…that would be ALL TEN of my fingers, thankyouverymuch!
Sunday the 3rd dawned clear but humid. I had told my sister to get here at 9 (which meant I wanted her here at 10, but she told her SO they needed to be here at 8 which meant they actually got here at 9 and I was not even close to prepared for that scenario). They were helping us shoot this year because our friends who usually are there were not available on Sunday or most of the day Monday this year. We needed to be at Mt. Snow by noonish since Dave had already left at 5:30am to go to the plant in NH to get the show and he was expected there at around 12. So we left…following the directions shouted at us by the annoying GPS system…(it actually speaks to you…its pretty funny when you ignore it and it starts saying ‘off route – recalculating’ every 10 seconds because it is completely lost.) The GPS got us as far as VT when (okay so it isn’t all that hard to find VT from Western Mass, we were trying a different route because we weren’t going up Rt 7 – the main route to get to VT)…Roger decided to not listen to the GPS system. In his defense, sometimes the GPS system is wrong. However, sometimes the GPS system is right. This was one of those times when it was right. Unfortunately, there really isn’t any way to know when it is right or wrong without some trial and error. So we go straight on 100 instead of left on 9 in the middle of nowhere. We then missed a turn in the middle of east cupcake nowhere (which is even further out there than the middle of nowhere) and ended up on a dirt road that ended rather abruptly in a large mound of…well, dirt. We were driving Dave’s F350 (BIG-ASS TRUCK) which is not easy to maneuver – not by a long shot. Amanda and Michael were following us (like good lemmings) so we all had to figure out how to get the hell out of there and back to where we came from…which we finally did. We FINALLY arrived at Mt. Snow at about 1ish and Dave already had half the show unloaded. We then spent the rest of the afternoon creating this:
If you haven’t seen a show up close and personal, those black things are the mortars or ‘guns’ which are nailed together by us with strapping (which takes forever. I managed to slam my wrist, thumb and somehow the back of my hand with the hammer. yay. I hammer like lightning – think about that one.) The grouping closest to the camera is the finale and the grouping the farthest away are the singles and flights. Flights are groups of five shells where you light one and all of them go up. This show is 1/2 the size of the Bennington show – stupid me forgot to take pictures on Monday so just imagine this show, only bigger. Sorry.
So, once you have the show put together, you get a visit from the fire chief/marshal. The Mt. Snow one is very nice and also very patient…I got him to hold my sock :o)
Let me say now that I’m sorry I didn’t get your name, Mr. Fire Chief Dude. I should have and I’m *really* sorry however, under the circumstances, I didn’t really have a chance to figure out my own name since I was getting yelled at to ‘collect the damned sock and get your ass over here’ :o) Apparently my blogging is just not appreciated *sniff* But thank you, Mr. Fire Chief Dude for being so nice, for not making us dig holes, for enjoying the show and making sure you told myself and my sister that we did a great job :o)) Oh, and you have most awesome sock holding abilities :o)
So, this show was for a wedding that was being held here:
Which would be the new, state-of-the-art lodge on the side of the mountain. Did we stay there, you ask? That would be a no.
We stayed at…
The *charming* *rustic* lodge at the bottom of the hill. Yay. Although, I shouldn’t complain, we didn’t have to pay for our rooms (Thank God).
Still, I bet the main lodge had internet access.
Sorry, the sock insisted on being in all the shots. Self centered thing that it is. (just in a side note, I was carrying a sock because that is what I was working on at that time, I didn’t want to get my lovely Dale Svale dirty. I bow in deference to the sock master)So, after a bit of confusion in the morning as to when we should leave (NOT NOON) to get to the next show in Bennington (TWICE AS BIG, FORTY MINUTES AWAY!!) we went to breakfast, finally got on the road and finally got there to start setting up the show.
Guess what? Dummy me forgot to take pictures of us setting up however, I do have some photos of us doing the show:
And a photo of breaking down after the show:
So we finally got home at 2am and guess what? We forgot to take Tuesday off (which I have already requested July 5th off next year) so we have been stupified for most of the week. I finally caught up on sleep on Friday.
So, we think we did a pretty good job considering the fuses took too long and the finale took 4 minutes instead of 40 seconds. I think I heard a car alarm off in the distance after the finale – they made everyone park too far away this year!! :o(( So that’s it, I’ll go back to posting about knitting now…
Obligatory Knitting Comment: I knitted another 2″ or so on the Dale Svale tank. It’s mind-numbing stockinette at this point for 12 inches so I don’t think photos are all that exciting at this juncture.