Our 2022 Road Trip #32: The Final Four Photos and the Outtakes

The deeply forested Green Mountains from afar on a brightly cloudy day. Someone's house is in the lower right corner; a waterway runs diagonally along the mountain bases.

DAY FIVE: One last shot of those lush Green Mountains, along the road north from Quechee Gorge to Montpelier.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip each year to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. We’re geeks more accustomed to vicarious life through the windows of pop culture than through in-person adventures. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any surrounding areas that also had comics and toy shops, we chucked some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own, from the horizons of nature to the limits of imagination, from history’s greatest hits to humanity’s deepest regrets and the sometimes quotidian, sometimes quirky stopovers in between. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.

For 2022 we wanted the opposite of Yellowstone. Last year’s vacation was an unforgettable experience, but those nine days and 3500 miles were daunting and grueling. Vermont was closer, smaller, greener, cozier, and slightly cooler. Thus we set aside eight days to venture through the four states that separate us from the Green Mountain State, dawdle there for a bit, and backtrack home…

…and it’s long past time for us to get there in this, the season finale. Before we get to the last mini-gallery for the last day of our trip, we take a look back at where we started with a selection of outtakes from the first six days. Why only six out of eight? Because by the time I got around to recounting Day Seven, I was pretty much posting everything there was, far as you might care. Anyway: enjoy!

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Our 2022 Road Trip #31: Cuyahoga, Gone

Anne smiling and standing on a rocky cliff, but it's surrounded by the tops of tall trees so it looks safer than it is.

All those tall trees behind Anne disguise the fact that beyond this ledge it’s a long, long way down.

Eight days and one Cleveland later, we were exhausted and ready to go home, but stopped for one last tourist attraction anyway. Given all our choices along the way through Ohio, what better place for one last collection of outdoor greenery than The Only National Park in Ohio? It was no Green Mountains in Vermont, but then again, what is?

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Our 2022 Road Trip #30: The Cleveland Wahlbergs

Anne with a huge smile hoisting a mug of orange Creamsicle. On the table is a Wahlburgers menu.

After a long week Anne enjoys the refreshing taste of an orange Creamsicle float. (Nonalcoholic, natch.)

Once we again we’re winding down another travelogue with chapters nowhere near as exciting as the ones in the middle. The very design of our vacations and my insistence on chronological storytelling together mean pretty much every MCC miniseries ends anticlimactically. Not once have we driven 4-to-20 hours out of town and scheduled the biggest and best attraction as the very last thing we do on our way home. If you’ve remained a longtime reader, I trust you understand the nature of the pastime.

Cleveland first appeared in our lives in 2004, when my car broke down on our way home from Niagara Falls. C-Town had a stronger costarring role in our 2013 adventures, replete with stops at a rockin’ museum, a Christmas movie house, an iconic comic-book legend’s house, the second-tallest Presidential burial site we’ve seen to date, and a memorial statue I helped fund. That was a good set of experiences.

This year, Cleveland was an anticlimax again. In some ways it wasn’t their fault. Some ways.

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My Free Comic Book Day 2023 Results, Ranked

The nine free comics I picked up.

The reading pile, alphabetized by publisher.

It’s that time of year again, but delayed on my part! Saturday, May 6th was the 22nd Free Comic Book Day, that annual celebration when comic shops nationwide offer no-strings-attached goodies as a form of community outreach in honor of that time-honored medium where words and pictures dance in unison on the printed page, whether in the form of super-heroes, monsters, cartoon all-stars, licensed merchandise, or in rare instances real-world protagonists. It’s one of the best holidays ever for hobbyists like me who’ve been comics readers since the days when drugstores sold them for thirty-five cents each and comic book movies were shoddier than actual B-movies.

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Milestones Behind and Millstones Ahead

Me sitting at one end of a small table with two large slices of pizza on it, each on separate trays. One of them is closer to Anne the photographer.

Portrait of the author having brunch with his wife/photographer Anne at Pizza di Tito, an outtake from our Indiana Comic Con 2023 experience.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we have annual traditions ’round these parts! Two of them recently came up for renewal and passed without mention. Let’s kill two birds with one stone here, or at least whiz a pebble past their beaks just to get their attention.

I launched this tiny personal blog on April 28, 2012, three weeks before my 40th birthday as a means of charting the effects of the aging process on my opinions of, enthusiasm for, offense at, and/or detailed nitpicking of various works of art, expression, humanity, inhumanity, glory, love, idolatry, inspiration, hollowness, geek lifestyles, food, and Deep Thoughts. MCC has also served as a digital scrapbook for our annual road trips, comic cons, birthday expeditions, and other modest travels. It’s a general repository for any other content that comes to mind and feels worth the time and effort to type up, proofread, and release unto a world-at-large that rarely visits websites anymore unless social media points them there. MCC entries are rarely shared with others in that manner; when it happens, it’s extremely noticeable in our dashboard stats and sincerely appreciated with all my heart.

Last month MCC reached its 11th birthday. As usual the WordPress software congratulated me as an auto-courtesy. Preprogrammed niceties aren’t quite the same as flesh-and-blood acknowledgment, but they help break the silence of what might otherwise have reminded me of that time Peter Brady overdosed on teenage smugness and was flabbergasted when no one attended his birthday party. I think about that episode a lot as I watch site traffic dwindle and wonder if I should bother mentioning my blog anniversaries anymore.

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Yes, There Are Scenes During and After the “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” End Credits

Rocket mid-speech, surrounded by his friends' legs.

Guardians Origins: Rocket. This time, it’s fursonal.

Just as the Fast and the Furious saga proudly demonstrates found-family pop-culture franchises aren’t just for whitebread folks, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy series has demonstrated they aren’t just for humans, either. Whether you’re a little-league space hero, the daughter of a genocidal madman, a 1950s kaiju, a funny-animal gunslinger, or some other kind of ill-formed misfit who’d never be invited to apply for Avengers membership (okay, maybe the Great Lakes Avengers), these losers gave us hope that we too might find the right motley crew out there who needs us on their team so we can all become all-stars with our own action figures.

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Indiana Comic Convention 2023 Photos, Part 2 of 2: Actors and Activities!

Me doing jazz hands with Grant Gustin.

It’s Grant Gustin! With The Flash soon coming to a close on The CW, TV’s Barry Allen is finally hitting the Midwest convention circuit.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the ninth edition of the Indiana Comic Convention at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis. They refrain from calling themselves “Indiana Comic Con” on paper for tiresome legal reasons that aren’t their fault, but to us they’ll always be Indiana Comic Con.

ICC 2023 was another opportunity to look at walls covered with old comics, meet people who create reading matter, boggle at toy displays, respect the anime fandom whose population dwarfs us older generations, and find space to breathe among or away from those cheerfully ever-growing crowds. Although the showrunners reserved less space than they did for last year’s edition — in fact, they moved the show back to the halls where the inaugural edition was held back in 2014 — geek life nevertheless thrived in abundance…

…relatively speaking. The smaller square footage meant noticeably fewer vendors than last year. In hindsight we probably didn’t need weekend passes, but we’d taken advantage of an early February sale that got us in Friday and Saturday (we almost never go on Sundays) for a mere five bucks less than what folks were paying for Saturday-only passes day-of at the door. So we did some stuff, but not as much as usual.

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Indiana Comic Convention 2023 Photos, Part 1 of 2: Cosplay!

Three Mandalorian costumes styled like Woody, Jessie and Buzz from the "Toy Story" series.

Mando, meet Andy’s room. Andy, Mando. Sheriff Woody, Jessie and Buzz Lightyear a la Mandalore.

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the ninth edition of the Indiana Comic Convention at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis. They refrain from calling themselves “Indiana Comic Con” on paper for tiresome legal reasons that aren’t their fault, but to us they’ll always be Indiana Comic Con.

ICC 2023 was another opportunity to look at walls covered with old comics, meet people who create reading matter, boggle at toy displays, respect the anime fandom whose population dwarfs us older generations, and find space to breathe among or away from those cheerfully ever-growing crowds. Although the showrunners reserved less space than they did for last year’s edition — in fact, they moved the show back to the halls where the inaugural edition was held back in 2014 — geek life nevertheless thrived in abundance.

While we recuperate and wait for our feet to forgive us for their punishment, please enjoy this modest collection of cosplayers who brightened the day around the show floor. The jazz-hands photo ops and other obligatory details will be shared in the other chapter. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun. Enjoy! Corrections welcome for those we misidentified!

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Our 2022 Road Trip #29: Room for Jell-O

Two old "Jell-O Fun Barbie" sets, mint in box with dolls, Jell-O packets, and pink molds.

Barbies love the taste of Jell-O! One of many pop culture icons to embrace Jell-O corporate synergy throughout the years.

We had several hours of driving to do on Day Seven, but it’s no fun to spend an entire day only driving. After we’d finished having our kind of fun in Utica, our next stop down the road was a four-mile digression off the New York State Thruway with a very special museum that we hoped would entertain us for at least a few minutes. In that sense our timing estimate was pretty accurate. But hey, they say there’s always room…

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Our 2022 Road Trip #28: Utica’s Golden

A shiny gold dome amid several tall buildings on a cloudless day.

New York has a cool gold dome like numerous other states, but it’s neither in their capital nor on their capitol.

Fun trivia: billboards have been banned in Vermont since 1968 — one of four states to do so, along with Maine, Alaska and Hawaii. Among other benefits, their lawmakers’ efforts definitely helped improve all those Green Mountains pics we’ve posted throughout this series. Alas, not long after we crossed the border back into the east end of New York State, we found ourselves in the middle of another batch of mountains covered in lush forests from peak to base, but with one (1) great big Denny’s ad in the middle, jutting out like a zit newly erupting on a teenage forehead an hour before prom night.

Moving past that, upstate New York had more sights we actually wanted to see, including a return engagement with a city that got short shrift on one of our previous road trips.

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Our 2022 Road Trip #27: Rutland on the Way Out

A mural painted on a brick wall depicting Batman busting through the wall. Flying next to him is a griffin with a superhero-stylized "G" on its chest.

Detail from the mural Batman vs. Griffin by Kathryn Wiegers.

As a comics collector since age 6, I’d love it if every single one of our vacations made time for at least one comics-related stop. Sadly that’s a rare theme among those who start up new tourist attractions that aren’t amusement parks. Once upon a time, our next stop in Vermont used to have deep connections with the wild world of superhero comics. I’d hoped to enjoy evidence of that, but we got the impression the place just isn’t the same anymore. The same, I’m sure, could be said of many places we’ve been, but my hopes were perhaps a bit too high going in.

Because I insisted we make time for it, Rutland ended up as the last city we visited before we left Vermont. It was not our favorite.

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Our 2022 Road Trip #26: Country Time with Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge's tombstone has two tiny flags and some pink flowers standing in front of it; evergreen bushes behind it.

Part 25 also led off with a tombstone, but this one is real.

Longtime MCC readers may recall one of the recurring motifs in our past vacations was the final resting places of Presidents of the United States of America. In fact, one trip was dedicated specifically to the task of spotting nine such gentleman in a row. They’re not all winners, but they went down in American history as official Presidents, for better or worse, so they count. Prior to 2022 we’d visited the gravesites of 23 U.S. Presidents in all. When last we left off, in 2021 we visited Herbert Hoover’s final resting place in Iowa and compiled a list of all the Presidential gravesites we’d seen up to that point. As it happens, Vermont has one that we had to visit before we headed home.

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The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 10 of 10: An Epilogue of Film, Fowl, and Facades

Several dishes on a wood table in a hardwood restaurant. Meal details are described later in the entry.

Welcome to The Eagle! That’s the name of the restaurant, not the main dish.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a short-term road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do…

Thanks very much to those of you who’ve followed along with my eight previous, glacially posted galleries that comprised our October journey around Indiana’s original state capital Corydon. Whereas the first chapter was a prologue about a donut shop we tried along the way, so too is our epilogue connected to the main storyline only by our timing and our desire to add still more festivities to Anne’s autumn birthday weekend. As a capper, we spent Saturday on Massachusetts Avenue, downtown Indianapolis’ premier upscale restaurant hub. On one end of Mass Ave we planned for lunch; on the other, a film for a special occasion. All told, the meal was better than the movie.

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The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 9 of 10: Indiana Caverns on $0.00 a Day

A wood-carved saber-toothed tiger situated on the front porch of the Indiana Caverns gift shop.

The wood-carved saber-toothed tiger welcomes you!

Our Friday in and around Corydon was fun, but not every stop on our to-do list worked out as hoped. Some attractions are simply more doable in the morning than in the afternoon. The longer the day goes on, the longer their guest list grows and the longer you might have to wait your turn. You can either be patient and invest the extra time needed, or bow out gracefully and don’t grouse about the minutes you’ve blown in vain, especially when that’s technically your own fault.

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Yes, There’s a Scene During the “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” End Credits

The four main cast members in an arena, gazing upon the surrounding audience and awaiting potential doom.

The film begs a variation on Gene Siskel’s old rule of thumb: is this film more entertaining than, say, watching the same four actors at a table playing a D&D session?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I played Dungeons & Dragons as a kid, served for years as our neighborhood’s Dungeon Master and owned all the Advanced D&D hardcover manuals published through 1986, by which time all my friends had moved far away, found other pursuits, or quit me specifically. Our group breakup was slow in coming, and the final session ended acrimoniously through no small fault of my own. Eventually my subscriptions to Dragon and Dungeon Adventures magazines expired, and I stopped keep track of updates and new products in the world of TSR’s classic tabletop RPG, unless you count the handful of time my wife and I attended Gen Con and were surrounded by the company’s products. One silver lining: my departure left me with no reason to see the misbegotten 2000 film that took its name in vain.

My attention wandered so far away from the game that years passed before I was aware TSR had been acquired by Wizards of the Coast, the Magic: the Gathering masterminds. Still more years passed before I learned they in turn had been gobbled up by Hasbro, thus moving D&D under the same corporate umbrella as G.I. Joe, the Transformers, and, arguably the source of their company’s best film to date, Clue. I likewise had virtually no emotional investment when trailers began popping up for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Once it was released and word-of-mouth picked up momentum, then I gave it a chance. I entered the theater, I mentally rolled a d20 saving throw vs. Awfulness, and the imaginary die blessedly came up a 19.

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Yes, There’s a Scene After the “John Wick: Chapter 4” End Credits

Keanu Reeves' John Wick sits outdoors at a shiny table with two rows of glass cards in front of him, and two identical rows in front of the unseen opponent seated across from him. Off to one side, Ian McShane in sunglasses looks sternly at the game. Blurry doves fly by in the background.

Our Hero prepares for an expensive game of Concentration.

Previously on John Wick: the third chapter (the one with the vestigial subtitle) ended with Our Hero Keanu Reeves mostly dead yet slightly alive (again/still/more than ever), the Continental’s sacred hotel-for-rich-assassins charter revoked, and the audience left wondering how director Chad Stahelski and his Grand Stunt Army of the Republic could possibly top all that, which of course they’d have to because they ended on a cliffhanger as if to triple-dog-dare themselves into doing it all again. Hence John Wick: Chapter 4.

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Our C2E2 2023 Epilogue: Chicago!

Piles and piles of baked goods on a restaurant counter behind glass.

A plethora of pretty pastries yearning to be free at Goddess and the Baker.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. After its 2010 inception, we attended every year from 2011 to 2019, then took a break due partly to the pandemic and partly due to guest lists outside our circles of interest. This year’s strong lineup lured us back in, much to our delight…

…and speaking of delight, it was great to be back in the Windy City once more after Fan Expo Chicago last July. That show was up in Rosemont and didn’t lend itself to a lot of new extracurricular activities away from the exhibit hall. For our C2E2 experience we arranged our accommodations with an eye toward offsite exploration….partly because the hotels near McCormick Place were either sold out or priced beyond what we felt like paying this time. Up in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, we found a suitable compromise and a variety of dining options surrounding us on all sides.

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C2E2 2023 Photos, Part 4 of 4: Convention!

Life-size recreation of a giant furry white bison/manatee friendly hybrid monster with a beige "Last Airbender" arrow pointing down its forehead.

A life-sized Appa the sky bison from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. After its 2010 inception, we attended every year from 2011 to 2019, then took a break due partly to the pandemic and partly due to guest lists outside our circles of interest. This year’s strong lineup lured us back in, much to our delight…

…and the exhibit hall didn’t disappoint, either. It all comes down to this: one last gallery of the C2E2 sights and wonders that we didn’t already post from our two-day extravaganza. Sure, our passes could’ve gotten us in for Sunday as well, but we’re getting old and can only handle so much sensory stimulation and so many miles of walking before our legs snap off.

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C2E2 2023 Photos, Part 3 of 4: Comics!

Six graphic novels by the creators listed below, plus the official C2E2 program to fill a gap between books.

This year’s modest graphic novel loot pile.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. After its 2010 inception, we attended every year from 2011 to 2019, then took a break due partly to the pandemic and partly due to guest lists outside our circles of interest. This year’s strong lineup lured us back in, much to our delight…

…and for this 50-year-old who’s been collecting comics since age 6, it was great to return to C2E2’s Artists Alley, consistently the best assemblage of comic book creators available in any large-scale Midwest entertainment convention. Scores of writers, artists, colorists, editors, and otherwise collaborative bookmakers gather in lengthy rows, some narrower than others, and tempt me to spend and spend and spend on new reading material. This year was naturally no exception, which is why — more than jazz hands, more than the cosplay — Artists Alley has always been my favorite part of every C2E2.

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C2E2 2023 Photos, Part 2 of 4: Actors!

us with Chris Evans, all doing jazz hands, and he is smiling SO brilliantly.

Chris Evans! Yes, Chris Evans! Yes, THAT Chris Evans! Yes, really!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. After its 2010 inception, we attended every year from 2011 to 2019, then took a break due partly to the pandemic and partly due to guest lists outside our circles of interest. This year’s strong lineup lured us back in, much to our delight…

…though we took our sweet time deliberating whether or not to take the plunge again. We committed a mere three weeks before showtime, and we’re glad we did. We needed some time away from home and cheerfully added three more guests to our jazz-hands photo gallery, including the esteemed gentleman pictured above.

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