veryexciting

Daycation

I took my last long drive of the year out with my dad last Saturday, and it was so reminiscent of my childhood, especially the last couple of hours being uber carsick. Don't worry, I didn't throw up. I'm grown up now. My sister was kinda cringing over against her door... I never thought about other people suffering through my suffering as a child, bet she's got poignant memories herself. But other than spending most of 12 hours in a vehicle, it was pretty cool and I got a few pix.

This first one nearly got my camera banned on the spot. We'd already been to McDonald's next to the intersection in Seymour, and half the customers were Amish with their buggies parked outside and horses smartly trotting their buggies across the big highway, and I didn't get my camera out once, it's not polite, right. But there's a 6 mile stretch of highway where you meet buggy after buggy coming through, so I super zoomed through the windshield from the back seat and snapped. There was a little bit of discussion over whether it would be ethical of me to post it to my blog, but I argued that the horse wouldn't know the difference.

Accidentally got a pic of my feet. I am so in love with these shoes, ASICS® Gel - Kayano 18, not being paid to say that.

This is how I grew up, with atlases and maps in the car. Whichever kid got the front seat would be up to their eyeballs in maps 'navigating'. Dad loves our tom-tom, cracks me up watching him hold it and accidentally bump the screen every two minutes, one time had to reboot and another had to reset the whole route. It's like an electronic teddy bear for the car.

I let everyone else hold the map. I know we drove up C and wound up on the old Route 66.

This next part is mostly for any cousins who might happen to come through. We wound up at the Honda shop in Lebanon, #veryexciting. My dad and his brothers all had motorcycles, and Dad owned his own shop years ago with one of them. I've been told I was conceived on a motorcycle trip in California and have memories of being sandwiched between my parents on motorcycle trips (and mom was pregnant with my sister), and going to rallies and stuff. Anyway, what tickles me is Dad is this old Mennonite farmer and looks like he can barely get around with his bad knees, but he had to sit on several bikes around the store and yap with the owner for nearly an hour. He looks so cute. He sure wanted to take one home and relive some good old days. His favorite was the Honda Shadow.

This one is more my speed.

I still have one of Dad's old matchbooks. I think somewhere I've got the Dick & Dee Dee / Triumph Motorcycles 45 RPM, and I can still sing all the words.

After that we swung by Cackle Hatchery where I got my pretty girls, but they were closed, so then we jogged on up to Bennett Spring and hung out awhile.

The water in the spring was so clear that I could zoom through up to 30 feet and you couldn't even tell. We tried to figure out how big that rock must be, at least waist high, the top is barely above water.

Random pix.

Last bits of autumn there. I think these would make great 1000 piece puzzles.

These click to bigger if you want to read them.

I was pretty worn out by then, so this is all I got going home.
Glade Top Trail

I don't think I had been on Glade Top Trail in over 20 years. I've been sandwiched into between metro and tourist cities in a rural covenanted subdivision for so long that I kinda feel like I'm caught in a rat race. I lived on hundreds of acres near national forest during high school, so yesterday was awesome to get out and really breathe, even if it was only metaphorical. My histamines shot through the roof, so I had to crank up the benadryl a little.

My dad is one county over. The countryside from here to there is like night and day. This is still pretty tame a little over halfway to his house.

Most tourists come through the Ozarks and think they're seeing rugged and beautiful, but it's usually from the comfort and safety of people milling around a theme park or zipline. Seeing 'the woods' from a highway isn't the woods. My first 14 years were spent in New Mexico thinking that 'woods' were the pine trees in the Colorado mountains. I couldn't imagine the kind of woods in "Where the Red Fern Grows", more like jungle growing right up out of steep jagged flint, the bones of the earth. We moved to the Ozarks when I was first hitting high school, and we lived in The Woods, creepy and magical, just like in fairy tales. "Wild thing from the wild woods, what do you want?" (Kipling, Just So Stories) Our dog was part coyote, one of our cats was half bobcat. I know because I saw that thing born from a stray cat out of the woods, the hugest ugliest tailless kitten we ever saw, and only room for one. I don't know how that birth didn't kill the mother. That kitten was bigger than she was when it was only half grown and never would tame down. Also, have to add this, us kids walked a mile one way just to get on a school bus, regardless of the weather. One day we stepped over a black snake stretched across the dirt road, well over 5 feet long. Never catch those and keep them in a jar, by the way, they really smell bad.

You don't properly leave 'metro' until you've passed this point, the highest elevation for miles before a twisty plunge into another world decades behind this one. It's kind of like traveling back into the 1970's for me, but back in the 80's it was like going back to the 50's. Every time I travel through this countryside I imagine Hobbits traveling by pony to far away places, and how hard it would be for me without the highway. I think we take highways way too for granted nowadays.

And at that point I passed a house that has never had electricity. That's a pretty rare thing, even in the most rural areas, and it's right on the highway. I've been in that house, the people are sane and normal, they just like living without distraction. I doubt they have the kinds of anxiety issues that plague nearly one fifth of American adults, including me. The United States of Anxiety

We picked up my sister before we went to Dad's. She lives down this magical road. Do you believe in fairies and pixies?

Don't worry, she's a big believer in electricity, even though she's hand quilting a project from scratch. I don't have the patience for that. I noticed she's got a bumper crop of persimmons, the equivalent of deer candy.

Dropped a bunch of homemade goodies in my dad's freezer (it's his birthday, he's 83 now) and put him in the front with the atlas. All us kids grew up with an atlas, learning to 'navigate'. We're all sort of obsessed with maps because of that, me to the point where I took a cartography class in my resource planning degree program so I could learn the history of how they are made, and even make one myself. I loved visiting the big map room in the college library, but back to Dad. He refuses to join our modern age, so it was all about that atlas, although he eventually got so fascinated by the Tom-Tom that he couldn't put it down.

All roads lead to Rome, they say, so it wasn't long until we were driving over the historical Rome bridge, originally built in 1913 and closed to traffic for a time in 2007 for severe structural deficiency. But little things like that don't stop anyone from driving over it. Never saw a warning posted this time.

We overshot and wound up way on the other side of Glade Top, thanx to a sign being shorn right off a metal pole, possibly from a tornado that skipped through awhile back. We had to turn around and go back up this highway. Can you imagine how beautiful this scene will be in a few more weeks when the foliage turns?

We eventually arrived, and x marked the spot on the map.

There are plenty of places to stop and take in views all around.

We probably saw a hundred squirrels and a couple of wild turkeys, but I was more focused on trying not to look down the sheer drop offs along one side of the road. My sister's girl made up a ghost story during a field trip to Glade Top about a young married couple who plunged to their deaths in a Model T, and the story gets retold to this day. Kinda makes you wonder if most ghost stories are started by kids, and they're around so long it becomes 'fact'. That was almost 20 years ago. Note of trivia- my sister's mother-in-law's family owned the Glade Top property until the government incorporated it into the Mark Twain National Forest.

I've always had a hard time driving along steep drops, so I asked my sister if she remembered how we'd ask to ride in the back of the pickup when Dad took us up mountains so we could plan on bailing and leaping out before he slid off and rolled down a steep mountainside, and she totally remembered it. Dad would drive as close to the edge as possible so he could get a better view, and more than once we felt a tire slip. I utterly trust my dad, he has never ever let anything bad happen to us, but more because he walked the line of faith than held an arm in front of us. I grew up feeling like I need to be ready to bail in case of utter disaster and annihilation, even though it never happened. To this day I feel safer in the bed of a pickup than I do in the front seat, and I still have nightmares about driving up 90 degree inclines and clinging for dear life to the steering wheel and praying the whole vehicle doesn't just fall off the road backwards. Come to find out, so does my sister... It was very hard for me to sit through watching the Titanic sinking because I know what hanging onto the pickup felt like going up and down steep hills. As I got older I realized I could get out and walk, and I did, far enough away so I'd be clear of where the pickup might roll. But it never did.

That atlas gave us stuff to bicker about several times. Dad was like a robot caught in a logic loop over the 'missing' road numbers (take a plat map if you go!), and my sister finally grabbed the atlas and became the navigator. I knew before I ever got to Dad's it would be like this, having grown up with the guy, so I got a big kick out of the whole thing. And it turned out I was right, we had crossed over into Taney County, and then cross back into Ozark County as we twisted around the little mountain.

The server move chopped out my short videos and isn't letting me put them back in yet, but you can still see what riding in the car with my dad was like. Drive with Dad-1 and Drive with Dad-2

Missouri still has execution laws.

Finally reached a nice picnic area near the top. They keep it fixed up because there are so many local groups and activities on Glade Top, including the Foxtrotters (horses) and the annual Flaming Fall Revue: A Barbecue and Music Event. You can see the old fire tower still standing. When our kids were young, people would still climb it, but I think now they've got warnings on it now because it's getting too old.

After Glade Top we went out a different way to Theodosia to eat lunch at Cookie's by the marina. Scott couldn't resist the homemade malt.

Then we cut back through around Glade Top. I found the whole drive to be very satisfying after a hectic year in my own life.

And I'm a little envious of some of the people living on the rolling land around there. You never know where people will lose themselves when they've got the money to live the sustainable life, and I was a little surprised at a few of the 'mansions' tucked away in the hills.

For those who read the pre-drive post and are curious, no, Dad never did start building his coffin yet. In a couple weeks it'll be 3 years since Mom died, and it's really hard being alone after a long marriage. I'm also thrilled that this drive experiment went so well, I've barely been able to travel or sit in a car very long for about 5 years, and apparently the stuff I'm learning in physical therapy and strength training is working really well. I was able to control my pain levels just by getting out of the car every little bit and doing certain extension exercises, and if I can maintain that kind of control, I might be able to start traveling again. #veryexciting

:edit: I caught my sister on video talking about when she stayed at a cabin at Star Valley Retreat right there at Glade Top Trail, so if anyone reading this post is wondering about where to stay if they come scout out the Glade Top Trail side of Mark Twain National Forest, you can keep up with their current events and specials at Star Valley Retreat on Facebook.
- 8:08 am
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The Lexx

You are on the Lexx Index Page. Images in this post click back to original sources. Scroll down for the Lexx marathon index, Lexx fun stuff, and links to other Lexx sites. This index gets updated regularly.

If you could fly away on the most powerful weapon of destruction in the two universes, would you do it?

One day you're sitting there stuffing your face with tons of fresh meat and growing at a phenomenal rate, like you always do,

and next thing you know you're being hijacked by a group of rebels and then stolen by escaped prisoners and flown over a stadium full of screaming people. #veryexciting

Lexx is a very big bug, designed by bioviziers on the Cluster for His Divine Shadow.

The Lexx is the most powerful weapon of destruction in the two universes. He likes to blow up planets.

Lexx can be commanded only by the person who holds the key.

His Shadow wants the Lexx back, even if he has to defy ancient prophecy to make it happen.

Welcome to my Lexx episode and character review navigation page. I'll link more Lexx review posts below as I marathon through the four seasons of Lexx this year, so ignore the date up there, this page will get updated a lot. I don't think I've watched any Lexx since 2007, so this will be a trip down memory lane. I have an age rated caution on this blog so I hopefully don't have to moderate comments.

Lexx Online Marathon

Lexx Movies, Season 1
Lexx 1: I Worship His Shadow, part one 9-13-12
I Worship His Shadow- part 2- The Cluster 9-29-12
I Worship His Shadow- part 3- Stanley Tweedle 10-12-12
I Worship His Shadow- part 4- His Divine Shadow 10-22-12
I Worship His Shadow- part 5- The Time Prophet 10-30-12
I Worship His Shadow- part 6- The Big Bug 11-7-12
I Worship His Shadow- part 7- Termination 11-25-12
I Worship His Shadow- part 8- Zev Bellringer 12-1-12
I Worship His Shadow- part 9- Thodin 1-10-13
I Worship His Shadow- part 10- the bug bomb 3-13-14

Lexx TV Series, seasons 2,3,4
(coming soon, because we can't wait to see Xev, Lyekka, Mantrid, the Milk Fed Boys, Prince, Bunny, Priest, and more!)
Lexx- Season Two 8-26-13

My Own Lexx Reviews and Character Articles
Why Lexx Is Important 12-7-12 (Season and character philosophical breakdown summary.)
You Can't Handle Watching LEXX 12-30-12
the sounds of LEXX- info, downloads, soundtracks 1-25-13
Lexx Review at NerdMovie 2-15-13
How big is the Lexx? 2-26-13
Why Lexx Is Personal 3-23-13 :edit: 4-2-13
The Dark Zone and the Cycles of Time 1-17-14
Last of the Brunnen-G: Sci-fi's Favorite Zombie 2-3-14
Heresy in the First Degree- Thodin of the Ostral-B Pair 3-29-15

Shout Outs
Janika Banks gets Xanga Bombed 11-2-12
The Lexx Revival Project 3-19-13 :edit: 4-2-13
The Dead Do Not Snark 4-9-13
the coolest LEXX t-shirt in the world 5-14-13
Ellen Dubin interview with Wormhole Riders 5-26-13 (this page has been removed due to conflict of interest 3-28-16)
So, Lexx... 9-5-13
Stats for Lexx fans, and waving to the U.S. AirForce 9-30-13
Little Lexx 10-7-13
Where can I watch Lexx?- 4-15-14 Echo Bridge Entertainment followed me
Lexx on twitter 5-15-14
Whatever happened to the Line Major? 6-18-14

Lexx Fun Stuff
why am I taking so long posting more Lexx?!?! >=( 10-11-12
prisoner transports over a stadium... 10-11-12
Lexx- opening sequence 11-13-12
Any particular reason why Florida? 11-18-12
"Dare" Lexx Sex Survey 11-18-12
Lexx and psychological health, perhaps 11-20-12
Lexx on Droid 11-25-12
Da Lexx- Rapdicted 11-27-12
What, NO Lexx??? 11-28-12 (Syfy didn't blip Lexx once on their anniversary special.)
Lexx ecards 12-4-12
Lexx traffic 12-12-12
Holiday Lexx 12-14-12
End of the World 12-21-12
Lexx on Netflix 12-23-12
Kai on the River Kwai 12-23-12
Lexx- wallpapers, icons, pix 12-27-12 (updated 4-9-13)
glitchy guestbook 1-9-13
Stanley Tweedle (video) 2-2-13
3-13-13 3-13-13
Lexx Twitter Challenge 3-18-13
the making of Lexx 3-24-13 :edit: 4-2-13
Lexx actors on twitter and facebook 3-28-13
Lost Lexx Art 4-12-13
Print Your Own LEXX Magazine 6-17-13
But the dark zone is full of depravity and evilness and darkness 11-6-13
Valentine Lexx 2-4-14

Finding Lexx
Watch Lexx Online - TV.com
Watch Lexx on Hulu
Watch Lexx Online | Netflix
Echo Bridge Entertainment - Lexx
iTunes - TV Shows - Lexx, Season 1
Amazon.com: lexx: Movies & TV

Lexxtraneous Stuff
Group LEXX watch twitter party (#LexxWatch2013 Jan. 19 on twitter pending playoff scheduling) 1-5-13
LEXX WATCH PARTY 6-15-13
Lexx fans video chat 12-13-13

Links to More Lexx (and more to come!)

Angelbacchae's screen captures > Lexx

Brian Downey on Facebook

Debbie Emerson Art Doll Galleries

Echo Bridge Entertainment - Lexx

Emerson Art

Flamegrape's Xev Picture Archive

Kai, Last of the Brunnen G

IMDb- Lexx (TV Series 1997–2002)

Lexx Domain

Lexx Fan Club

Lexx | Get Glue

Lexx- Light Zone (Russian)

LEXX Light | 790 (originally written by Janika Banks)

LEXX MUSEUM

Lexx Net (Russian fan club)

LEXX Revival Project

Lexx Soundboard - Android Apps on Google Play

Lexx t-shirts by blackdalek | Redbubble

Lexx wiki dotorg

Lexxicon wiki dotcom

Lexxplorations

Lexxverse

LexxZone

LexxZone on Tumblr

Lisa Hynes - IMDb

Little Lexx Bored

Nerd Movie- Lexx

Nora Jean's Lexx Index

Sadgeezer- Lexx

Sci-Fi Talk interviews with Brian Downey and Michael McManus

Sci-Fi Updates Lexx TV Series Wallpapers and Desktops

Sci-Fi Updates Lexx Gallery

SF Series and Movies Lexx

SF Series and Movies Lexx Characters

SF Series and Movies Lexx Episode Guide

SR Series and Movies Lexx Gallery

SF Series and Movies Lexx Info

~~* The PIC Bug *~~ Your online source for Lexx screen captures

Vel's Homepage- Lexx Video Game

Watch Lexx on Hulu

Watch Lexx Online | Netflix

Watch Lexx Online - TV.com

I no longer archive or follow current events, so I'm not recreating a fansite. This is still just one of my personal blogs. However, after being blown away by 800+ views in only a week when I brought Lexx out of the closet last month, I thought hmm, a lot of people really like Lexx and want more, might be fun to have a little Lexx fling here and there, just for kicks when I get a day off. And if anyone would like to take advantage of my site traffic and pile on, you're welcome to email your Lexx linx and site names to me so other people can get to you while they're here, and I will arrange them alphabetically. I will not link obvious porn or spam, but I will link your art and writing pages if you want. I know, I deleted it all before, why wouldn't I do it again, right? Well, lemme pose you this one- what if an EMP shut down your national grid and you didn't have any technology to see it with for months anyway? Or what if, heaven forbid, 790 showed up and told the Lexx to blow us up? See, I actually had the nerve to do that... But yeah, I don't think it's going away any more.

:edit: 10-28-12 I'll also be adding links I've used in Lexx posts, and links that have faithfully sent regular traffic to me all these years, even when this site closed and my Lexx stuff disappeared.

2-5-13 Ok, I give up, it's gotten out of hand, I'm just adding links I run into regardless. There is a LOT of Lexx out there.

DISCLAIMER- No one is paying me to list here. This site is a personal blog and part time fansite, it's not here to make money. I have never made any money through anything Lexx, and the only money I ever got for a raffle from MegaCon '07 in which I donated all the items involved went 100% to charity. I am happy to list everyone who is a Lexx fan or involved with Lexx in any way.

3-13-2014: I took about a year off updating my marathon film review posts. Time to come back and work some more on what looks like may turn out to be the biggest Lexx film review in the two universes.

GrandFortuna

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LEXX 20th Anniversary- 2016

Lexx Index

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Lexxperience.com supports mobile viewing until Xanga gets that going again. (It's back on my Android now when I turn it sideways.)

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Open discussion in the Lexxperience group on Facebook if you'd like to interact with me and other fans about what I'm writing about Lexx.

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SAVE LEXX <-- what's happening with this blog.

I will NEVER ask for or accept donations to keep this site going. Ever.

Laptop screencaps used in not for profit blog episode and character reviews and film study at grandfortuna.xanga.com and lexxperience.blogspot.com Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

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My first tracker was installed in 2004 and broke several times before moving to a new server, which lost a few months of stats, and then Xanga moved to new servers and I lost more stats for more months before the page came back up, so I've lost a total of about two years' worth of stats. The second was installed 2-22-14 and is considered very conservative by business owners who use analytics, which itself is very conservative, estimates being that roughly one third to one half of hits by real live people aren't even counted, most likely due to javascript discrepancies. Actual hits on several posts here are in the thousands now, and the Lexx Index in the ten thousands. I've got pingbacks turned off, so spam isn't counted at all within the Xanga internal tracker, and most direct post hits can be correlated to my real time linking activity on twitter and other social media. When I did Google Analytics beta testing I got to see how search engine performance compares to tracking. I believe live feed linking sources to various social medias are key to a future where search engines are more about performance than cataloging, which has been confirmed to me by coders who create bot algorithms as I was beta testing paper.li. I've fought hard through redundant age-old stacks to make my way to the google front lines again, so my Lexx work shows up faster on Chrome searches now. This has been a really interesting ride. At any rate, my point is, I can still go back 6 years on my original tracker and I can still see that in 2013 just before the last big blog server move, I was getting traffic like this (and since then, the tracker may have been abandoned, we can't tell). Click the thumbnail to see full size.

My original tracker also still lets me see the latest 500 visitors on a map. I once counted over 80 countries among the total visits. You guys are not alone. Click the map to see it better.

Besides Lexx, the most common search phrases that bring new visitors here are variations on 'huge spaceship'. The most seen post from a phrase search is How Big is the Lexx? My biggest Lexx referrer is Lexx Domain. Most of page views per person count comes from the Lexx tag on Tumblr. Visitors who stay the longest come through URLOpener and are pinged through the Google translator server in Mountain View, CA.

Lexx Index

Lexxperience

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