Show & Tell – A visit to the show-me state

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Last week I took my family on a vacation to Missouri, we spent a few days in St. Louis and then headed off to Branson. Having bought into a vacation club a few years ago we've visited places that were never really on my radar as a place to visit, some better than others but every place has some interesting sites.

We began the trip in St. Louis, a town that has tons to offer for tourists. Most of the museums and parks have free admission and the parking is fairly reasonable. During our stay we visited the Budweiser brewery, Forest Park (home of a World's Fair), the arch, and a really ornate church that features a ton of mosaics. I really wish we had more to explore the city as it seems like there's a ton we missed.

The next leg of our trip encompassed traveling across the state into the Ozark Mountains. Along the way we visited the Merramac Caverns, a cave system which held the hide out of Jesse James. The I-44 also follows along Route 66 and many of the towns along the route have landmarks that were popular during the heyday of "America's Mainstreet," we visited a few of them but most were saved for our return trip.

Arriving in Branson it was painfully obvious why it's referred to as the "Vegas of the Bible Belt," there are numerous theaters and oddities along the strip all of them competing to be the gaudiest, flashiest on the strip. The town is a mishmash of buildings trying to squeeze into the limited space on the mountainside/valley. This results in an area that is hard to navigate and heavily congested during busy periods. There is also no real walking area or public transportation so you have to drive everywhere. The exception is the downtown (which is a bunch of "Hallmark" and 5&10 Stores) which was somewhat disappointing, the bright spot is the new mall complex that runs along the lake and offers a nice walk and fountain show. We didn't visit the outlet malls which are another big attraction for the area, but driving past them they seemed to be the same as other outlets. 

Being close to the Arkansas border, we decided to make a trip to Eureka Springs. This is a really cool little town, built in the Victorian style into the side of a mountain, it's entire downtown is on the national historic registry. It's church was featured in Ripley's Believe it or Not, because you enter through the bell tower. There is also a hotel that has every one of it's nine floors at ground level. The highlight was however the Crescent Hotel which was featured on Ghost Hunters, during the investigation they captured a full body apparition on the thermal imaging. We didn't stay for the ghost tour but did talk to the activities director who gave a quick run-down of the places to visit. Supposedly if you snap photos with you flash in the hotel you'll catch orbs and other oddities. We gave this a shot and did capture a few "orbs," I don't know if they're paranormal or just dust but it was fun to go over them looking for weird stuff.

On our return trip we visited several of the landmarks along Old Route 66, including the world's biggest rocking chair, a town with murals on most of the businesses, and the diner that invented the corn dog.

As with any trip I take to new areas I took plenty of photos of interesting buildings, cave and other things that will inspire some future terrain projects. The town of Eureka Springs was particularly inspirational and I plan on using some of the things I same there on my next big terrain project. 

 

Adepticon Adventure

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So last week I decided to make a trek out to Chicago to see what Adepticon is all about in person. I've always heard stories about how amazing the terrain is and what a great con it is, so the time had come to finally go check it out. Because I made the decision so late all the events that I'd be interested in playing were sold out, bummer. The bright side is because Adepticon takes place in a hotel (next to a mall) they let anyone in to look.

So I drove out with my wife friday night and checked into our hotel (the Stay Inn is really nice for the price and has a great breakfast). By the time we arrived it was to late to check out the con and we were both exhausted after a long week of work and a 5 hour drive. 

Saturday morning we got up bright and early, filled up on a free breakfast and headed over to the con. Upon entering the hotel the grand ballroom is off to the right with a large dealer both outside. They had tons of boxes of bits and old models available with masses of gamers sitting on the floor digging through the bins. Walking into the main hall there's a tons of tables all filled with 40K players. Along the wall are some really impressive dioramas and displays, with the Crystal Brush and dealer booths on the other side. Looking at the tables I wasn't overly impressed. The terrain was all of nice quality but nothing spectacular lots of GW plastic kits, foam hills and miscellaneous forests. Each board had a general theme which was nice. Maybe I'm spoiled but it was of similar quality to what I've seen in better game stores across the country.

The dealer booths had plenty on painted models on display as well as special con pricing. I wound up picking up a few minis from the Cool Mini booth even though they weren't discounted not paying shipping is a bonus. Two Black Library authors were on hand signing books (didn't pick one up to get signed as I wasn't a huge fan of the recent work they had available). Black Library also had some pre-release books at the show.

The Forgeworld booth had a ridiculous line and the con mini sold out early. The new models they had on display were very cool and well worth the second mortgage you need to take out to afford them. Armourcast had a nice display with tons of cool bits and pieces, I still love the cinematic effects.

After touring the hall, we had a chance to check out the Crystal Brush competition. The models were all amazing, photographs don't do them a bit of justice. To see this quality of painting is something that has to be experienced in person. I know from experience how difficult it is to get a good picture of a painted mini and even with the best set-up it doesn't quite capture all the nuances of the work. I posted up the photos I snaped of some of my favorites in the gallery under Adepticon 2011. 

I briefly had a chance to meet Nathan Caroland as well as Werid Sketch and Zee of Wyrd Miniatures.

After a few hours of walking around the con, we made a trip to Oak Park to check out Frank Lloyd Wrights home and a few other historic homes in the area (my wife's an architecture geek). Very interesting and inspiring for some future terrain projects.

After diner I headed back to the con to watch some of the open gaming going on. I brought my bag with me but didn't wind up playing (to exhausted). 

Sunday, we swung by the con one last time to check out the gladiator event and gawk at the Crystal Brush entries one last time. From there we headed downtown to visit the Field Museum.

For those who don't know the Field Museum was create during the WPA days. It was also the museum featured in that Ben Stiller movie. For me the coolest part of the museum were the displays. Tons of interesting modeling techniques were used to create realistic models of different eras. I found some great inspiration in several of the displays that I'll probably incorporate into a future project. And of course there's the dinosaur bones which made me feel like a kid again.

Overall it was a great trip and I'll probably get some of my gaming group together to actually participate in the con next year. I think if you're not playing it's fun to check out but you can only wander the halls for so long before it gets old.