May -08 Lightning In a Bottle

Lightning In a Bottle is an arts and music performance festival, that is a spin off of Burning Man of sorts. It is put on by the Do Lab, which is an LA presentation art company, that has done concerts at Burning Man and other places.

They have music ("House Music" is the main type, played all hours day and night at almost deafening levels), programs and workshops ranging from "Backyard Composting" to "Edible plant nature walk for kids" to "Yoga", "Meditation", "Tantra", "Green Foods", and all sorts of other stuff - so it's more organized than Burning Man. It also has a regular Faire type venue of booths which you can actually buy and sell stuff at (unlike at burning man) such as food, cloths, herbs, and random "Burning Man", "Hippie", "Enviro-nerd", "Steam Punk", "Neo Vicki", or otherwise odd ball type products (note that I consider my self at least interested in most of the above... :) )

A bunch of picts below in no particular order...

During a parade

A perambulator with several kids in it
Floor dancing
One of the stages - this one made from recycled materials, to look like a temple.
The main plaza, with "Orchids" and shops in the back

Delilah enjoying some coco by the stage
Bubbles at one of the stages
An early reveler doing hooping (very popular)
Some of the outfits
And players

And finally, a video of the parade.

May -08 Maker Faire Evening Shots

More picts from Makers FaireA destructo-robot claw thingy... Stand clear.
Under the legs of a giant
Jennifer and Max in front of another Claw robot
A Pedomotive Rickshaw with Arnolds face...
Delilah the Cave Girl
A human powered bus where everyone pedals.

And into the evening, the pyrotechnics started to happen -
A little heart burn leads to
Whoa!
And a daunting alien eye thing...

Ok, so that was fun. Long drive, but we will likely do it again another year.

May -08 Maker Faire day shots

This year, among other radical adventures, we are going to go to a number of festivals. The Maker Faire is a creative celebration of "Makers" - people that invent, create, re-purpose, hack, de-construct, re-structure, etc. It's all about creating stuff, making thing better, different, or just, well, odd.

On the way up, we went through the mountains, and ironically took a picture of the very sight of Lightning in a Bottle which was but a few weeks away for Delilah and I.
The 154 overlooking the lake where LIB will be -

My lovely ladies in the RV.
Central coast north of Morrow Bay, where we camped after Farmers Market.
Then, up the coast and met up with Jennifer, her son Max, which Delilah really enjoyed playing with, and even an occasional visit with Thomas, during his busy production schedule.

On Saturday, we hit the Faire and saw all sorts of odd and wonderful things:
A lego car. This is a mail carrier that has been covered in lego surfaces, so that you can, well, build stuff on it...
A "Steam Punk - Neo-Vicki RV". This is actually a steam powered (from a steam tractor motor) mobile victorian era home... Pretty cool stuff - they actually have a "camera obscura" inside to see whats going on out, and a balcony on the top.
A life size game of "Mouse Trap" that they demo several times through the day.

Electric powered muffin cars...


A "recycled computer skull" made from various mother boards. It actually presents some video, talks, etc.
The electric giraffe

And since blogger only likes so many pictures per post, the Makers Faire night shots are separate.

March 2008 - the desert parks

We were going to go to Arches, and Moab, but found out that there was a Jeep convention there, and no camping and no hotel anywhere around, so we pressed on to Capitol Reef, which Barbara had never been to, and thoroughly enjoyed.
We stayed at a comp ground in an area called Fruita which was a desert farming area, since there were springs there and flowing water. A hardy few folks settled here, and found that their fruit trees thrived in the sun, heat and water. Several of the groves are still active today, and park visitors can harvest fruit for a nominal fee during certain seasons.

Barbara really enjoyed the feeling of the place. She is a lover of Red Rock Desert areas like this and Sedona.

A beautiful view coming over Highway 12.
And in to one of the back canyon roads - as far as I was comfortable taking the RV.

The girls on their respective phones.

Bryce NP on our way through to Zion
And a couple of views of Zion National park.
Out for a walk at Zion.
A funny sign along the way somewhere around Bryce...

After leaving Zion, I did a long haul into the night, and we camped in a hole in the wall south of Vegas, and tootled home from there.

March 2008 - Heading home from Colorado

Heading back, we first went to the Rocky Mountain National Park and Estes Park, thinking that we could drive through on Highway 34. We are such Southern Californians... Yes, Highway 34 does in fact close for the winter part way up the mountain, and we had to turn around, and back track an extra 6 hours... Made for a VERY long day.
The scenery was first rate though - a beautiful area, lots of wild life, and spectacular views.


Getting in at midnight, we stayed that night in Vail, and took the aerial tram there up to a little "amusement park" sorta thing that had some activities such as mine tour and toboggan rides that we passed on, to get back on the road.

March 2008 - out to Colorado Springs

We headed out to visit our friends in Colorado Springs, and see some stuff along the way. Things were cold, and windy, so unfortunately, we all had various cough/cold/or other problems along the way. On the way out, we stopped at Meteor Crater which is a world class tourist trap - a hole in the ground that they put a fence around, and once you've driven the miles to get there, you find it's $20 per adult to get in... So you write it off as "well, I won't do this again", fork over the cash, and take some pictures of a hole, and a space rock... Look carefully - maybe you can save yourself some cash -


In Colorado Springs, we stayed with Rob, Suzanne and Sophia, and also visited Phil and Shannon and their two boys who came over for a great dinner. We also wandered around Manitou Springs, wandering the little shops, and eating at "The Heart of Jerusalem" for some darned fine Shwarma...




It snowed several times while we were there, including one night getting cold enough to grow several dozen foot or more long icicles off the front of the RV (wish I'd gotten a picture of that)...
The kids did do a little sledding and built a snow man, which was a great time while it lasted.