake. We went to the Discovery Center, but it was already closed (which I think happened last time, too). We had wanted to figure out if this plant we’d seen at the side of the road up to the Zoo was sage, because we needed some for the spirit animal ritual (on Sunday we found out that it was - Great Basin sage). We also tried to get to the Solar Observatory, but it was closed to the public. So eventually we just pulled over on the side of the road and walked out to the lake. We all waded around in the lake and took some pictures, then found four stones for the ritual.
When we got back to the hotel, Christina (luna_61), Rae, and Gerri had all checked in and we met up and decided to go to The Log Cabin for dinner that night. For those of you reading this who don’t know, I wrote a story based loosely on our adventures at The Log Cabin in 2007 called “Table For Nine”, which you can find here.
Sadly, we were only eight this time, with four muses present in spirit only and three new muses. Our gorgeous waiter had apparently moved on to bigger and better things. But we did sit out on the patio again. The woman who seated us told us that they had bought the place last July and just reopened in December. We explained about the last time we had been there and the German Chocolate Cake shots we had had. She got her husband to look up how to make the drink, and he actually went out to the liquor store and bought one of the ingredients so he could make it for us! The food was terrific - this time they had everything available - and we had a great time laughing and sharing TS stories. Rae and I are working on the premise for the sequel to Table For Nine, so stay tuned.
The German Chocolate Cake shot recipe is: shake or blend 1/2 oz Bailey’s Irish Cream, 1/2 oz Kaluha, 1/2 oz Frangelica, and 1 1/2 oz half and half or cream. It really does taste like German chocolate cake.
At dinner, Rae told us that, back in the spring, one of the wolves appeared to be pregnant, but the zoo workers weren’t sure, because this wolf was pretty old (nine years old) and had had several false pregnancies before. But, lo, it turned out she really was pregnant, and she delivered NINE wolf cubs on April 9th, 2009. And the zoo has named one of the cubs Blair! Rae said they had taken pictures of him, as well as pictures of Garett with him and the other cubs.
Rae also said that the Forestry Service had rejected the second Environmental Impact Statement from the zoo, based on some complaints from people who don’t even live in Big Bear, as well as issues with keeping a path to the lake open for wildlife. This was sobering news. Rae said the zoo’s lease is up in February, and she wasn’t sure what they would do if they couldn’t stay there. At the least, it delays them building the new zoo even longer. It was a little scary to contemplate that this might be the last Moonridge Sentinel Day ever.
We went back to the hotel and sat out on the terrace and had some drinks. Debbie (stoneygirl777)came by with her daughter Melissa and we all sat and talked for a while. Sally was distracted because there was a group of line dancers that had taken over the bar - apparently the hotel has a guy on Friday and Saturdays that does a mix of live music and recorded stuff. She had us all laughing when she imitated how serious and dour the line dancers looked. It was true, though - they had a very serious vibe going. You didn’t even want to go in and get drinks, that’s how serious it was.
Eventually we headed back to The Party Room for more TS episodes and chocolate. Since the hotel restaurant wouldn’t be open, we discussed calling room service and asking them to bring the food out to the terrace. Rae, Gerri, and Christina said they needed to get to the zoo early, though, so they’d see us there.
More pictures of Big Bear and environs at my flickr account here.
Next up - Sentinel Day at Moonridge!