Adventures In Time

Funny, I am writing a post about time...because I must hurry to get a couple of more posts (about things I have done this year) written before time in 2015 runs out!

On July 21st (that is almost 5 months to the day that I am writing this post! Now you can see how time has laughed, rolled its window down, stuck its hand out,  flipped me the bird and left me in a cloud of dust as it sped by) The Colonel and I participated in another county program. The program was entitled, "Adventures in Time".

The program's premise: Dr. Almyra Turveydrop and Professor Octavius Ambrose, Victorian scientists, have created a time machine and portal called the Ambrodrop 3,000. With the time machine they hope to bring people through the portal from the past and future. They are unveiling their creation to a room full of potential buyers...only catch is they have not tried it out in public yet. With fingers crossed they start up the Ambrodrop 3,000....

The Colonel spent many hours building the time machine and portal in our garage before the day of the program. He did a fantastic job in making them look very Steam-punk. He also put together a great Victorian Steam-punk outfit for his character, Professor Octavius Ambrose.

  
The program was held at a local library. It was open to the public at no cost. We docents and our "Boss" met at the library early to set up the time machine and portal.

When all was finally set up, we tested the lights that ran around the portal's opening. The room would be dark when it was time for the "time travelers" to come through the portal.

We had a nice crowd (the prospective purchasers of the Ambrodrop 3,000) in the room; a mix of adults and children. It was time to start our adventures in time.

Professor Ambrose did the calculations for the each time traveler.

The room went dark, the time machine lit up and made sounds like whining gears (The Colonel created an mp3 sound track for the time machine) and the portal lights flashed whenever a character came through the portal or went back through it.

We had an interesting parade of persons come through time and tell their stories. Darling-Sister-In-Law portrayed Marie Curie...lab coat and all. We also had Virginia Trabue, the wife of my town's founder. She visited from the late 1800s. Marie Antoinette also came through the portal. She wanted to share her petite, powdered doughnut with the crowd...she kept it in her decolletage, mon dieu! She said, "Let them eat cake...doughnuts!"

The two Maries

I portrayed a Mars colonist who was a geologist. I had my young daughter come through time with me (apparently Mars colonists still practice the tradition of "Take Your Daughter to Work Day"). My young daughter was played by my boss's little girl.

During one of the time portal calculations, Professor Ambrose made a small miscalculation and nearly brought a dinosaur through the portal. The crowd heard a dinosaur's roar as the portal lights flashed. Dr. Turveydrop and Professor Ambrose quickly shut that time portal down.

The Adventures in Time program was a success. We had planned on giving the "performance" a few more times and at other libraries but a change to the school year's starting date put an end to it. School started earlier than normal which meant that the days we had chosen to give the program, the kids would be in school.

The Time Travelers

This county program has been put on the shelves for now, but it may be brought down, dusted off and done again next year. Who knows who or what Dr. Almyra Turveydrop and Professor Octavius Ambrose will bring through next time when they fire up their Ambrodrop 3,000!