Sirens Trip, Days 0-2

So, recapping!

Last Sunday (wow, it's already been over a week), I got on a plane and flew to LA, where rachelmanija picked me up at the airport and we got fantastic chicken with garlic sauce from Zankou. (Seriously, super delicious. I really wish I could figure out how they made that garlic sauce!) I also introduced her to the cracktastic addictive joy that is The Sims 3. The next day we picked up sartorias and headed for Colorado!

The first day, we headed northeast across Southern California and through Nevada. (I didn't take many landscape pictures, more's the pity, so I'm going to take advantage of other peoples' flickr shots to illustrate.) On the way toward Las Vegas I admired the weirdness that is the Joshua tree, and the general stark bareness of the landscape. We passed through Las Vegas and continued northeast, clipping the corner of Arizona and finally stopping in St. George, Utah. (On the way we drove through a truly impressive thunderstorm. And by 'through' I mean 'straight through;' the lightning was striking on all sides, long jagged branches of light, and clouds so dark that the intermittent flashes could blind, strong winds and thunder enough to make the car shudder, rain that didn't so much fall as slash downward. It was truly impressive.)

The next day we hit the road again, and spent most of the day (well, all day, really) crossing Utah. We saw sage-green plants growing in dirt red as rust, and steep striated hillsides, incredible patterns of light and shadow, fingers of stone and hilltop cliffs that looked like fortress walls.

We stopped at Cove Fort, which was a waystation for those traveling the Mormon Corridor in the mid to late 1800s. It was built as a defensive fort because it was established during the Black Hawk War, but no shots were ever fired at the fort (save one accident in which a little boy shot his brother in the knee) and things sound like they were pretty peaceful. The fort was a stop for a couple of stagecoach lines (including rooms to let), a Pony Express stop, and a telegraph station. It was run by one man and his family.

We stopped and took the tour, given by a nice LDS guide who was very sweet and not pushy and, as Rachel put it, had the ability to make pretty much anything into a parable involving Jesus. (I didn't notice, because he was actually a lot less heavy-handed about it than the people I grew up with, but there you go.) The fort was really interesting from a historical point of view: fully restored, and with many of the original furnishings. (I was particularly interested because material culture is one of my verymost favorite elements of history.) I did get pictures there, so, under the cut!

( Cove Fort--image-heavy )

Then we drove a bit farther and decided to call it a night early, so we'd be fresh and awake and have good daylight for the petroglyphs the next morning. We stopped in Green River, at a hotel with an absolutely lovely river view.

( Just one more picture )

Aside from the beautiful landscape and the chance to stop and see some really interesting historical things, the trip was a great joy because of the company. We talked about all kinds of things, from sense of place in fantasy literature to sexual orientation among pioneer women, from the difference between a critique and a review to the way historical fiction sets up a dialogue between modern mores and historical ones.

The next day: petroglyphs, and arrival in Vail!

Sirens Presentation Notes: Holy Barking Spiders!: Biology, Education and Feminism in YA Fantasy

This was a fascinating presentation, partly on biology in fantasy literature and partly on pedagogy. As someone who feels that science and fantasy don't have to be mutually exclusive from a literary point of view, I really enjoyed it.

Since it's a presentation rather than a panel, I've written it up in sort of a prose format rather than as a dialogue.

Presenter: Christina Blake

Notes behind the cut. People are attributed by initials; Q/C indicates an audience comment or question. As always, transcribed fast and edited only glancingly, misattributions and errors are my own (particularly, in this case, science errors are almost certainly errors of transcription rather than the presenter's errors), assume everything outside of quote marks is a paraphrase.

( Presentation notes )

(no subject)

I rode Pandora!

I wrote most of a short story!

I ♥ Horse Camp.

Sirens Trip, Days 3-4

Last Wednesday, we got up at a leisurely hour and drove on to the petroglyphs at Sego Canyon, near Thompson Springs.

First, though, we drove through Thompson Springs. Thompson Springs is sort of a ghost town: it still has some current residents (distinguishable by their houses, which have intact windows and have not fallen down), but their residences are sprinkled in amidst dilapidated and falling-down houses from a variety of periods. I believe the history is that the town was originally a coal mining town, and had a series of revivals and then collapses: the coal mining ended, but the local highway remained; then the local highway was replaced by I-70 some miles away, but the Amtrak station remained; then the Amtrak station closed, and the town faded almost entirely—except for a handful of residents who continue to hang on, and a gas station nearer I-70. There was an old brick motel, with doors standing dark and open; the weathered railroad station, its white-painted paneling going gray from the bottom up; the old schoolhouse leaning over but not, quite, toppling. The house with sunbleached cattle pelvises hanging from the chainlink fence appeared to be inhabited still, though.

From there we drove on a bit to the petroglyphs. For which I have pictures!

( Petroglyphs--image heavy )

From there, it was an easy drive the rest of the way to Vail. As we drove higher and higher, the brush gave way to pine and aspen. The aspen was in mid-turn: many of the trees already bare, some still green, and some a truly gorgeous deep gold. The landscape around the hotel was—as with last year—really gorgeous. Actually, here, have some pictures!

( The view from our balcony )

Wednesday evening we had the Sirens Supper, the supper for the Sirens staff and anyone who wants to come a day early and attend. We discussed the books that had changed our lives, which lead into great conversations on such diverse topics as Cimmorene, archaeology, the influence of books you read at a very young age, and things that happen in real life that you'd never believe in fiction. It was a lovely way to start the conference.

The next day there was nothing really going on until evening, so I spent the day reading and writing (always a good thing). Then there was the official start of the conference: the dessert reception and the first Guest of Honor keynote, in which Holly Black talked about growing up in a creepy old Victorian house with a mother who, e.g., warned her not to astral project lest something else get inside her body while she was 'gone;' living in Jersey and how that inspired her to begin her Modern Faerie Tale series; urban legends and how they come about; and a hilarious retelling the fairy tale "The White Cat," on which her newest series is based.

The next day was the start of programming, but I'll save that for tomorrow.