Escape to Green Mountain Prologue: "Shut Up, Claudia Black"

After I moved to Denton and left behind my Book Monkey compadres, we tried our best to schedule regular get-togethers, although "regular" might not be the best word to describe these gatherings, either in frequency or in terms of normalcy; we're an eclectic bunch. Most of the gatherings took place in the DFW area, since Stillwater, while a great place to live, is not exactly a hotspot for fun and exciting attractions and events. This year, while trying to decide on when to get together, and what to do when we did, Bunny threw out an idea that we had discussed before: a trip to The Berry Patch.

The Berry Patch is the name given to Bunny's husband Buster's family's cabin in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado. Buster's family takes turns using the cabin, and have to reserve their time there well in advance; the only real rules for staying at the Berry Patch are (1) clean up after yourself (2) restock what you use and (3) write about your stay in the guestbook. Bunny and Buster were planning on going there at the end of February regardless, and extended the invitation to the whole SXSF crew to join them. It didn't take much convincing for most of us, although Tin Man, being the only one still in school, was a possibly maybe, depending on class-load at the time. So, we all marked our calendars for Feb. 24-27, and set about making plans for the trip.

In my head, the actual Colorado trip didn't officially begin until I set out on the road with the full contingent of Book Monkeys; however, in order to do so, I first had to get to Stillwater. I took Thursday afternoon off of work, ran a couple of errands, and then caught a ride up with Rebel Monkey, who was driving up from Austin. It was a pretty uneventful car ride, with us catching each other up on what was going on in each others lives. When we got to town, we headed straight to The Mag and Rose Hips' place; Tin Man and his roomie were there for their weekly Survivor watch party. Rebel Monkey headed to her mom's place for a bit to visit and drop off her dog Dakoby for the weekend while the rest of us watched Survivor. After the show was over, Tim Man's roomie went home, but the rest of us played a game called Shadows Over Camelot. It's an interesting game; each player is one of the Knights of the Round Table, and you work as a group to complete a series of quests before the forces of evil overrun Camelot. I enjoyed the cooperative aspect of the game, although there is a twist; one of the players could draw a "traitor" card, and then work secretly to undermine everyone else's efforts. There were no traitors this time around, although there was no shortage of joking accusations to the contrary.

Rebel Monkey made it back shortly after we finished the game, at which point Tim Man popped in a DVD of footage he had cut together from our movie shoot last May; I realized as we started watching that I had neglected to mention the film in my recent post about my acting history, but there's a good reason for that: denial. But, I'm sure it will make a nice post at a later time. Anyway, we spent some time reminiscing before Tin Man, who had unfortunately decided not to come along on the trip, headed home as well.

After the Tin Man left we started making plans for our early morning departure. The Mag started downloading some eps of Stargate (which she's just recently started watching) from Tivo to her laptop. I asked if she'd had a chance to see any of the Claudia Black episodes yet, since The Mag was partially responsible for getting me hooked on Black's old show, Farscape; she said she hadn't, but that reminded her of something she wanted to show me. She turned on her PS2 and the snazzy interactive workout game, which uses cameras and motion detection software to place you inside the game. Very cool, made slightly cooler by the fact that the instructional voice over sounded exactly like Claudia Black. After watching The Mag play one round of one of the games (during which, every "tip" from the voice over elicited a "shut up, Claudia Black" from The Mag), Rose Hips suggested that they pack the game up for the trip, since the cameras weren't that hard to set up.

After that, the girls all headed off to bed, while I headed off to couch; 6 AM was going to come mighty early the next day.