Our TrekFest 2012 Experience (or Rain, Rain, Go Away!!!)

The boys and I went to a couple TrekFest XXVVIII events down in Riverside last night. Les wasn't too sure if he wanted to go, but D' and I finally talked him into it with stories of smashed up demolition derby cars. Fortunately, we had the foresight to bring an umbrella (more on that later!!).

First off, we stopped by "The Voyage Home" TrekFest Museum. It's filled with Star Trek-themed memorabilia and I needed a new TrekFest t-shirt. Well, "needed" is a stretch. I wanted a new t-shirt, so I got one. Leslie bought himself a TrekFest shot-glass. D' refrained from making any purchases.

Afterwards, we crossed the street to watch the Trek Trivia Contest. This is how I described that event last year:

Groups of four Trekkies test their Trek cred against each other and ultimately earn points for each answered question. They get more points for correctly answering more difficult questions. Trivia questions are ranked from Cadet to Lieutenant to Captain to Admiral...  I was impressed how many of the questions I knew the answers to. That said, I'm not a good person for recalling the names of episodes. I'm also not as good with trivia related to the original series, as compared to the later series.

I was intimidated by the players last summer, so I resisted when D'Angelo tried getting me to volunteer for the first round of playing. Turned out I knew most of the answers ("What was Sisko's wife's name?" (Me: Which one? Jennifer or Cassidy?); "What was the name of Gary Seven's cat?" (Me: Isis); "Name at three DS9 Roundabouts"; etc...) except for one of the Captain questions and the one Admiral question. So I actually might've done okay. I think I'll try out next summer.

After watching several rounds of the trivia contest, we decided it was time to get in line for the demolition derby. Except there wasn't a line this summer. The weather was really bad north of Iowa City, so we were keeping our fingers crossed that the bad weather would stay north. Unfortunately, crossed fingers don't work well as weather deterrents! It was sprinkling off and on by the time we reached the derby space. I figured we'd already driven that far for the event, so we would risk a bit of sprinkling.

And then it started raining harder. Fortunately, we had the umbrella, which was pretty much co-opted by D'Angelo. We waited and waited and waited, presumably while the sponsors decided whether or not to go ahead with the demolition derby. By this time, I was waiting around to see if it would get canceled so that we could get a rain check.

Eventually, the rain stopped and they gradually got things going with one car-smashing event. That was a lot of fun, but it started down pouring as soon as that match ended. At this point in the evening, I was totally soaked and decided that enough was enough. We got some kettle corn for the road and rain back to the car in the pouring hail.

Unfortunately, it looks like most of the TrekFest events got canceled last night. At least, I assume they did because of the pouring rain. It was raining here in Iowa City this morning while walking the dog. I'm hoping that any rain in Riverside clears up for a few hours today so that the parade and other events can go on without interruption. As far as I'm aware, ALL TrekFest 2012 scheduled events for Saturday are still scheduled to occur.

It's kind of a bitter sweet situation. We really needed the rain around here. It's been pretty dry so far this year. It's just unfortunate for TrekFest (and for Iowa City's Jazz Fest, which is also going on this weekend) that the rain couldn't hold off for 24-36 hours.