My new company, Alienzoo, sponsored a UFO conference in Laughlin, Nevada. That’s Caroline Wise, Mike DeVarennes, and Jim Dilettoso.
Grand Canyon and Return by Train
Okay, so I wasn’t very good at framing photos here in early 2000. We arrived yesterday afternoon but are stingy about taking photos as there are only so many images you can store on a floppy disk. This curse of not having unlimited storage would haunt me well into the end of this year and, to some degree, the following, too. After Caroline and I got married back on January 12, 1994, we came here to the Grand Canyon National Park and stayed in the President’s Suite at the El Tovar Hotel. Six years later, it’s still magic.
Seems that Caroline, too, can work on her composition skills. Who knows, maybe we were on drugs? We were probably on drugs.
Caroline, before she tragically fell into the Grand Canyon, and I collected a ton of insurance money. No, seriously…she had a twin sister named Caroline who I live with until this day.
This was a pretty short visit to the Canyon, maybe one that will have been the shortest ever. We probably traveled with that suitcase for close to 20 years before it was retired.
Short of cash, we rode on top of the train all the way back to Williams, Arizona. It was cold up here. Just kidding, this is the view from the Observation Dome.
Train to the Grand Canyon
This was our first trip on the Grand Canyon Railroad to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. We had already been to the South Rim half a dozen times and figured taking the train up would add a different angle to the journey; it was well worth the investment. We had reservations for the Observation Dome Car and stayed overnight at the El Tovar Hotel on the rim; this is where we stayed on our honeymoon back in January of 1994. This is a luxury.
What wasn’t a luxury was the camera. It was a Sony Mavica MVC-FD83 0.8MP Digital with 3x Optical Zoom. We opted for this model because it was only $799 compared to the 1.3MP FD88 which cost $999. Besides, the price was a staggering quality difference; while the FD83 only had 1024×768 resolution, the FD88 was shooting 1280×960 with both cameras saving their images to a floppy disk. And yes, Caroline has blue hair in this photo.
Dion Terry Digital Art
In late 1999, I asked Dion Terry, whom I’d met when we were about to open the Congo Internet Cafe back in 1995, to explore some digital art. We were busy with Alienzoo and Dion, like so many artists, was in need of paying gigs. I wanted digital stuff as I felt that the results with software distinguished things so they’d resonate with the exploding phenomenon called the Internet. This work, titled Peace Pipe, still stands out as one of my all-time favorite images created by Dion.
I was in love with Dion’s use of color as he was learning how to paint with Photoshop; sadly, he didn’t love the medium as much.
This was a sketch that never progressed further than this, as far as I know.
Disney World – Day 5
You couldn’t have thought we’d come all the way to Florida and not spend at least some time visiting the ocean, did you?
Our last day in Florida started with a drive down the Atlantic coast and some shell collecting along the way.
Not exactly beach attire but we didn’t come to Florida to hang out at the ocean. This part of our trip is just a fringe benefit of having some extra time because we decided we didn’t need another day at Disney World or visit Universal Studios.
Cutting inland to see Lake Okeechobee, it was this sign for the Pahokee Church of God of Prophecy that caught our attention. I wonder when David Lynch will make a movie here.
Further south, we turned west to pass over Alligator Alley through the Big Cypress National Preserve. On the way, we passed the smallest Post Office in America, roadside in Ochopee.
The road took us through Naples on the Gulf Coast and our first encounter with the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. We’re just 72 hours into Caroline’s 32nd year, and she’s already stepped into two major bodies of water. What surprises and great adventures await us in the new year? That is, of course, if we survive Y2K.
Disney World – Day 4
“Houston, this is ground control at Kennedy Space Center. We have a couple of alien weirdos that have landed, and we are looking for guidance on getting them sent back to the southwestern United States, where you guys are more accustomed to dealing with their type. Can you lend us a hand, please?” Yep, that’s right, the weirdos are us, and seeing we are in Orlando and just down the road from Kennedy, why not pay a visit?
Holy wow, our luck is in superabundance. We are getting the opportunity to see the nearly finished Destiny Module, which is the science lab that will soon be joining the International Space Station that just launched last year. This integral part of that mission is scheduled to go to space via one of the Space Shuttles when it’s ready. Now if we could just get back here to Florida to witness one of those launches.
I don’t know if you can see her under this giant Saturn V rocket, but that’s Caroline being dwarfed by this stupendously large engine.
Seeing we still had quite a bit of free time today, I decided to feed Caroline to the gators.
Not really, but we did go out on a nearby Everglade on a fan boat to gain a different perspective of the Florida landscape. Turns out that fan boats are LOUD !!! They are also exhilarating.
This is the first bald eagle we have ever seen in the Wild. Seconds after I snapped this photo, that eagle dropped out of the tree and snatched that gator I shot in that other photo, and it flew away with it wriggling in its talons. It was an amazing sight I don’t believe we’ll ever see again or that we really saw this time either.
Because my wife likes photos of me as much as I like photos of her, I feel obliged to post some of me from time to time. It is her birthday trip, after all.
We were able to spend a good long time out here going far and wide over these wetlands that had all sorts of wildlife and hermits hidden away in corners and places people don’t often go. Our guide was a great storyteller who shared a ton of info about Nascar, swamps, hunting, and how tasty turtle stew can be.
Nothing like seeing a bald cypress with your own eyes to get that feeling you’ve been to a swamp. The dark, mysterious waters, what they hide, and who travels them is an amazing place for our imaginations to travel to.
Before we drove back to Orlando, we needed to have a romantic walk along the ocean in the early evening, plus Caroline had to doff her shoes for her first walk in the waters of the Atlantic.