The Markeroni Blog

This is the story of the first Markeroni Unconvention, which took place from 30th January to 1st February 2009. Whether this is an annual event or just a rolling convention that moves from city to city as and when people can be bothered to organize them, we have not established. I did think you might finally want to see the pictures, though. ;)

The Unconvention started bright and early at the one coffee shop in town that was open all weekend. I amused myself by drinking coffee, reading the tourism brochures from the goodie bags, and texting back and forth with the missing Markeroons until they started to arrive two hours later, burdened with bad travel-fu. ;)

Once everyone (i.e. beautyredefined, AmberLee and WanderingRaleighite) was re/united at a little after noon, our first order of business was LUNCH. This was accomplished at Togo’s, a sandwich chain.

After we’d taken care of munchies, it was time to unveil the goodie bags. This is beautyredefined, finding her package of coconut markeroon cookies and immediately getting the joke. ;)

One day, when Markeroni is well-funded, there will be real macaroons. ;)

Because people were suffering from jetlag, carlag, trainlag and buslag, I had planned a quiet day, not very heavy on the walking and landmark-hunting. We headed first to the State Indian Museum.

This museum is not only a snarf in its own right — the first Indian museum commissioned by the government in California — but a fascinating repository of Indian artifacts and culture. There were displays of ritual clothing and interpretation was set up to give an idea of what the different tribes did to keep themselves in food and housing.

I’ve heard California described as a series of isolated nations; we have a lot of geography here. That is very much reflected in the diverse customs and cultures of the tribes.

When we had finished, the curator sent us back in to look at the minuscule hand-woven baskets. You had to look at them through a magnifying glass. They were perfect in every way, and only a few millimeters wide.

We could not take pictures inside the museum, presumably because of the sensitive nature of the exhibits, but it was well worth the small fee to get in.

After that, it was time to move on to the next fun thing, Sutter’s Fort. (Show up tomorrow!)