Revival

Time to get this thing going again. I don't know whether anyone will see it, and I don't promise to have all-new material. But this is a good place for thoughts that are a bit longer than a tweet. Here goes.

On May 19th, 2019, John and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. Over the years, we had celebrated that date several times with trips, including a Las Vegas trip in 2004 for our 25th, when digital photos were stored on floppies and my first blog was still a new thing. Here is a photo from that occasion, when the Las Vegas Hilton still hosted Star Trek: The Experience:

We also went to Disneyland twice on our anniversary, in 2012...

and in 2013, when Cars Land was new at DCA:

I don't think we had done anything much since then. For our 40th, though, I wanted to do something, and John suggested Monument Valley. Monument Valley! I've wanted to see that place with my own eyes since at least 1986, if not long before that, when I still lived Back East. We thought about stopping by on our way back from my dad's funeral in Wilmington NC nearly four years ago, but time and distances would not permit. I was also desperate to go see Doctor Who episodes being filmed in Arizona and Utah during the Eleventh Doctor era, but that didn't pan out, either. 2019 would be different.

John left the arrangements to me. I booked us into a hotel in Sedona, which was sort of on the way up. On the Friday before our anniversary, we drove to Sedona, arriving after dark. In the morning we saw this (click to see it bigger):

Then we went on to the Monument Valley Tribal Park in Utah, arriving in time for our 5 PM "sunset" tour.

We got back well before sunset, which turned out to be good news. We got to see this from the edge of the parking lot.

The next day, we went through Bear's Ears National Monument and Natural Bridges National Monument. The latter is where I saw this:

There was more to this trip, but you get the idea. In short: it was great. John had a great time, too, which hardly ever happens. Because of this, we plan to start doing day trips once a month, and I've also been hacking around the mountains of Tucson, to the point of not working enough hours at one of my jobs this pay period. Oops! So I need to back off a little, but I'm definitely in picture-taking mode right now.

And in video-making mode. This is a little bit of a problem, because I'm putting a lot of effort into my videos, and hardly anyone visits my YouTube channel, ever. If you find this message-in-a-bottle blog post, I hope you'll help me rectify that. Here are my social media links:

https://www.youtube.com/user/Mavarin/

https://twitter.com/mavarin?lang=en

https://www.facebook.com/mavarin

https://www.facebook.com/mavarininfo/ (page for my fiction)

https://www.instagram.com/mavarinkfb/

And some others I'm not currently using. There's a lot of overlap, but Instagram is hopeless with panoramic photos and longer videos, Twitter isn't good with essays, and so on. Facebook tends to have the majority of the content found elsewhere, but I realize some people refuse to use Facebook these days.

I hope you've found this revival of my old blog at least a little engaging. I'll try to do something a bit meatier and more original next time.

Karen

The Bridge That Moved to Arizona

As part of the Round Robin Challenge: Bridge, a couple of people mentioned the famous bridges of London. This reminded me of a bridge John and I took pictures of on our 25th Anniversary trip to Las Vegas back in 2004. We stopped off on the way in Lake Havasu City, current home of London Bridge - well, a London Bridge, anyway.

From Las Vegas 2004 (and Lake Havasu)

Here it is, London Bridge, as it crosses over a bit of Lake Havasu in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Actually it crosses a canal at the edge of the lake. Actually, the lake isn't really a lake, but a man-made reservoir behind a dam. Lake Havasu City is a planned community, home to retirees, water sports and the relocated 1831 London Bridge. Except that it isn't quite the original 1831 bridge over the Thames (built by John Rennie and his son, John Rennie), much less the older bridge that one replaced. This one is a concrete bridge, covered with stones from the 1831 bridge, which were numbered and transported to the new site for reassembly. In many cases the stones were trimmed to fit the new structure, which was built on dry land and completed in 1971. After that, the canal was dredged underneath it.



Unsurprisingly, the tourist area around the bridge looks no more authentically British than its origins suggest.



It's kind of fun, though.



And you can go houseboating on a warm and sunny day, in the dead of winter!



By May, though, the time of year we visited, the tourist season is pretty much over as the temperature rises into the 90s.

Karen

Weekend Assignment Results: In Cars...Or Not

Old cars and modern pedestrians at Tucson's historic rail depot

Last week for the Weekend Assignment, I asked you to choose a favorite form of transportation, and explain its appeal. You chose:

Kiva mentioned her beloved trains in comments: And here I was wondering if people were getting tired of trains :0) Thanks for an easy one! But her actual entry has been preempted by an impromptu trip and some major happy news.

Becky wants a scooter...and that's just for starters.

Mike wants a sports car, but he'd also like to put in a bid for a jet-pack. Hey, they exist!

Carly celebrates her new bicycle.

Saqib explains how trains can be both thrilling and relaxing.

Florinda votes for a car, and lives in a place where they are indispensable.

Sarah recalls her wonderful journeys by rail.

Kristi Wachter prefers to rely on her own two feet.

Two ways to get stuff to Phoenix

Good stuff! Thanks, folks! The new Weekend Assignment will be posted as soon as I decide on a topic! ;)

Karen

Weekend Assignment #219: Preferred Transportation

A partially gutted building in Magdalena, NM, and my car

This week's Weekend Assignment is a fairly simple and straightforward one, inspired by Kiva's most likely answer. (Apologies to Kiva for asking you to tread familiar ground!)

Weekend Assignment #219: What is your favorite form of transportation, and why? You can choose any means of traveling by land, sea or air, with just one catch: it has to currently exist in the real world, or have existed in the past. No TARDIS, no Star Trek transporter, no flying DeLoreans, all right?

Extra Credit: What's the most unusual form of transportation you've ever taken?

I fully expect to have the most boring answer of anyone, because you see, I like a car. You can take a car to the McDonald's on the corner, or to the major amusement part at the other end of the country. You can leave when it's convenient for you, rather than conform to someone else's schedule. You can decide, in the spur of the moment, to change course and stop for an ice cream, or photograph a sunset, or explore an historic fishing village. You can travel up and down all but the worst roads, or ride a ferry to a nearby island. You don't get blisters on your heels, or bugs in your teeth. You ride in comfort and relative privacy, and in a pinch you can even pull up at a rest area and sleep. Can your form of transportation do all this?

Last week I mentioned that I like to explore. Over the years, some of those explorations have been by motorscooter, others by car. And while the scooter trips to Patagonia AZ, Niagara Falls, Syracuse and a castle outside Cincinnati were definitely fun, they had their drawbacks. I had to get a rancher to haul my scooter away from a steep and rocky back road at dusk on one occasion, and another time I ended up terribly sore after many hours on I-90 in 90 degree weather, with most of its lanes closed for construction. On the whole, my explorations by car have been more successful. I've climbed mountains and crossed deserts by car, found my way to obscure ghost towns, slept on a beach, and driven to a shooting location for a favorite tv show. And just writing this, I find myself longing to throw some clothes in my old suitcase, and take off again tomorrow morning. I won't, but oh, boy, I sure want to do it!

As for the extra credit, which is better, a schooner in San Diego Bay or a tram ride up an Alp? I think I have to go with our whale-watching tour on the schooner Invader. I've taken trams up a few mountains over the years, but only one Alp, I think, overlooking Lucerne, Switzerland. Beautiful place, very.

Anybody know how to fly this thing?

Your turn! Do you like to fly? Drive? Cycle? Sail? Hike? Feet are a form of transportation, too. Whatever your favorite means of getting around may be, make the case for it in your scooter or blog, and be sure to link back here in your entry. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below. As usual, I'll be back in a week with a roundup of your entries. Avanti!

Karen

Booted

I had two possibilities in mind for tonight's entry - well, three, actually, but the third probably represents many hours of work, so it was never likely to happen tonight. The other two:

1. I could finally get around to writing properly about Gallifrey One, or at least part of it.

2. I could post Round Robin leftovers, the pictures of boots that I omitted because I had too many shots to use and because I chose to be extra-literal in my definition of the word shoes.

Then I dawdled, and followed my incoming email, and decided to watch some Doctor Who, and it got to be after 1 AM. Boots it is, then!

A female "Captain John" struts on stage at Gallifrey One.

Barbie's 1968 friend, Talking Stacy. She's English.

I guess I haven't changed this doll's clothes in a few years, because it's wearing the same outfit, boots and all, in both this 2004 blog entry and this 2005 one.

Tutti, wearing the boots from the "Puddle Jumpers" outfit.

Black Rose Kate's boots, which don't fit me. Explain that away, hmm?

I should mention that Black Rose Kate is a time traveling pirate who occasionally visits this blog and comments on modern life. I first wrote about her on Talk Like a Pirate Day in 2005, and she turned up at my doorstep, literally, that Halloween. She doesn't like it when I call her fictional, so I won't. Her adventures and commentaries are collected on one of my other blogs (follow the link).

As for my own boots, I do have a pair of grey cowboy boots...somewhere. They've always been at least mildly painful to wear, and I wouldn't even try to put them on now. But in looking for them for photographic purposes, I accidentally came across these in one of the hall closets:

No, I don't know where the other black-and-blue boot is. That pair was mine, and the much nicer all black "moon boots" were John's. We bought them circa 1982 at Monroeville Mall in Monroeville, PA, outside Pittburgh, after a record show. See, the only way we managed to keep open the doors of our record store, Rockarama, for about three years was by packing up the best of our imports, used records, buttons, stickers, etc. and taking them to record shows on the weekends. Our most frequent destinations were Pittsburgh (Monroeville), Cleveland, Cincinnati (Covington KY), and Detroit (various suburbs). We made the drive from Columbus to somewhere nearly every weekend, in a 1964(?) Ford Falcon van with a leaky transmission and no heat to speak of. Rust had put a big hole in the van right at my feet, where the cold winter air blew in and froze us both. That particular weekend it was something like 10 degrees with blowing snow, so we fought the cold by buying ourselves some boots. I wanted moon boots like John's, but they didn't have any left in my size, so I settled for the blue-black ones. And yes, they made for a much warmer trip home.

Not much use in Tucson, though. Especially if I only have one of them!

Karen

Weekend Assignment Results: Road Trips

Last week I offered readers a fictional $500 and an equally fictional car rental and asked you to report back about where you'd go on your fictional road trip. Now it's time to get in the car, because we're heading off in all directions!

Becky, writing in comments, wants to visit the Falls: "I know my answer to this assignment, but still in too much pain to form coherent thoughts. I'd go to Niagara Falls. Last time I traveled was by mini-van. That's about it. Now to go remind John I still need him to go to CVS and fill my script for pain meds..."

Unfocused Me would take the Unfocused Family to Louisville: "We would take them to Churchill Downs, and Colonel Sanders’s grave, and whatever else there is to see, like this, but best of all would be the chance for Mrs. Unfocused and me to revisit the place where, 17 years ago, we decided we had to make things work, and set the foundation our marriage four years later. And to get another Churchill Downs Kentucky Derby mint julep glass to replace the one Unfocused Junior broke a couple of years ago."

Saqib sends us on a virtual tour of Karachi: "A popular destination is Park Towers. It's a trendsetting shopping mall overlooking the Arabian Sea. People come from all over to shop here. If you are looking to buy fashionable Pakistani clothing, check out Adnan Amir, a trendy botique located inside of the mall. Be prepared to shell out Rs. 4,000 for a stylish new Kurta."

Mike would take the family to Wisconsin Dells: "It's a relatively pain free drive from the Chicago area, and the kids would have fun. I was looking at the web site just now; it is a lot different than when I was a kid."

Duane would head for Florida, most likely Daytona Beach: "Yes, that's right, Daytona Beach, Florida, for Speedweeks and the 500. Of course, without tickets and reservations made months and months in advance, I probably would have been reduced to begging scalpers for a deal and sleeping in my car or camping out in the infield for days. And it would have been heaven."

Florinda is up for a drive to Carmel and Monterey: "I'd like to make most of the drive along the coastal route, which means I probably won't get there very quickly, but I'll be able to make minor detours along the way to places like Pismo Beach, Morro Bay, and San Luis Obispo. I'd also like to bring Gypsy along for the ride; according to The Dog Lover's Companion to California, Carmel may be one of the most dog-friendly places in the state."

Kiva came up with a late addition and didn't tell me: "If I had the time, I'd just start driving and see where the road takes me. I'm the type that wonders, "well, where does that road go?" and I follow it."

The conclusion to be drawn here is that there are cool destinations within reasonable driving distance of pretty much anywhere people live. Good thing, too, because we all need to get away once in a while. Thanks, folks!

The new Weekend Assignment will follow shortly.

Karen

Home again, jiggity jog

I had a great last day at Gallifrey One, followed by an eight hour drive home. My body is still vibrating, and I'm due at work in 3 hrs 20, after turning in the rental. I'll probably ask for a couple hours off at lunch for a nap. Good night!

Weekend Assignment #203: Road Trip!

My suitcase is packed, more or less, and mere minutes from now I'll be driving to Los Angeles for the weekend. I'm already running a little behind, because after I picked up my rental car I had to go back to work to rush out a report due tomorrow morning. You know what happens if you stay too late in my building? Apparently you get locked in. There was a way out, but it required at least a mile's walk to get back to the rental car, because of fences and washes and things.

One of the dinosaurs of Cabezon, California

Still, the time has come: I'm getting the heck out of Tucson, ba kep och ma vere*, driving away in a nice new car with satellite radio. Which brings me to the new Weekend Assignment question:

Weekend Assignment #203: If you had the time, money, housesittter, etc. to pack up right now and drive somewhere out of town for a few days, where would you go, if anywhere? Note I said driving, so wherever you pick should be in driving distance.

Extra Credit: last time you got out of town for non-business reasons, what was your mode of transportation?

A Dalek and me at Gallifrey One, 2004.

Obviously my destination for this particular weekend is all set: I'm going to the Gallifrey One convention in Los Angeles, CA, there to consort with Daleks and Time Lords and other aliens - or, to be more accurate, people who have either written about such characters or played them on tv. In the first years of this convention my former writing partner and I used to interview such people, first for TARDIS Time Lore and then for Starlog, but this time I'm "a civilian," as John put it. I sure would love to interview Steven Moffat and Paul Cornell, though. They're two of my three favorite Doctor Who writers of all time, the third being Douglas Adams. Yes, that Douglas Adams.

But there are lots of other places in easy reach by car, and I don't get out of town nearly often enough. I'd love to go down to Bisbee, Arizona with John for the weekend. We'd stay one night at the historic Copper Queen hotel, another at a funky trailer park thing with a midcentury diner and themed coaches to stay in. We'd probably shoot for the Tiki-themed one. We could make a day trip from there to Tombstone, to see whether Morgan Earp still falls over with an audible clack at the Historama. And I say that with love, because Tombstone is a great little place.

I'm also dying to see Roswell, NM, not because I believe anything much happened there but because of all the kitch that's grown up because of what people think happened. Or to the Grand Canyon, to try out that new walkway. ride a mule and finally visit the North Rim (not this time of year, though).

Or we could just go to Disneyland for the 11th time or thereablouts. That works, too.

And yes, every recent trip I've made has been by car: to Sedona and Los Alamos (2006), to Disneyland (2005, twice), to the Nebula Awards Weekend in Tempe (2006), to meet my friend Sarah IRL in Scottsdale (also 2006), and to meet John Scalzi, also in Scottsdale (2007). But I wouldn't be opposed to a trip by train or airplane, given enough time and money.

Your turn: here's $500 and a prepaid car rental. Where are you going? Write up the answer in your blog or journal, and leave a link in the comments to this entry. I'll be back in a week (assuming the Daleks don't get me) with a roundup of your answers.

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to pack up my laptop and hit the road!

Karen

*Loosely translates to "Get me the heck out of here!" From a scene I wrote over 30 years ago.