Grand Canyon! What a wonderful sight!
The campground in 29 Palms supposedly has free wireless, but at least while we were there the AP showed up only sporadicly. Thus, no access to the Internet until now. Here's a wrap-up of the previous days:
We got up early, picked up the RV at El Monte in Dublin, did groceries and returned the rental car. Afterwards, we spent two hours in Monterey and drove down the CA-1. Unfortunately, not spectacular sunset this year due to clouds on the horizon, but a very impressive starry sky. Highway one is a bit tricky to drive with such a large rig (a 34 ft bus style RV,) but I love driving that road even at night.
Watched several SIGs again while my parents went to the mall and Home Depot for some more browsing... David Barclay gave another great lecture on puppeteering and showed some very valuable tricks and a cool animatronic costume head:
Saturday brought the fursuit parade, with a new record number of costumes, I heard. Granted, every year has a new record, as fast as the costuming gets more popular... This time the parade was lead by Chinese dragon dancers, which was a great idea. Later, guest of honor David Barclay presented the Outabody system, a motion tracking system for puppeteers. Very interesting technology, David is also a very nice guy to talk to.
Not so many fursuits outside official events this year, but maybe I was at the lobby at the wrong times. I watched the A Puppet Is Born SIG by the pawpet crew, went to another SIG where the panelist didn't show up (at least not within the 15 minutes I waited) and finally watched Alexander James Adam's concert. The sound was nearly perfect, Alec in excellent mood and his performance simply awesome.
Today, we went shopping. Found a Western hat, went to Walmart to look for stuff for the RV trip, afterwards drove to the Great Mall of the Bay and then to Fry's. I bought three T-shirts, two belts and a pair of cheap shoes at Walmart, and a fleece jacket and vest at the mall. My father bought a new digital photo camera at Fry's after realizing that nobody offers Smart Media cards anymore.
The USS Hornet CVS-12 is an unusual destination for Europeans on a US trip. However, the old air craft carrier is very interesting, history- and technology-wise. We spent there a couple of hours, being lead through the lower decks of the ship and being shown the bridge and war-room on the upper decks. The guides are old veterans who were on duty on the ship. It is hard to describe the atmosphere, but I recommend anyone who is interested in marine history to visit the ship.