So, today was the 9th anniversary of the day I tricked the Hubs into marrying me!! He’s been stuck with me for a LONG TIME!! 😀

We decided to go to see the Battleship Texas since he plays Wargaming’s World of Warships a lot, the San Jacinto monument (since it’s literally right there), and one of the oldest graveyards in Texas for me! We had an amazing day. We had so much fun I’m too tired to paint. I tried, it didn’t work. So, here’s some pictures from our day!

These are all from Glenwood cemetery in Houston. In case you’re new, the theme for Reapercon next year is Horror, so I want to do a graveyard diorama. To serve that purpose, I’ve been going around photographing cemeteries to see how they work, how the light works, how stone ages, etc. I’m not just some weirdo that goes to graveyards. 😉 Since I want mine to be a somewhat defunct, fantasy graveyard, I look for things that are broken to see a few things. How are they broken, what does it look like when they fix it, where does it break, how does the aging change where the new stone is exposed? That kind of stuff. Also, how does the land react? I want mine to have the lumpy look that this ground does.

After about an hour in the 89 degree, 10 am weather, we decided to hop in the Jeep and roll up to the battleship. Little did we know, there’s a graveyard there too!!!!!

There wasn’t much there, a few obelisks and whatnot. but I got 2 for 1!

Onto the battleship, it’s super cool. The USS Texas was a New York Class Battleship, with 10 14-inch guns that fired 1400 lb shells up to 14 miles. Holy moly. And a bunch of other guns and stuff.

It’s so pretty!!!

The Hubs was showing off his Han Solo style. These still move!! You can pretend to be a shooter all you want! 😀

Look at that! It’s a gallon, glass jug of coke!

I don’t want anyone operating on me in there. It looks like the set of a horror show.

Hope everyone’s good with snuggling. Seriously, these bunks were hung from every available space.

Where did the Hubs go? He went up into the main gun’s loading area!!!!!

Those are the gigantic shells, and that is the thingy that tells you where your gun is aimed. That’s what you get. There is no way to visualize what you’re doing. No HUD here..

I tried out one of the smaller guns.
We were so tall! We went up as high as we could go here, then we went down into the scaryness of the bowels of this thing. When I was in grade school, I remember going here vaguely. But all I really remembered was the creepy engine room and it’s red floor. It did not disappoint. I was not very happy down there. All I could see was the scene from the Titanic where everyone dies. I was concerned we might die. I have no claustrophobia, but no. No. NO.

Here we go anyways.

At least he seems to be enjoying himself.

Further down…. And even further!!! I was not happy. It was a really weird feeling. I’m seriously not generally scared of anything. And I wasn’t ‘scared’, but I was significanltly uneasy. I felt like maybe someone was watching me and yelling, “DON’T GO IN THERE WOMAN!!!”. It was odd. However, these cool steampunky things were there, so I’ve got that going for me.

I love this quote. It makes me happy.

Last stop was the San Jacinto monument. I took a bunch of pictures, but this is the important one.

Eat your heart out, Washington monument. Everything really is bigger in Texas. 😉
So, that was our amazing anniversary trip. We love day-tripping, and we each got to do something we really wanted to do.

Few things to wrap up, I also got a Fitbit to help on my path to better fitness, and I love it. You should go buy one. Here’s my ad for it.

Also, I work too much. This is me and my 2 friends from work that were all on day 8 in a row, ready to die.

This is my updated Frulam Mondath, she has dark hair, and is tabletop ready. I decided not to go too crazy with her, since I still have all of the things to paint before Sunday….

All. the. things.

Sunday.

AAH!

Anyways, gotta work tomorrow, then off Friday til Tuesday. Gonna paint and update here. Let me know what you think, hope you enjoyed the long-winded, ridiculous post.

-marinealRose