To fully understand what was going through my mind as I got into my car at seven in the morning, you'd have to know something about the Subrealicon crew. While these pages may look very organized, the group as a whole is not this way. Ever since we'd learned that Maelstrom and Yona were going to be out in our direction, we had some nebulous idea of what we were going to do, but hadn't decided on a definite plan. The Friday before brought a letter to the list from Laersyn (Chris), who basically wrote: "What the heck are we going to do and when are we going to do it?" Several phone calls, e-mails and chat sessions later, I found myself on my way to pick up Sparks and Pebbs.
Now, Yona was here with her parents in Palm Springs on her Spring Break, and Maelstrom flew on her own to visit JB. That Saturday night, JB went to pick up Maelstrom at the airport, and it went something like this:
<laughs> Umm... lesse... okay.... the highlights (or at least amusing parts!) were when we missed each other completely, and I stood waiting for the plane while she went to get the luggage. By the time I realized she wasn't on the plane anymore, I'd figured she probably had decided not to come! <G> We did eventually find each other--only to realize her luggage had gotten lost. <laughs> It was an interesting night! (The luggage arrived the next afternoon!) -- JB McDragon
The original plan was to have Laersyn go pick Yona up and meet us at noon at the Denny's where we gathered at the beginning of Subrealicon 1999
. At first, her parents were okay with this, but they changed their minds (as parents are apt to do) and decided that they wanted to meet more of us, namely myself, Pebbs and Sparks. I have never been to Palm Springs myself, and I was told by Chris that it would be a quick one hour trip there and back. Not a problem, I said, and the other two agreed (though full points go to Sparks' friend Kris who had a bad feeling). That morning I was informed by my fiance Damon that the trip really takes anywhere from two to three hours each way. I broke the news at Pebbs' house, where she promptly dug up some rather lengthy books. We met Chris at his temporary lodgings and waited for him to get dressed (there's nothing more scary than getting a eyeful of Topless Laersyn). A quick stop at McDonald's and we were on our way in separate cars.
As anyone who lives (and drives) in Southern California will tell you, driving on the freeways is a trip in itself. At first, we were doing fine. We got on the freeway, had his car in sight and tooled down the road at a nice clip. Things changed when I briefly lost eye contact with his car on a connector ramp, but quickly got re-oriented on the first main freeway we were supposed to take. (For those of you keeping score at home, this is the 22 East to the 57 North, then the 91 East.) I quickly re-asserted my dominance over him by passing him nicely, then he returned the favor several times down the 91, switching over to the 215 North. We played tag like this all the way to the 10 East, and here's where it started to get fun.
I've been on the 10 before. It's the road that takes you to Phoenix, AZ. I've driven to Phoenix several times, and that part of the 10 gets awfully lonesome during some stretches. So here we are, in my used Saturn, doing seventy-five miles an hour. Chris is about a hundred feet away from me. There's no one around, and it's about another hour to Palm Springs. It's ten-thirty in the morning, and by this time, I'm thinking, we're never going to get there in time to turn around and have her back in Costa Mesa by noon. Sparks and Pebbs look at me and say, "Let's floor it." So we did.
We passed Chris' car at about eighty miles an hour, and zip off, me weaving through traffic and the chatter starting to rise again in the car. It was at this point that Sparks gave Pebbs the germ of an idea for the Mook fic that she's been contracted to write for KayJay and several other amusing things were talked about and mentioned. It's about a half an hour to Palm Springs when I see this light blue blur go past me a couple lanes to the right. Can it be? I sped up and looked, and sure enough, Chris had passed me and we now right in front of me, and pulling away. I cursed, Sparks and Pebbs laughed at my cursing, and off we zipped again, in pursuit of his car. We made it to the exit relatively unscathed to find it was another highway (the 111 North) that took us straight into town.
There's a simple saying about Palm Springs that describes it best: "It's where old rich people go to hang out with other old rich people." We passed through the main drag and oohed and aahed at the many shoe stores. We would have stoppped off at one of the two Starbucks', but it was about eleven o'clock now, about an hour until we're supposed to be back in Costa Mesa meeting everyone else. We drive through Palm Springs and out the other side, turning where we're supposed to and drove some more. And some more. And some more. It wasn't until the street names changed that we realized that perhaps we might have been mistaken on some of those directions. Did I mention that I also had to go to the bathroom and the last gas station was about five miles back? We turned around, went all the way back to the gas station where we all emptied out, got the right directions and informed Kelly's husband that we'd be a tad late. We finally got our bearings and went down the right street, got waved in by the guard and got to the house.
Yona was waiting for us outside, and her parents came out to meet us as well. Yona's parents were very nice and gracious, the grandparents' home is lovely and it was now about twelve-twenty. We said farewell to the parents and as we were leaving, Yona took my picture outside my car. It would be the only picture she took of me that day.
After gassing up, Chris took off like a bat out of hell. He didn't even wait for me to finish pumping gas or for Sparks to get back from the bathroom! He just took off! I wasn't too worried at that point, because I knew I could catch him in my car. I headed for the freeway myself, trying to catch up to him, weaving in and out of traffic. I never did see him. There's a damn good reason why, too. It was like this all the way down the 10 West, to the 60 South, 91 West, 55 South and 405 North. Final freeway tally: 9.
While Sparks and Pebbs went to the bathroom again, I staggered (literally!) over to the table where everyone was waiting for us. They had already eaten and we chatted about the things that we usually chat about at Subrealicon: other Subrealizens. Ashlan was being quite cute in slipping up and referring to the chat room as "the cantina", as she's a Star Wars junkie. JB also said something cute about thinking of us a pirate crew ever since I made a throwaway remark about what I wanted to wear to the Renn Faire. We oohed and aahed over Ashlan's sketchbook and it was discovered that out of all the people there, only Pebbs and Sparks didn't have websites. JB had to go out to feed her baby birds once, then as the time for Ashlan to depart for her job at Disneyland neared, we decided to leave a note for Chris and Yona and go to the park to feed the ducks.
Now I'm usually very good at keeping my pager on me. However, it was hot, and I was scatterbrained and I left it in my jacket in my car. As we rounded up the cars to caravan down to the park near Kelly's house, I heard the sound of my pager go off. As I'd given both Chris and Yona my pager number, my heart leapt as I quickly located it and sure enough, it was a Palm Springs number. I dashed over to the Chevron station, got some change, called and got Yona on the pay phone. Turns out that they had a little adventure of their own.
Mind reassured to their fate, we drove to the park with tons of loaves of French bread. As the picnic table we sat at last time was being occupied, we spotted a rock and claimed it. After an intense scuffle,
JB was declared the winner and Rock Queen (this title would be changed later). There weren't as many ducks as last time, but we had fun throwing bread at them (bouncing it off their heads and such) and JB educated us on which ducks are which and what kinds they are. Ashlan had to go to work, so we hugged our goodbyes (the Subrealicon Crew is very huggy) and took a group picture. And then we took some "Rock Pictures" (you'll see them later). Sparks spotted a playground, so we headed off in that direction. On the way there, there was bit of tenseness as we noticed one duck being drowned by two big white ducks. Being the animal lovers they are, JB and Kielle were trying to help (Kielle threw a huge chunk of French bread at them) but a lady who goes to the park often rescued the poor thing and wrapped it up in a towel. We found out later that her name is Sandy and she's an animal lover, too. The two ducks were just trying to mate with the other one; perhaps it would have worked better on land. Kielle said later that she was contemplating the coldness of the water and whether or not to go in after the duck. So was JB. You'll notice
in this picture
that Kielle's shoes are off and JB's taking off hers. The "duck-sel in distress" is circled in blue.
We eventually found that playground, but the rock pile next to it was much more fun. More rock antics ensued, with JB claiming all the rocks, but loaning them out to us for a fee. This got her name changed from the Rock Queen to the Rock Pimp. It was at this time that I got another page from Yona, and we departed from the park and adjourned at Kielle's house to feed the birds and talk to Yona. We found out from her that they finally got his car fixed (it cost $200) and Yona's mom was freaking out and wouldn't let her come down to Costa Mesa. She said that she'd be in the LA area on Thursday and wanted to make plans. So she and Chris were gonna spend the rest of the day out there and hopefully see us later in the week. After we hung up the phone, we spent the rest of the night chatting about birds, holding the birds, getting crapped on by the birds. Sparks was the only one who didn't end up annointed by the end of the night.
We were going to go out for dinner as to not incur the ire of the Greg, but as JB had to take her pain medication and Pebbs only had a credit card, we decided to get takeout from Taco Bell and watch two episodes of Red Dwarf. I'd never seen the show prior to this night, and from the two episodes we watched, I'm hooked now. And for the record, I like Rimmer, both Arnold and Ace. It being a school night, Sparks had to be home early, so we said our goodbyes around nine or so and I took them home.
On to Day Two!
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