"What Is That Noise?!?!"

The day after Dollywood, we drove back to Warrenton and spent another night at sister Lynn's place. That evening, we went to Lynn's daughter's middle school band concert.

As usual, the 6th grade band performance was a feast for the ears!!!

Elizabeth (Lynn's daughter) was in the 8th grade band and they did considerably better.

It Burns!!

"It Takes A Lot Of Money To Look This Cheap"

Ah yes, straight from the mouth of Dolly Parton while a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Apparently, Oprah asked if she had resorted to having plastic surgery done at some point. Dolly's response was something along the lines of "Of course. My career as a performer (and I think she was generalizing to most performers here) is bound up as much in my public "image" as it's tied up in my "show." I need to do what I can to maintain what the public expects for as long as I can."

And you know what? I can respect that. She's open and up front about it. She doesn't deny that she's had work done. Most importantly, she's not doing it because she's deluded herself into believing she can look like some young and sexy vixen for as long as she wants.

As time moves forward and various stars come and go, some just fading away and others exploding like tabloid supernovae, I've come to appreciate entertainers (particularly women) that have the ability to just go on and on and on. And I mean that in a good way. How they're able to adjust their "show" to compliment the different points in their lives. How they always seem to be able to produce something new that people find interesting and are glad to pay for. How obvious it is that they've got a good mind for business. It can be really inspiring when you see someone like that and can say "that person really knows what they're doing."

So yeah, I'm not necessarily a huge fan of her music, but I loves me some Dolly Parton. I almost want to go out and buy one of her albums as a way of registering my vote for the "this lady deserves to continue to do what she does" awards.

Can you tell I liked Dollywood?

Thanks to Scottland, I've been to a whole mess of theme parks in all sorts of different parts of the country now, and Dollywood is easily in my top three. Cedar Point in Sandusky still occupies the number one position. Disney World is in the number two position, but only by virtue of its ridiculous size and level of engineering complexity. That leaves Dollywood in the number three position, but if Dollywood could somehow be increased in size to rival Disney World I'd have a hard time deciding which was better.

What makes a theme park good is how well it grabs you by the mental cojones and thrusts you into the self-contained world its trying to create. To do that, you have to have a consistency to your theming that's not heavy handed. If you go too over the top it becomes a parody.

Disneyland was sort of like that for me. I liked it, but it was trying so hard to be "The Happiest Place On Earth" in the middle of the crappiest place on Earth that I just couldn't buy into it. Disney World worked because it's theme isn't "The Happiest Place On Earth", it's "The Biggest Place On Earth" and I could buy into that. The sheer size of the place and how well it all fits together produced it's own sense of wonder after a while.

Cedar Point, on the other hand, was all about the thrill rides. To maintain their theming and experience they simply needed to provide high quality rides within a high quality experience. This is actually more difficult than it sounds though. The park needs to be easy to get around in. It needs to be clean and attractive. It needs to be well organized and staffed with friendly people. All of this they did in spades and more. Most other Thrill Parks failed in one way or another. King's Island was disorganized, Great America was crowded, dirty and difficult to walk through.

Dollywood was a beast of a different nature. It's trying to be part Thrill Park and part Theme Park. Sort of like a down home country Christmas where you occasionally get to ride a kick ass rollercoaster. They had craft shops with actual craftspeople making things. They had two really good rollercoasters, the Haunted Mine Ride and the Thunderhead. The Haunted Mine Ride was very well themed, if a bit light on the thrills. It succeeds where "The Italian Job" coaster at King's Island miserably failed. And the Thunderhead? What can I say. I usually HATE wooden coasters. They scare the bejeezus out of me, and this one ROCKED. It was easy to see why it was voted "Best Wooden Coaster In the World" several years in a row.

Beyond that, the appearance of the park was consistent, visually dynamic and attractive. The food options were good and consistent with the "Smokey Mountains" theme of the park. Sadly, I never got to try the BBQ, which is supposed to be quite tasty. Nor did I get to eat pork pulled directly from a pig roasting on a spit like Suzanne promised me.

Most importantly, the staffing was excellent, and that's key. I've found that it's really the staff that can make or break a theme park. If they're friendly and helpful it's so much easier to just get into the experience and have fun. If they're surly and/or disinterested the place becomes very hard to enjoy no matter how spectacular everything else is.

I even got my science fix for the day, when I got to learn all about chestnut blight.

So yes, I would recommend Dollywood to anyone that has a chance to go there. The three of us (Suzanne, Scottland and myself) had a great time. Suzanne even got to hold a butterfly in her hand while a staff-member to a photo of us.

You're The Only Ten I See

After nearly eight hours of driving, and much confusion once we left the interstate, we arrived at Suzanne's mother's house on the outskirts of Knoxville, Tennessee. This is where we'll be staying until Thursday morning. Today's big excursion is Dollywood!!! Scottland is so excited, though we're both a little worried that bad weather may close the rollercoasters. They're the main reason we're going to Dollywood in the first place.

Last night, Suzanne's mom cooked us a delicious meal of bacon wrapped fillet mignon, followed up by another round of card game playtesting. Suzanne seemed to enjoy it and was offering all sorts of suggestions. Scottland was impressed by how much easier it is to teach and learn now. "Rachaeling" is still a problem, but I'm sure I'll figure out a solution eventually. It's pretty much the last "problem" to be solved now, as long as you don't consider figuring out the formatting for the easiest play experience possible a "problem."

In other exciting news, were able to snap the following exciting photos of Squeak and Flounder, who are both doing quite well and see happy, in case anyone wanted to know.

Here's clickable thumbnails of Flounder actually allow himself to be touched by Suzanne when other people are around!! Imagine what she can do when they're alone!!

And here's clickable thumbnails of Squeak standing up!! It's a rare event indeed, based on how hefty Squeak is getting. Of course, her sister is just as likely to pack on the pounds so it's not entirely the poor dear's fault.

And, in case anyone needed proof, Suzanne's cats are in point of fact demon-possessed, though I can't say for sure if this is Suzanne's fault, her mother's fault or something that can be laid at the foot of the great state of Tennessee.

Ebberon Is Dino-Mite!!

In the Ebberon Campaign Setting, the Haflings of the Talenta Plains can often be found riding dinosaurs (or so I've been told).

It turns out that the Haflings of the Virginia Hills do the same thing. Not sure how the go about domesticating them though . . .

Apparently the Hafling culture of Virginia is best summed up with the word "Western", and I don't mean classical greek mythology and latin.

Bridge, Au Natural

Somewhere between Warrenton, VA and Knoxville, TN I began randomly proclaiming "Jesus!!" in a sing-songy faux spiritual voice. Why? Well, somewhere between those two points the world went from not-Jesus-land to Jesus-Land. We're talking crosses, bumper stickers, billboards, etc. Jesus was everywhere!! I think, though I'm not entirely sure about this, that the transition really started when we hit Natural Bridge.

Natural Bridge is a privately owned park that you have to pay admission to get into. It's got a wax museum, a mini-golf course, a haunted house, and a gift shop. Of course, it also has the Natural Bridge, The eighth natural wonder of the modern world or something. It often gets confused with the natural wonders of the world, places like the Grand Canyon and the Great Barrier Reef.

Natural Bridge was very cool. It's essentially all that's left after the roof collapsed in a series of limestone caves. The "bridge" itself is quite thick and there's a functional road that goes across the top of it. The sequence of images below takes you through Natural Bridge along the path visible in the first picture. The pictures are thumbnails that link to higher resolution images.

So what initially got me onto the "Jesus!!" kick was, "The Wonder of Creation" light show they do at Natural Bridge every night. I guess they project images onto the rock face or something. That's what all the benches are for in the first image in the series. Places for people to sit while they watch the show.

There was also an "Jesus!!"-related interesting sign describing the Natural Bridge's origin. Sadly, I failed to take a picture of it. As I pointed out to Scottland, the two paragraphs comprising the sign were playing to different crowds. The first paragraph described the bridge's formation using standard geological terminology telling the reader when the rock comprising the bridge was formed, what caused the caves and how long the overall process took. The second paragraph contained coded language about creation, miracles, sculpting, etc. I was surprised that the park simply didn't have two signs, one describing the geological time based version of events and the other telling us which at minute on the third day of creation God stopped by to sculpt the bridge.

Here are pictures of Scottland and I admiring His wonderful sculpture:

After our brief interlude at Natural Bridge, we hopped back into the car and got back on the road to Knoxville.

Please Fasten Your Belt and Put Out Your Fag

First we dropped Mikey off at the Downtown Dog Lounge. Then we participated in the Jingle Bell Run 5K, with Scottland in his skivvies, shoes and Scooby outfit. Then we changed, finished packing and were off to the airport.

After a fairly pleasant five'ish hour flight we touched down at the Ronald Reagan airport this evening. And by "touched down" I mean hit the tarmac like the engines gave out five feet above the runway. Oh well, no harm no foul I suppose. Took about an hour for Scottland's nail-marks to fade from my fore-arm, though.

So yeah. Welcome to Washington DC, err I mean Crystal City. Not sure why it's called Crystal City, unless its a reference to the wild packs of meth-heads roaming the streets. Hah hah. I kid. Besides, they're crack-heads.

Ronald Reagan is across the Potomoc and in Virginia and we got in so late that we went straight to our hotel after supping at a sports bar that turned out to be next door to a gay bar. Which explained why the pool table of vaguely mary bears next to us kept giving us "the eye", though I got all internally 'phobic and thought it was the proverbial "the stink-eye" at first.

Anyhow, after a restless night of minimal sleeping (oh how I love that first night in a new bed) we woke, dressed and took the Metrorail into DC proper. The rail was quite cool and I found myself wondering yet again why Seattle can't get its act together and install a comprehensive and useful public transportation system. I did have a lovely "woah, I'm on the East Coast" moment as I ambled across the station platform at a Seattle pace and was nearly trampled by a sudden stampede of recently disgorged commuters.

From the Metrorail we walked to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. The Air & Space Museum was pretty cool, though it seemed kind of outdated in spots. Scottland was quick to note how dusty the section on the lunar landing related stuff was and I have to admit that he was right. Even I noted it, and the gain on my Dustometer is set WAY below his.

Still, it was cool to see replicas (and in some cases the real deal) of the various probes and craft from the US space program. I had no idea that Skylab was SO HUGE. The International Space Station must be just enormous. Scottland and I both agree that our favorite exhibit was the one dedicated to the history of air travel. There were a lot of different displays that explained how the industry has evolved since the beginning of the 20th century and much of it was quite entertaining.

For example, I didn't realize that before deregulation, the only way for airlines to differentiate themselves was via sexy (or "memorable") stewardess outfits and the quality of in-flight service. As you can see, Southwest Airlines (on the left) and California Air (on the far right) were quite aggressive in their pursuit of "sexy" and "memorable."

My favorite part of the museum had to be "Cosmic Collisions," the 24 minute long planetarium show. It was essentially about the different types of space related collisions that are going on around us all the time. Things like the creation of the moon, huge meteor impacts, nuclear fusion, the Aurora Borealis and collisions between galaxies. I was pretty familiar with the subject matter of the show, but to see it all rendered out in super high detail and projected onto the dome of a planetarium is something else entirely.

After that, we were done with the Air & Space Museum. On the way back, Scottland had to take a long phone call so I amused myself in the Hirshhorn Museum, which is one of a handful of modern art museums at the Smithsonian. Some of it I liked, some of it I didn't get and some of it I thought was just plain ugly. Three pieces in particular really captured my imagination.

Milk Run, by James Turrell is actually a darkened room that you go into. As your eyes adjust the piece resolves itself. Sure it's just a bunch of lights, but I really liked the concept and thought it was about the act of appreciating art.

Round Rainbow, by Olafur Elliason was also really interesting. I honestly don't have a clue what it MEANS. However, the concept of light refracting through a rotating, beveled acrylic hoop that creates a variety of different types of mathematical curves on a wall was just too cool. The link to the image of the piece on the Hirshhorn page is broken, but I was able to find it via a google search.

The Way Things Go, by Peter Fischli and David Weiss (II) was definitely my favorite though. Essentially it's a giant "Rube Goldberg Contraption" captured on film. For some reason the Hirshhorn doesn't have an entry in its collection database, but I found a short section of the half hour long film on you tube.

After this, we took the Metrorail back to Crystal City, got in our ultra-sexy rented minivan, fought traffic nearly all the way to Warrenton, VA and spent our next night at Scottland's sister Lynn's place.

Random Plant Stuff

So I spent a sizable chunk of the day working out 2008's Landscaping Plan for our yard. I'm happy to report that the cherry tree in our front yard is, in fact, a Japanese Flowering Cherry (Prunus Serrulata). It may or may not be of the 'Ukon' variety and there's really no way to tell for sure until next spring, when I can get a good look at the blossoms. Nailing down the exact species would not have been possible if I had not been able to walk out and pick the literal last leaf on the tree and compare it to an image from the internet.

In other happy news, I've also decided on the other two "architectural" plants I'm going to install in the patch of lawn the cherry tree currently has all to itself.

One is going to be what's called a Smoke Tree (Cotinus coggygria) and will no doubt look spectacular in that location, particularly if I can get my hands on the 'Royal Purple' variety.

The other is going to be what's known as a Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus 'Compactus'). I find it funny that I'm going to have a plant in my yard that has a name that implies that it's on fire. Perhaps I'll jokingly refer to it as the "gay bush." That being said, in the fall the it really is on fire.

The Great Icy Death Storm of 2007

That's probably what they'll be calling it on the news tonight. We just got about 1.5 inches of snow in about two hours over here in West Seattle.