Closed Rest Area

Another one from my Nebraska comics, this one is a play on the phrase "no rest for the wicked." I like to question why there are rest areas near my home since clearly we don't need them, we can just go home. Also I thought about trying to draw a more realistic car, but then I remembered my comic has stick figures so I don't need to make this too hard for myself. Hence the car that I've been drawing like that since I was a small child. I took a Java course in college and we learned how to draw shapes and the project for that chapter was to draw a car and later animate it, which was pretty cool. I made mine a yellow submarine and I had a little school of cartoon fish (ovals with triangles behind them) following my 'car.'

Text:
M: The rest area is closed.
L: I guess we all must be wicked!

Sub Culture

 Thank you to all who have served! I hope everyone has a nice Memorial Day weekend. My hometown in CT always had a nice parade, complete with the local Fife & Drum Corps in their tricorne hats. My current town doesn't do parades and I kind of miss them. It was nice to have everyone gather on the Towne Green for the local festivals, whether it was for a nation holiday like Memorial Day or a hyper local event like the Shad Derby. I always appreciated the floats that threw candy. 

Explanation: A subculture is a smaller group inside of a larger group ('sub' here means 'subset'). A sub can also mean a submarine, which is a boat that goes underwater, and boats are part of the Navy. That's just a little picture of how my brain works. 

Text:
M: The Army is a subculture.
L: I thought that was the Navy?

Utah, Page 2

 

The second and final page of our Utah trip. It was a great time, just me and my Mark exploring the town of Moab and seeing the sites. So many dinosaur remains out there! It turns out, back in the day, loads of people mined for uranium ("totally safe!" said the government) and while digging around, they found some massive bones and paleontology is grateful for their findings! So many trails to explore and view fossils that are just lying about, specifically tracks that have been uncovered. Our B&B that we stayed at gave us fresh melons in the morning to take on hikes and it was amazing! We went to the local grocery store to get fruit and were shocked at how expensive apples were. Turns out, if you can't grow trees then tree fruit is expensive. Very few trees were seen on our Utah trip. Moab Giants was an awesome experience and I kinda want to upload some photos to show the life-sized dinosaurs with which we interacted.

Text:

Panel 1 - M: All the food here is tasty! [Pho! BBQ! Thai! Mexican!]

Panel 2 - M: Four apples are HOW MUCH?!? L: wow. [L is shocked while M holds a receipt and a bag of apples]

Panel 3 - Dino tracks in the wild! [two dinosaur footprints]

Panel 4 - Melons on a desert hike [M holding a container while L eats a melon piece]

Panel 5 - Life-sized Dinosaurs at Moab Giants [L posing for M in front of a massive T-Rex]

Utah, Page 1

Another missed vacation comic! This one is from 2018, when we went out West to Utah to see a few national parks. It was a great trip! So much hiking, so many natural wonders, and excellent food in Moab where we stayed. We got to experience a Dark Sky area, which means after the sun goes down it gets super duper dark! We stayed in Arches National Park to watch the sunset, then drove almost out of the park and waited for total dark which was amazing - so many stars, so little man-made light! We wanted to be near the exit because wow, it was dark and I didn't want to experience the winding roads with only our headlights. The last panel here is a Comical True Story, where a random couple injected their opinion into our conversation because they couldn't handle my incorrect assumption. Which is totally fine - we were seeing our first canyon and figured once seeing one you've seen them all and they were assuring us that is not the case. So we will aim to go see the Grand Canyon at some point. Probably. 

Text:

Panel 1a - Arches | Canyonlands | Dead Horse
Panel 1b - UTAH
Panel 1c - September 1-5, 2018

Panel 2 - Sunset in the Park
L: Let's get out before it's completely dark!

Panel 3 -
L: Canyonlands is amazing! Do we even need to see the Grand one?
R: Yes. Yes you do. It's amazing.

Timing of Things

I wasn't sure what to title this one. It happened on our trip out to Nebraska (this is another one broken out from my Nebraska travel comic pages) and I feel like it will happen again. Any time you are waiting with a small, unhappy child, it's like there's a time dilation. So annoying. 

Math: In reality, I had asked Mark how much longer and he said 45min, then 15min later I asked again and he said 30min which checks out, but I felt like those 15min were an hour long. Because a crying baby creates a time vortex or something. No fun is being had, so no time is flying by. 

Text:
L: How much longer?
M: Thirty minutes.
L: I feel like you said forty-five minutes an hour ago.
L2: WHINEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Canada, Page 2

 We did a lot of walking on our trip, but that's how we like to do things. Lots of nature walks, grossly lots of banana slugs *bleh they look like a moving dog turd* but the scenery in the temperate rain forest was just amazing. We revisiting Butchart Gardens and Victoria Butterfly Gardens, we had previously visited them on our honeymoon a decade before. 

Text:
Panel 1:
M: We walked five miles today.
L: No, we were walking kilometers!

Panel 2: 
L: Unsweet iced tea is unheard of here. [found this out after asking for it at several restaurants]

Panel 3: Butchart Gardens
L: Flowers again!

Panel 4: Victoria Butterfly Gardens
M: Butterflies again!
L: Spike :( [Spike was a bird who liked to peck shoes - we met him on our honeymoon a decade ago, and they had a little memorial to him when we visited this time]

Panel 5:
M: Favorite day of trip?
L: The one where we didn't see any banana slugs!

Panel 6:
L: This bridge is see-through - this is awesome!
M: That is terrifying.

Canada, Page 1

 

So when I did my Nebraska comics, I was looking through the other comics I've done and I realized I hadn't posted my ones from some previous vacations! So here's the start of a two-day comic from a few years ago, when Mark and I did our ten-year anniversary by revisiting where we went for our honeymoon! We went to British Columbia, but not the same exact place as before as we wanted to explore more of this beautiful area. I highly recommend visiting BC! We got to soak in a natural hot spring, which was awesome. We took a sea plane to get to another leg of our adventure and that was exciting! The nature tour on a boat was cold but so worth it to see all the wildlife. And of course, seeing a fossil on display makes every vacation even better! 

Also, Happy Birthday to my grandma! She is amazing, and she is my namesake, and she taught me how to crochet! I love her lots. 

Text:
Title: CANADA August 31 - September 7, 2019
Panel 1: Hot Springs [two people soaking in a hot spring]
Panel 2: Sea Plane! [a sea plane either in the air or floating on water, either could work]
Panel 3: bald eagle! sea lions! humpback! seals! orcas! [three rows of people in an inflatable boat, floating in the water]
Panel 4: M: What's that over there? L: Dinosaur footprints!

Three out of Three Adults Agree

And yet...

You might recognize this one from my Nebraska comics! I will be posting some individual ones that I broke out of the main pages, the ones that can stand more on their own rather than needing the context of the whole trip. I feel like this comic works for really any trip or interaction with a small child. Just stop. Why the whine. And yet....

I realize that Lucy's crown is all black instead of being its usual gold. I was drawing this from my full page reference, which was done in all black ink, and I just forgot to change the color when digitally drawing it. Oh well. Let's call it a stylistic choice. 

Also, Happy Graduation to my little brother! Wow, college. Done. That's weird, he will be forever 5 years old in my mind (that's how old he was when I left for college). 

Text:
N: Three out of three adults agree - the baby needs to stop whining.
M: And yet...
L2: WHINEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
L1: *covers ears*

Punny Papers

Due to my Mark working from home (which is awesome - having help with our little one, getting to have lunch together, just not having a commute), I can see his page-a-day punderdome calendar and it is excellent. Usually. Sometimes the pun just doesn't land, but that shouldn't stop you from making more puns! You have to persevere. 

Text:
M: Why were you in my office?
L: I was reading your important papers.
M: You mean my pun calendar?
L: Yep. 

Shot the Heart

 

I don't recall what sparked this one, but it's what I think of now when I hear that classic Bon Jovi song. Guess that lady is giving love a bad, bad name. Oh, I have the lyrics wrong - it's "Shot through the heart" not "Shot to the heart." I'm deciding that's intentional, and that's why the lady is saying it's a miss. Because he messed up the lyrics. 

Text:
A: 🎵 Shot to the Heart - 🎵
B: Miss.

Nebraska Page 4

Happy Mother's Day!
In the first panel, we never found out (i.e. looked up) what was in those BTC tankers, and I don't know how to look that up since all the top hits for BTC are Bitcoin. Maybe they really were full of virtual currency.... Panel 2 is referencing a massive tourist trap known as Wall Drug and my husband really disliked the place, but there were so.many.signs for it. I thought it was interesting to wander through - we were not interested in the free ice water as it was a bitterly cold day. Panel 3 is referencing a real sign and the sign that came to mind when I saw the afore mentioned real sign. Panel 4 is just a fancy word for being in debt, which I'm not, but you do need to be careful with souvenirs because there are just so many cool things to get. I'm holding a buffalo wearing a Mt Rushmore t-shirt and a wooly mammoth in said panel. And the final panel is a great summary for how the wedding did not go - it was a totally normal wedding, with delicious Middle Eastern food for the reception since both of them are working over there. That panel is also a reminder that we saw so.very.many Oregon Trail markers and landmarks - it was a real thing, not just a weirdly popular while education computer game!

Text:
P1 - 
 M: What is in those BTC tankers?
 L: Sand?
 N: Bitcoin. Filled to the brim.
P2 - 
 M: Anywhere you want to stop on our way out of Nebraska? 
 L: WALL DRUG!
 M: NO!
P3 - 
 Sign 1: PASS WITH CARE
 Sign 2: PASS WITH WILD ABANDON
P4 - Getting Souvenirs
 N: This is why you're insolvent.
 L: What's insolvent?
 N: That's also why you're insolvent.
P5 -
 A: What's a wedding in Nebraska like?
 L: Thankfully, no dysentery.
 M: Ten gallon hats.
 L: The bride had a flannel veil.
 M: Banjo processional.
 L: They left in a covered wagon. 

Nebraska Page 3

 The first panel is a reference to the phrase "no rest for the wicked." And now I know, that phrase is referring to eternal punishment of evildoers. Panel 2 is referencing a psychological manipulation term but also was the actual name of a motel we passed somewhere out in the Midwest. Here it is! Panel 3 is another actual place we saw (B&H Storage) whereas the joke is B&E (which means Breaking and Entering) and that would not be a great storage plan. Panel 4 is referencing that famous song, and Panel 7 is referencing Rushmore. And yes, Panel 8 has more butte humor (and is a reference to the famous line from Finding Nemo!). 

Text:
P1 - 
 M: The rest area is closed.
 L: I guess we all must be wicked.
P2 - 
 L: We could stay at the Gas Lite Motel.
 M: You've always wanted to go there.
P3 - 
 X: We use B&H Storage.
 Y: Better than B&E Storage!
P4 - 
 M: Look, antelope!
 L: Are they playing with the deer?
 M: No, but in the song -
 L: I still feel misled.
P5 - 
 N: 3 out of 3 adults agree - the baby needs to stop whining.
 M: And yet...
 L: *covering ears*
 L2: WHINEEEEE
P6 -
 M: There are horses in blankets over there.
 N: I prefer pigs in blankets.
P7 - 
 L: That mountain needs a face carved on it.
 N: Why not ours?
P8 -
 S: What's there to do in the Badlands?
 L: ... I'm gonna touch the butte.

Nebraska Page 2

Happy Birthday to my amazing husband! He did basically all the planning for our jaunt out to the Midwest and the trip went very smoothly. 
 For the first panel, we did indeed wear our ski jackets out to the Midwest and it was a good thing we did! It got bitterly cold at times. But as you can see in Panel 5, it also got warm! That panel's dialog was taken from a short hike we did to see eagles - we saw deer and cacti instead and possibly eagles but might have been a hawk or vulture. We did not pack binoculars, can you tell? Panel 3 is a throwback to our trip to Germany when a huge statue was described as "Texas" and now I think that whenever I see a massive statue. We did actually see some tumbleweeds, don't let Panel 4 fool you. And per Panel 7, we did have some juvenile humor surrounding the many buttes we saw. 

Text:
P1-
 M: We're gonna look like tourists in Laramie, Wyoming.
 N: Why, the ski jackes?
 M: No, we'll be in Laramie.
P2 - 
 L: How much longer?
 M: 30 minutes.
 L: I feel like you said 45 minutes an hour ago.
 L2: WHINEEE
P3 - *Denver Airport's massive horse statue*
 L: That statue is Texas.
P4 -
 L: We really are out West - a tumbleweed just crossed the highway!
 M: Pretty sure that was a plastic bad.
 L: Close enough!
P5 -
 M: The sun is hot - I am roasting.
 L: Like a red pepper?
P6 -
 M: That's a large eagle.
 L: Or maybe it's a drone!
 N: Birds aren't real.
P7 - 
 M: To your left, the Rocky Mountains!
 N: To your right, a red butte.
 L: *snicker*

 

Nebraska, Page 1

 The week before Easter, we went out to the Midwest for my brother-in-law Peter's wedding. We took a roundabout path to get there - flying into Denver, driving up to Wyoming, over to South Dakota, then finally to Nebraska for the wedding, and finishing by driving back to Colorado to fly out. It was a great week! It was our first major trip with out almost-one-year-old (she's one at time of posting, but you can see this trip was a few weeks ago). We had my brother-in-law Noah with us for the trip which was great - having three adults and one baby is a good ratio :) 

The conversation in this comic didn't quite happen - the waitress was looking at my driver's license because my credit card says to verify ID, and when she asked why we were out there we just gave the short version of "brother marrying a local."

Text:
So much text. This is the title page for my Nebraska travel comic blog so it says "Nebraska" in block letters then specifies "also: Denver CO, Laramie WY, Rapid City SD, and Chadron for Nebraska" with the dates April 11-17, 2022.

Waitress, examining driver's license: What brings someone from Maryland to Nebraska?
M: My brother, who's living in the Middle East, is marrying his fiancée, who's living in Africa, and she's from North Dakota.
W: ?
W: Well, have a nice day!
L: Thanks!