What I Did At Everfree NorthWest 2018. Late but here. · 10:02pm Jul 24th, 2018
World's Slowest Human here. I need to post my blog on What I Did On My Trip To Everfree Northwest 2018 in before I go to Bronycon 2018 on Friday. Also I need to get my plug in for the underated I Think It’s Called Ponytown and the slightly more frisky Once a Generation. Below the break, I shall expound (briefly) upon my wonderful experience.
First, the tl;dr summary - Everfree NorthWest is a blast, and worth the trip, although next time I think I’m going to fly. Still glad we drove. If your spouse collects rocks or takes pictures, be prepared to take extra time and enjoy it, darnit. You only go around once in life.
Now for the longer version. The wife and I drove there. From Kansas. Yes, that is a long way. Took us three and a half days. Each way. And I don’t regret driving a bit. It was just a little overwhelming for somebody who has spent 99.99% of his life within 40 miles of where I’m sitting right now. My parents drove the same trip to Portland back in 1965, all the way to the ocean to visit my dad’s relatives in the area. Christies I believe, if you live in the area and are curious about the roots to your tree.
So I’ll split this up into two pieces:
Everfree NorthWest 2018 - Uploading my pictures onto Flickr now. Swept away by the people and the events, as expected. Names, names, oh heck. I’m *horrible* with names, so if you look at the pictures and I don’t see your name, don’t be upset. I named my kids One, Two, Three, and Four, and I call my wife Dear for a good reason. Titanium Dragon was foolish enough to give me his cell number, and I plagued him with messages through the convention. Fair warning. Darnit, I need to make business cards.
Kept wanting to split myself up into a half-dozen clones so I could see everything. Jim Miller must think I’m stalking him. Was absolutely transfixed by the writers the rest of the production people for the TV shows and books. Geeked out something fierce. I know Jim does a lot of these (He was at the KC Bronyfest in 2016) and still manages to keep it perky and upbeat. It must be like trying to manage a beehive in a washing machine being thrown into orbit by a rocket every week. The chaos of a convention probably lets him feel a little more relaxed.
At conventions, you can’t do *everything* without being cloned several times, so I focused on the writing and show stuff. Just about everywhere Big Jim, Kathrina Hadley, GM Berrow and Josh Haber went, I followed. If they weren’t available, I would follow Novel-Idea or TD, or just about anybody who I recognized. I missed God and Ponies — Faith in the Fandom (darnit). Bumped into some people who actually knew who I was. Got a replacement t-shirt from Admiral Biscuit (which I really need to wear on Day 1 of Bronycon this year) Scratchpad bought me a drink. Got into the rapid-fire open read and critique. I really don’t have too much to say that the other authors haven’t already said, only better.
Last day of the convention, I managed to get into the Iron Author contest (Run by Xepher??) and put in a wonderful little piece. Or at least I thought so until I went to the readings and was absolutely flattened by the quality of the rest of them. (Think I placed last. Wife pulled me out so we could keep up with our schedule for the return trip) Even if you can’t write, go listen. Well worth it.
Didn’t catch Con Crud. Washed my hands like an OCD raccoon. Think there’s something related between those two statements. I did meet a lot of wonderful people who I took pictures of so I could put faces with names later. (see above) Think I’d rather meet and talk with a hundred people who I have no idea who they are later than ten people who I spent all my time trying to memorize their names. (Flickr took two hours to upload my pictures for the whole trip)
Food was easy. Everything inside the convention center is Oh My God expensive. Outside, not. There’s a Taco Bell across the street, so Silver Glow would feel right at home. Some other nice places right there too, including this little hole in the wall TD took us to that sells BBQ (but not KC BBQ, which is the best, bar none). Besides, you shouldn’t be pigging out at a con anyway. The only excess to keep up on and more is water, because that keeps you hydrated and regular. Seriously, drink up.
This brings us to buying stuff. Bring money. Bring lots of money. Buy more stuff than you probably should. I got to meet a whole ton of artists, particularly White Diamonds, NCMares, Pixelkitties (I think), and Harwick. (and many more who I’m blanking on names (see above)).
Hotels for the convention are a little fuzzy. After all, you want to be in the convention building with everybody else. You also want enough money that you don’t have to hitchhike home. We stayed at La Quinta across the street (and will be at the Holiday Inn at BroneyCon2018). It was a short hop across the street with a light, so no risk of life or limb (unless you follow TD across the street in the middle of the block, in which case all bets are off) The only problem was the pool was closed. Boo! (When driving with a spouse, try to stay at places that have hot tubs and stop early enough to soak. Makes the trip far better.)
Which brings us to traveling hints and tips.
Photography and video - Make sure to have a dedicated camera, or a digital video camera to back up your phone. My wife found out she could not have all her apps and her pictures too. (we had to do some cleanup, which thankfully since we had a computer involved *moving* pictures instead of deleting them) Shoot the heck out of everything. Memory’s cheap and organic memory fails. Our digital camera sucks batteries dry when it does video, so someday I’m considering getting a digital video camera to backstop it on trips. Until then, the iPhone doesn’t do too bad.
My Flickr album for the convention is here
My Flickr album for the rest of the trip (with lots and lots of rock pictures because the wife had the camera) may be found here
(Let me know if the links don’t work please)
Best time of year for a road trip - It’s Everfree NorthWest! A week before Labor Day so the crowds are manageable, the snow is gone from Yellowstone so none of the passes are blocked (or have ice, which would have killed us ten times over). None of the real seasonal tourist traps are open, so no major events or sideshows for the kids, which is not bad at all. The weather is cool, the flowers just opening, the hotels actually have vacancies… Seriously, it was a great time *at* a great time of year.
Hotels - We used Travelocity with the wife looking for hotels with hot tubs and breakfast buffets (which a lot do). Depending on your finances, you may go for the hole-in-the-wall types, which is fine if all you’re doing is driving/sleeping/driving. We didn’t push it, because we only have done this kind of trip through the Pacific NorthWest once, and it’s no fun if you just put your head down and drive through the night. Besides, elk. And deer. And buffalo. And deer. And everything else that wanders across the highway in the dark. If we try this again, we’ll probably get a trailer and stay at KOA campgrounds, at about half the cross-country speed. I have *no* idea how people with those huge RVs drive in the mountains. Seriously, our Camry was smelling a little like scorched brakes more than once, and we stopped for a half-hour or so just to soak in the mountains and let them cool. (and the wife picked up rocks) I really would not advise getting your reservations all in advance unless you can cancel for free because our schedule wobbled something fierce. (Spending over an hour in Salt Lake City looking for the salt lake contributed to our delay. Where do they hide that thing?)
Wifi - Seriously, the rest of the US has worse Wifi than Kansas. I’ve gotten spoiled. I can get network from just about anywhere here, but only about a quarter of the time during the trip. We parked at more than one town to get Travelocity reservations for the hotel an hour or two away. And once we got into Yellowstone? Zip. The lodge (with Old Faithful) had it, and I think one tourist attraction, but if you think you can use your cell in an emergency there, good luck. You’re going to get eaten by a bear while trying to get signal.
Where to stop - Oh, this could be a huge list.
The Sternberg Museum in Hays, KS. Honest, we didn’t even get out of Kansas before the wife wanted to stop. I talked her out of it with the promise that we’d return sometime since we *can* just drive there and back in one day.
The Rocky Mountains - Admittedly we skirted Ft. Collins and Denver on the way there because we really did not want to spend all the time driving through the twisty and turny roads, but we got to look at them and take some pictures. Little did we know how much of that we’d be doing for the next week.
Laramie, Wyoming. Our first stop. A little history lesson from our family first. My dad’s sister moved to Portland way back around WWII and raised a family there, and my dad was originally going to move there after the war to get a job in the construction trade. Instead, he wound up back in Kansas taking over the farm when his mother was ill, married my mother (thankfully), and raised four kids. They did not get out much since dairy farming pretty much ties you down to the location twice a day, but they did get out to Portland to visit the relatives in 1965 when I was three years old or so. And on their trip out there, they took this picture of my dad, me, my big brother and sister. (missing one sibling for some reason)
Then here we have me in 2018 at the same place.
We didn’t plan for it, just considered the possibility while we were driving and didn’t think it would happen until the wife spotted it while we were going into Laramie to the hotel. I believe my quote went, “No, dear. I don’t want to stop for any more rocks and… Oh, heck! Hold on, I can make this exit.” I’ll admit, I cried a little. Manly tears. Fifty years in my father’s footsteps. So nice.
Driving through Wyoming on I-80 is beautiful. God played with his clay and paints a lot there, and seems to have a real fondness for antelope. I didn’t see any of them playing, but they did stand out in the scrub and watch cars drive by, so we must have been as entertaining for them as they were for us. There’s horse rodeo stuff all over the place there, and I swear anybody with a Prius who crosses the border is pulled off the road by the Highway Patrol and given a Chevy Silverado King Cab with 4WD and a huge dog in the truck bed. We counted once on the highway to see how many SUV/King Cab trucks there were in a row, and lost count at thirty or so.
Salt Lake City was another ‘skirt’ visit with a bad case of being spread out over a huge territory so to visit anything in it would have blown away an entire day (and I was on the way to our destination). Still, it’s beautiful and we should go back someday just to spend a few days touristing. And so we can find the lake. Seriously, we looked for a road that would take us to it, and could only find gravel that degraded into dirt. (so no salt rocks for the wife there)
So from Utah up to Idaho, enjoying the spring weather and scenery. Overnighted in Boise I believe, saw the Snake River canyon from a distance (because if the wife had gone down there, we would have broken the frame of the car with the rocks we would haul away) and proceeded up through the trees and mountains to Portland.
Portland, you say? So you visited the relatives? Oh, I wish. To be honest, I didn’t get a hold of them beforehand and stopping would have blown away at least a day. We’ll go back sometime soon. Beautiful place, and we didn’t see enough of it skirting around the east side. We’re from Kansas, and I thought we were going to be overloaded with trees and mountains by then, but it was still impressive, and we kept going up I-5 next to the Columbia river.
Take a look at it on Google Maps, particularly the Oregon route from Boardman to Portland to Longview. See something familiar along that entire route? Yes, it’s the Columbia river. And more Columbia river. And ever more Columbia river. And Oh God Does This River Ever End Columbia River. And then finally the river turned and we did not, heading up the road to Castle Rock, where we stayed the night.
So Friday morning we get up, and I find out we’re going to Mt. St. Helens. I protested, saying the convention started on Friday. Was informed we were not going to the mountain, which would take the whole day, but only the visitor center. Which was free that day, since it was an anniversary of when it exploded. Yeah, that’s comforting. Anyway, go by there if you get a chance. It’s worth it. And honest, the mountain had that big chunk out of it before we got there. Just don’t look in our car trunk.
So we get to the convention a little late on Friday, I check in, the wife goes and plays tourist. All of the writers workshops have blurred together by now, but got to meet TD and a whole bunch of other authors and readers. In particular, I met (insert your name here) who was extremely nice to me and I’d always wanted to meet face-to-face. (I told you I was bad with names)
Before I knew it, Sunday afternoon had arrived and I had to leave before the last of the Iron Author stories were read as I mentioned before. Gave me a serious case of jealousy. Thankfully, my wife put up with my rantings while we headed home by a *different* route.
Headed down I-90 this time, which was a whole bunch of different trees and mountains, through Spokane (where I think we stopped) then down through Montana where I found out we were going to visit Yellowstone, which I thought was a nice thing to know since I was driving. Stayed the night in Livingston, which was probably cheaper than staying inside Yellowstone somewhere, but turned out to be a *long* drive away even though it was on the edge of the park. It has very long edges, so we found out. It is also a hole in the surrounding terrain, a volcanic caldera, which is what is left after the previous volcano blows to heck and back, so it is handy to remember there is lava under you. Lots of lava. Miles and miles of it. If it blows while you’re there, ain’t no outrunning it. Three-day head start, maybe.
The main part of the park where we went is roughly laid out like the number 8. The left side is where all the steam vents, colorful muds, geysers and such are, and the right side is lower, and has most of the wildlife including bears.
We stayed mostly to the left side and avoided seeing any bears. Neither of us is really a bear person.
Yellowstone is huge. This early in the year we did not have many mosquito problems, but likewise the birds were hiding too. There were a few caribou, some buffalo, and other wildlife which generally ignore cars. Thankfully, there were no idiots getting out of their cars to get better pictures, but we got a few wonderful ‘Tourist’ stories from the locals, including the woman who found a soaking wet baby buffalo and managed to stuff it into her car to take to the rangers because she was afraid it would get cold.
We left by the East gate, which involves an enormous amount of driving up a mountain, followed by an equal amount of driving down it. I drove the whole thing because my wife is distractible, and the last thing I wanted was to get a *very* good (and brief) view of the bottom of one of the valleys. Middle of May and there still were snowdrifts up there.
Trivia note: One or two days a year, the nature preserves permit hunters to drive their four-wheelers around in the elk preserves and pick up antlers. We were there on that day, and I was *tempted* to buy at least an antler from one of the guys doing it, but I got asked this really insensitive question by my wife.
“So where would you put that thing in the house?”
I think we need a bigger house. Or about five garage sales. Anyway… I followed my wife’s directions all the way to South Dakota, still not quite sure of what route we took, enjoying all the way, until we wound up in Wall.
Side note: For my entire childhood, I had a bumper sticker on the wall of my bedroom that said “Where in the heck is Wall Drug?” I had no idea what it was.
What in the heck is Wall Drug?
It’s a tourist trap well worth getting trapped at. All kinds of native crafts and weird gifts, shoes, clothes, old timey soaps, quarter grabbing machines, statues to pose with, and you get a free Wall Drug bumper sticker. Oh, and free ice water. (there’s a story there, I believe) Places for the kiddies to play, all kinds of weird things. If you’re in the vicinity, stop. You won’t regret it.
We stopped by Mt. Rushmore on the way, of course, and visited the visitor’s center. There’s *three* Pokestops there, by the way. Hopefully, I got that picture in the Flickr album. Honest, there were only three presidents up on the mountain when we got there. Just don’t look in our car trunk. Strange how our gas mileage kept dropping. Oh, well.
So at this point we’ve been away from home for nine days, which is the longest we’ve ever been away from home in our lives. Google maps says it is nine hours from Wall SD to Wamego KS. We did it in about nine and a half, driving straight across South Dakota and straight down Nebraska.
Well, not quite straight. We stopped at the Corn Palace, which is a South Dakota building devoted to corn. And tourist stuff. And the occasional concert. Worth stopping at, but if you are pushing for time, don’t worry. And we were pushing for time, because by the time we got into Kansas, it was starting to get dark, and all the deer were warming up for their cross-highway sprints.
Got home, walked in the house, made sure the kids/cat/dogs were still breathing, put away anything that needed to be in the fridge, and sacked out. It was a little disappointing since the bed was not made and the towels were not folded like we had been getting used to, so no tip!
The only tourist stop we missed was the Wamego Oz Museum, which is literally downtown here. It is *well* worth the stop if you are in the vicinity. (and if you are, give me a ring and I’ll run through the place with you. It’s a hoot.)
Get back! I have vacation slides! I'm warning you! And about two thousand feet of 1940 era 8mm film that I sent in to ScanCafe.com (an advertiser on this site) and should get back any day from my dad's WWII experience in Europe and 1945-1965 vacations. ScanCafe does a very nice job. This will be my third and largest batch of film. I need to put some of the DVD footage up on YouTube for my relatives since I have no real clue who some of those people are.
Wow, sounds like you had quite the trip! Reminds me of when my hippie friends and I drove from Orange County, CA to Idaho to watch the eclipse.
I visited Wall Drug when I was a kid. Still have the bumper sticker.
I would go so far as to say you had a rather ideal road trip, but I am also amused you couldn't find the salt lake in Salt Lick ... er, Lake. :)
Omigosh! Sounds like you had an amazing trip!
When you show up, they give you a pick and a map of their huge, desolate property marked with (surface-)mining spots for different kinds of rocks (they really emphasize the thunder eggs on their website, but they have other geodes and many other kinds of rocks marked and easily accessible as well). I still remember jasper as far as they eye could see from back when I was just a filly! You pay by the pound when you leave, but it's well worth it for the experience. And also for the rocks. 
If you and your wife ever find yourself making the trip again, there is an amazing rock-hunting place in the middle of nowhere, Oregon called Richardson's Rock Ranch, though you have to be a bit of a rock-hound (diamond dog?) to really enjoy it.
That's quite the adventure! It was awesome getting to meet you
Next year, I swear
It was awesome meeting you! My apologies if I was a bit out of it for the entire proceedings... for my first con, it was a bit overwhelming even before the jet lag was measured in, and I’m pretty reserved, socially, to begin with.
The photos of your cross-country trek are impressive... that was quite the trip! Plenty of nice rocks on the way as well.
4907512 Heh. Most pony fans are fairly introverted to the point where I refer to our conventions as the largest Asperger's support groups in the world. :) Yeah, I've got a rockhound for a wife. It's why I nudged Irrespective into writing A Study in Stones after all. I married Twilight Sparkle.
Yep yep, the actual salt lake is out there in the middle of friggin' nowhere. My folks and I only ever made the trek out there once, despite living right by SLC for years and years and years. It's definitely worth seeing, though. At least if you're anywhere near that neighborhood.
4907560 Oh, *seeing* it was easy. You can see it for miles and miles. It's that great big thing way over there. Way, way over there.
A fun trip in many regards! I agree, Yellowstone is gorgeous. It's on the bucket list for a return trip. And despite being a lifetime Left Coaster I've been to that museum in Hays — my ex-wife grew up there and I went home with her one summer!
Glad the con was fun, and hope you enjoy this one too! This year isn't a great pony con year for me but I do expect to show up to more in the future.