Day 9: Saturday, and the second day of Moosefest

This day was 'The Day', very Fun. Knowing better than to sign up for the 9 A.M. Bus tour, we had time on our hands to compose ourselves and get ready for the day with ease. Although i wanted to join in on the Trivia practice round, that too was at 9 A.M. so we passed (I'd probably lose anyway, these Mooseheads know their stuff). There was another walking tour set for 10 A.M., you guessed it, Passed. But from 11:30 - 1:30 P.M. were the last chance pics to ever be taken in the KBHR studio as it would ever be originally seen in person, since it was set to be moved after Moosefest, we were not going to miss this! Luckily they started the line early, and since we were staying across the street, we were able to get in and out before there was a line.

So with KBHR pics done, it was onto our 1:00 P.M. Bus tour and the first stop was the cliff where Chris pushes his motorcycle off a cliff in episode 3 of season 4 titled 'Nothing's Perfect'

The actual scene from the episode

Me and a member of 'Our Tribe' Andy ! regardless of his knee pain, he toughed it out through the long hike and earned a lot of respect from me, I know knee pain.

Even 'Chef Dave' from the show was right behind us taking in the sights of past memories.

The Location Director taking us to the lake where the African dancers did their thing as well as one of many locations for Chris' trailer.

 We then visited the iconic site of Ruth Ann's grave that Ed bought her for her birthday where they ended episode 8 of season 3 'A Hunting we will go', with both of them dancing per Ruth Ann's request for the once in a lifetime opportunity to dance on her own grave. Turns out that some years later when Peg Phillips (Ruth Ann) passed away, her daughter took her cremated ashes up to this site and released them.

 So afterwards it was time for the Formal Dinner and costume contest and i have made the suggestion that i wanted to go as 'Dead Tooley' from Season 4 Episode 4 'Heroes', and though i wasn't going to follow through being that i was ill prepared, 'Our Tribe' became 'Team Tooley' and all started planning the costume out. Now it just so happened that next to Wallies weekend rental there were renovations being done, and just happened to be some huge appliance boxes laying by the curb, so i get a text saying that they were fashioning them into the Crate that Tooley's corpse was delivered in, so at that point the quest was a GO. Pam made a hardware store run and bought some spray paint and a bag of flour and we got to work. The dinner was at 7:00p.m. and there was no mention as to when the costume judging was to take place, so we rushed out to the dinner at 6:45p.m., upon arrival we could hear cheering and names being called on the P.A., my worst fear came true, we were way late. As i wanted to turn back, Wallie said "Go Go Go", so we rushed up on the bleachers in this huge box that took 3 of us to maneuver and i was able to find a foothold just as they were about to announce the winner (so we kinda sped past the first elimination rounds straight to the final), I'm shy as hell and i hear on the P.A. that "we have a new contestant, Tooley" so they do the cheering scale over again and though the crowd was very loud, the winner was Ariel Levine (Adam), and rightly so, it was a great costume and character. I wasn't disappointed in the least, i knew the audience of fellow Moosefesters appreciated it, so i went from 'Costume to Cosplay' and set up where i knew the line for dinner would be passing by. I did my best to play Dead Tooley, i stayed still and expressionless as folks passed by taking pictures and giving compliments (and of course i would occasionally yell to get a scare) and after it was all said and done, I had this 'Where's Waldo' idea, so we went around the town taking Pictures with this big crate across the towns landmarks. 'Where's Tooley', the communal efforts of Our Tribe and the Nostalgic value of those hip to the show was worth walking around drenched in a bag of flour to say the least. Everyone was a winner that night.

The ultimate group picture with all the attendees and celebrities.

'Tooley' awaiting the crowd to form the Chow Line.

Unfortunately this would be the only picture i have with the people that have made such an impact on me more than they will ever know, but i didn't want to get Flour on them.

But Pam did, and that's good enough for me!

The Q & A

Day 8: The first day of Moosefest

 The first line of business on the first Official day of Moosefest 2015 was to register and sign up for the next days Bus Tour. We received our Moosefest Tote bag containing our T-shirt, a commemorative golf ball, a couple of maps and programs, and a name badge which we immediately went to the Gym where they had tables set up to create your own custom beaded lanyard.

While registering, we ran into the Moosechick herself and i was finally, after all these years, able to express my gratitude for coming up with one of the First, and still the best, Northern Exposure website I've ever seen. Chock-full of detailed information about the show, when asked how she compiled all that information, she replied that she took notes while watching the episodes, hence Moosechick notes!

Our Buddy Wallie is a fan of Moosechick as well!

Wallie with Ivan and Diane from Australia, i believe.

Now being that our first night in Cicely was celebrations for a long awaited journey with drinking at The Brick, we were less than enthusiastic about partaking of the first days Moosefest Event which was 2 hour walking tour through town, so we decided to explore the town on our own from the comfort and A.C. of our Chevy. The first stop were the very unique cemeteries (that's right, Plural) because there are numerous cemeteries for the different migrant communities, each with their own burial sites from Slavic to Croatian, and even Veterans. We love photographing Cemeteries, we view them as a sort of 'People Museum' and these in particular were exceptionally educational.

So then we moved onto seeing the familiar shooting locations throughout the town. This one here is Maggies first House that Burned down in the series.

Maggies second home.

Ed Chigliaks House.

Maurice's Log Cabin.

We unfortunately had missed the 4:30 Phone interviews, but did make the informal Spaghetti dinner that night where they had the celebrities from the show front and center, and News paper reporters taking pictures and Notes.

So the night ended with Drinks at Wallies and since we travel with a Projector, 'Our Tribe' gathered in the back yard and watched half of Season 1 projected onto the fence. A perfect ending to a great day.

Day 7: Touchdown at the Tranquility base.

Well, i didn't post day 6 because it was rather uneventful, we just hung out in Spokane and watched Northern Exposure and ran errands we needed to catch up on. 

We pulled into Roslyn today and it is a dream come true for us, this place is why we left, so upon arrival we checked in at the Spruce Moose and walked across the street to The Brick Tavern where we met up with some other die hard NX fans which most we knew through the Club NX fan page on Facebook. These folks are just as important as the town and the show to us, we have never been around so many people that can share Northern Exposure knowledge and references with us, it was hilarious fun. Can't wait to see what today brings, which i thought i woke up at 9:30 a.m., but since we have clocks that haven't kept up with the time change, then apparently i woke up at 7:30 a.m., that would explain why this place is a ghost town right now.

The view from within the Brick, yes Restrooms & Cemeteries.

 

The beginning of our Demise, the first shots in cicely

Meeting everyone was a unique experience, it was as if we had always known each other all along.

I barely remember this

An end of the night Potato i took of KBHR

I took this picture this morning (day 8), a dream to reality.

Day 5: Yellowstone National Park, Heaven and Hell.

Yellowstone National Park was the first stop of our trip where we stayed 2 nights giving us a chance to wind down and relax from long days of driving. I always heard about the Majesticness of this park, but anything you hear cannot compare to seeing for yourself. It's a shame we were just passing through because there was so much more to see that we just didn't have time for. Yellowstone itself, deserves the time and preparation that it took to design this whole trip of ours, starting with booking lodging months in advance. 

To us there was an eerie vibe to this park, knowing that all sits on top of a volcano basically with a 35mile long lava pool just 5 miles below the surface, and it will blow one day to decimate everything within 100 mile radius creating a global cataclysm. Being in the park and seeing the ground steaming and water boiling all around us really put all of that in perspective. I imagine it was the same thing dinosaurs were seeing when it had blown 3 times before, last eruption being 640,000 years ago. And today the ground rises 3-6cm is some places a year from the pressure building.

OLD FAITHFULL HIMSELF

The bacteria thriving here in this system is what makes for the colorful display.

First Moose sighting!