50 for 50: 48 - Old Timey Photo with my Parents

From the Department of Things That Should Have Been Easy...

I thought Old Timey Photos were still available at every damned amusement park.  Not so.  (Dollywood?  Yes.  Knott's Berry Farm?  Probably.)  But most parks have traded in the Old Timey Photos for Green Screen photos.  (And I went to Dollywood with Steve, who'd already done a 50 for 50 by then, and didn't want to do an Old Timey Photo anyway.)

A few months back, I was in Arizona with my folks, sister, and aunt, and we had some time to kill, so I was looking for an Old Timey Photo place, thinking I could maybe sneak that one in.  There was one just a few miles away....

It had burned down.

Honest to God, there was a fire there a couple years back, and they chose not to rebuild -- or, at least, not to rebuild the business.  The nearest Old Timey Photo place was something like 50 miles away.  Certainly nothing we could slip in before dinner.  Old Timey Photo was turning out to be a challenge.

Fast forward to me being in Arizona for my father's birthday weekend.  For his birthday, yesterday, we drove out to the Dolly Steamboat -- a paddle boat that tours around a lake up in the mountains.  (We saw big horn sheep!  And some woman wearing a tube-top bikini jump about 60 feet into the water.  (We saw her head resurface.  We're not so sure the tube top survived the impact.))  It was a nice little (air-conditioned) paddle boat tour and we enjoyed it.

It had been an hour and a half drive away.  Up the (scenic) Apache Trail.  The cell phone service is spotty up here.  You even pass an old ghost town on the way -- a gold mining town which had gone all touristy.  We'd been there years ago, and taken the mine tour, and walked past the little shops.  We were reminiscing about it on the steamboat, and my mother mentioned that we'd walked past the House of Questionable (if not actually Ill) Repute, and I thought, "Y'know, that's the sort of place that would have an Old Timey Photo establishment."

I waited until I got enough of a signal to pull the ghost town up on my cell phone, and, sure enough, of the ten whole shops at the Goldfield Ghost Town, one is an old timey photo joint. 

Now, technically (and, y'know, ACTUALLY) this was my Dad's birthday, so I half wheedled/half negotiated a stop at the ghost town on the way back the mountain.  (Said my father, with a sigh of resignation, "Can we get ice cream?"  I replied, "As a matter of fact, one of the other shops is an ice cream parlour."  A deal was made.)

For those wondering about the 50 for 50 rules at this moment, 50 for 50 things are One Per Person, and, at this point, I'd only done one with my parents, so I had a spare available.  I am therefore proud to present:  Old Timey Photo With My Folks!

That's the one I took home; my parents acquired an alternative pose:

And that's how my Dad's birthday turned out to be my 48th 50 for 50.

50 for 50: 47 - Drink hot cocoa (not by a fire) with Caroline

As we get near the end of my 50 for 50 list, we're getting to the ones that have been ... logistically challenging.

And it's been some of the ones which I'd thought would be easy.

Case in point:  Drink hot cocoa by a fire.

I'd initially thought this one was open to all sorts of interpretation when I'd put it on the list.  Maybe a "ski trip" (in quotes because me skiing is a questionable at best), or some sort of campfire evening type of thing.

This did not occur.

My friend Caroline signed up for it.  She thought we'd find a nice cafe with hot chocolate and a fireplace.

This did not occur either.  Mostly because we live in Los Angeles.  And while there are some hot chocolate establishments (some of which are seasonal and we'd blown the season), none of them are near fire.

OK, ditch the flame.  Let's just find someplace with good sippin' chocolate.

There is such a place.  Amara Cafe, in Pasadena.

They serve dinner and stuff.  And what is actually on their menu as "drinking chocolate."  (As opposed to ... wearing chocolate?)  They do a Venezuelan sippin' chocolate (and have an impressive-looking dessert menu in which churros feature heavily).  Caroline and I plan to go there for dinner.

This, also, failed to occur.  On multiple occasions.  She got sick.  I got sick.  Her kid got sick.  They're closed on Mondays.  I'm out of town.  They close at 7:30.  Her other kid got sick.  FFS, give me some sippin' chocolate with Caroline!

To be completely honest about it, we almost had more fun NOT doing the 50 for 50 than we had doing it.  We met for a non-hot-chocolate dinner (in lieu of Amara) a bunch of times.  (Juicy pork dumplings FTW!)  Every time, we chatted, got caught up on each other's lives, and just took some time out of our (apparently) super busy lawyer lives to breathe.

We FINALLY made this happen on Tuesday.  I was so busy this week (dinner with a visiting out-of-town friend on Wednesday; Avengers: Endgame on Thursday; plane to Arizona on Friday), I almost cancelled (again), but everyone seemed healthy, nobody was in the ER, Amara was actually open, and when the hell were the stars going to align like this again?!

We went.  I had some sort of cornmeal pizza thing (not its real name -- cachapas, I think) with chicken and black beans which was actually pretty good, and A CUP OF VENEZUELAN DRINKING CHOCOLATE which was, y'know, better.

And the restaurant was more of a cafe, and the seating was not exactly luxurious, and it was after 7:30 so they were trying to shuffle us out.  But we were sitting there, being hugged from the inside by chocolatey goodness, and being warmed from the outside by friendship, and it was a moment that couldn't be rushed.

And did I get a picture?  This failed to occur.  ;)   We'll just have to manage to do it again.

LMNL at OneDome

I have a work thing in San Francisco, so I came up a few days early to spend the weekend with Cousin Roni.  And we had salads and went retro clothes shopping (and I got a sweater with little kitty faces on it) and I met her bunny and we walked around and I saw views and it was fun!

And today, I wanted to do something vaguely indoorsy, and Groupon hooked us up with LMNL at OneDome.  LMNL is billed as an interactive exhibit made up of 14 rooms designed by 14 different artists that you get to play in.

I had hoped for something kinda like Meow Wolf. 

Not so much.  It was more like Instagram Heaven.

First, we started with "Health Shots."  Served in skull shot glasses, for some damn reason.  No, wait, I know the reason.  Because this looks cool.

We were actually pretty lucky, in that we got there when there was no line, and most of the rooms were empty, or had only one group in them (and we could just wait our turn and get the room to ourselves).  But the people who were in there fell into several categories:

- Families with kids who were running and jumping and playing and having the bestest time!
- Artist-types who were feeling the vibe and sketching what they saw.
- Duos made up of one person who was clearly the Instragram model and the other who was her photographer.

Me and Roni were just there to, y'know, have fun.

I really like the room with strings of lights in it.  This was one place where the reflection in my glasses added to the effect.  Dude, we are in the Matrix.

You can't quite tell (because selfie) but we were SURROUNDED by the strings of lights; we're standing in a small space in the middle, but it's lights everywhere.

The wall in this one was surprisingly fun to play with.

Not sure why I was going for the "Chased by something" look here, but the wall totally adds to the panic.

There was one very small room (you could barely fit both of us in there) which was mirrored on all surfaces and the mirrors had flashy lights in them which responded to motion.  We stood outside the room for a bit, watching the Instagram Couple take all the photos they wanted -- she kept posing, telling him the pose she was taking, and directing him which shots to take.  It kind of cracked us up.  I told Roni that when we got in there, I was going to sit in the corner and completely ignore the camera, and then turn and stare blankly at it, like I so totally don't care about anything.

Roni says I nailed it.  I'm thinking of maybe starting an Instagram of "50-Year-Old Does 15-Year-Old Angst" poses, but, like, I just totally can't be bothered right now.

And then we stood up in the tiny room, and figured that if it's REALLY activated by motion, we should give it some damn motion.  So we did a little tango in there, and were rewarded with tons of bright rainbow lights, and we laughed and fell toward the doorway.  When Roni opened the door, we saw the Instagram Couple out there, and I wondered if they'd noticed us totally goofing in the room, but they were glued to their phones, reviewing their pix, and waiting for their turn to go back in and redo some shots.

Ooo, Universal Annual Pass

Tried out my Universal Studios Annual Pass today.  I've been to Universal in Florida five times in the past few years.  I know it well.  On the other hand, I've not been to Universal Hollywood since they put in the Harry Potter stuff, and, except for that one visit a few years back, possibly not for decades.

It's ... changed.

I moved to California in the late 1970s, and every time a friend or relative came to visit, my family would take them to Disneyland and Universal.  ("Tour A," we jokingly called it.)  When I got my driver's license (1984), I started volunteering to do the Universal runs myself.  My folks often let me do it; they were pretty sick of the place, but I loved it.

THAT's the Universal Studios I remember -- when Universal was a tram ride followed by four live shows (the Wild West Stunt Show, the makeup show, the animal show, and that fourth one where they use people from the audience as extras (how cool is that?)).  We would go back every time they added something new to the tram ride.   They added Jaws!  They added King Kong!  They added an Earthquake! 

I'd want to go back every time I saw something from the tour on TV.  That (hilariously bad) ice tunnel/avalanche thing?  We recognized it in that Bigfoot episode of Six Million Dollar Man (a classic of American entertainment).  They put the damn thing in an episode of "Knight Rider," and I'd want to go back and see it again.  It was that whole idea of being close to the Actual Real Stuff They'd Actually Used To Make The Movies.  Actually.

The tour guides on the trams would always tell you what stuff had been filmed Right Where You Were, and they'd give you Inside Info on movies they were filming (or had just finished) so that you'd keep an eye out for them.  I remember when they told us to look out for that "Back to the Future" thing they'd filmed in the town square.  Of course, the next time I went to Universal, they were pitching something else they'd filmed since; it took years for them to call it "Back to the Future Square" on the tour.  But that's because now it's not about showing you the Actual Stuff where movies are Actually Being Made Right Now.  Now it's shiny and packaged with video clips (and, if you time it right (or wrong) a song and dance number in Whoville) and a big ol' Fast and Furious Thing at the end.

And the shows and rides have changed, too.  Sure, shows and rides ALWAYS change at theme parks, but if you walk into Disneyland, you still know "Pirates of the Caribbean" is over there to your left, and if you keep going, you'll hit "Haunted Mansion."  I walked into Universal today and couldn't find anything.  I happened into the "Special Effects" show, which was in the ... yes! that theater still has the exterior of a castle and that's where they used to do that classic movie monsters show where they made up some audience member like the Bride of Frankenstein.

(Shoutout to the "American Tail" show, also disappeared; now replaced by the "Minion Mayhem" attraction.)

And the "Mummy" ride.  (OK, pause here.  The "Mummy" ride in Florida is actually a "Mummy" ride.  It's got Brendan Fraser on video and something of a storyline and fire and stuff and it's THEMED right through.  The "Mummy" ride in Hollywood is a dark ride, with theming in the waiting area and the very first part of the ride, but otherwise contents itself with being a roller coaster in the dark which occasionally shows you screens with something scary on them.  However, the backwards bit rocks.)  The "Mummy" is a dark ride located where my memories tell me the "E.T." ride ought to be.  (And for all I know, they've probably still got some of the "E.T." stuff in there, just pushed to the side and covered with a tarp.)  There used to be that "Backdraft" attraction in the lower lot, too.  And ... wait a minute, something in the Special Effects show reminded me that there used to be a three-section Special Effects Theater down here.  What the hell happened to that?  Internet tells me "Backdraft" AND the Special Effects Theater were replaced with the "Transformers" ride.  Great.  A Decepticon stole my childhood.

When I was driving home from Universal, I was chatting with my parents on the phone and told them the park wasn't recognizable anymore.  Dad remembered having seen "Lord of the Dance" at the Universal Amphitheatre.  ("Not Riverdance.  The other one where the guy didn't do much in it.")  Dad wanted to know what happened to the amphitheatre.

Good question.  It coalesced with my interent search of "Hey, what did they build the Wizarding World on?"  Yup, Dad, Hogwarts is now on the site of the Universal Amphitheatre.  You could almost hear the echoes of the step dancers.

I'm not going to complain about the Wizarding World because it's kind of awesome (and, since it is similar to the one in Florida, it's the only part of the park I can more-or-less find my way around).  But I do wonder, as space considerations and a fickle public move on to the Next Big Thing, what will eventually take its place when it, too, is wiped away?