This and That and That Other

In my continued obsession to re-trace the steps of the show (and get more exercise), I watched a little bit of Wendigo to try and decide what the next step of the journey is. The location referenced in the script is Blackwater Ridge, Colorado but a check of Google and the US Geographic Names Index confirms that is a fictional location. However, watching the first part of the episode there is an insert shot of the map which indicates that Blackwater Ridge is in Lost Creek Wilderness Area which is a real place in Colorado. Which gives us this:

Palo Alto, CA to Jericho, CA (Sub: Jericho Creek) (Pilot) - Travel time 3 hours, 5 minutes
Jericho CA (Sub: Jericho Creek) back to Palo Alto, CA (Pilot) - Travel time 3 hours, 5 minutes (Total 6 hours, 10 minutes)
Palo Alto, CA to Blackwater Ridge, CO (Sub: Lost Creek Wilderness Area, CO) (Wendigo) - Travel time 19 hours, 30 minutes (Total 25 hours, 40 minutes)

So far I have exercised 6 hours, 12 minutes which puts me (virtually) heading out of Palo Alto on the way to Colorado.

Yesterday was Collegium, which is always one of my favorite events of the year, though getting there was a bit of a challenge. I left my house giving myself just enough time to get there. (I should have left 15 minutes or so earlier but it was early Saturday morning....traffic should be light, right?) But no.....Caltrans decided for no apparent reason to take five lanes of traffic down to two lanes for several miles which slowed things down to a crawl. Then when I got to the 60/215 interchange, there didn't seem to be any way to go north on the 215. I figured I could go a little further, get off the freeway, get back on the opposite direction and find the 215 North onramp, but no...the on ramp where I got off the freeway going the other way, was closed due to construction. After driving awhile in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, I finally got back in the direction I wanted to go. I was late for the 9:00 class I wanted to take, but it got canceled anyway.

First class Asian Books by Mistress Luigseach. Class where you get to make something and take it home area always great and I learned a lot that I didn't know. I've made books like that before but it was fun to learn the differences between Japanese and Chinese styles. It was wonderful also, to learn all the little secrets about constructing the books that I was either leaving out or doing wrong. Neat! I want to make more, and suggested to Eowyn that this might make cool presents for stepping down officers at Anniversary (or generic gifts or something).

Next class was the Drollery class by Mistress Tetchubah (I forget the exact title). Tetchubah has these classes down to a science now. She does a fabulous amount of research and then shows all these amazing examples of the style and then puts it all on CD's for the class to take home. Doesn't get better than that. Funny funny stuff. I wish there were more people I wanted to poke fun at. :)

Last class was How to Look like You Stepped out of a Portrait by Lady Caterucia and Lady Adeheit and they did a marvelous job. Great presentation through their slides and a well thought out handout, full of insightful questions to help guide one through the process of recreating a more period look. It made me think not only about what I usually wear to events (god I need new clothes) but also applications for other research. It's a really good approach to nailing down illumination styles and looking for domestic details in paintings and other places. I need to apply it to the things I do, instead of just going off in all directions at once.

Let's see. Got up this morning, walked 30 minutes. Haven't done anything since. I need to do some cleaning, some laundry and work on my corset today.

On with it!