What I did for my summer vacation

by Finabair (with help from Catwoman and CyberSusan)

Well, it wasn't quite 'summer' vacation; it was actually mid-October, and the trees in the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City were truly lovely. But it *was* during a vacation in Utah. That's me up in the mountains to the left of this.

For the record, we were at the set on business, which was the only way to visit it. I have heard from folks who've gotten to be extras, or who've visited as part of a program like 'Make a Wish' but basically, they were there on 'business' of one sort or another, too. TV sets can't give tours, however much they'd like to - there are simply too many of us fans, they'd never get the show done for us to see!

I wanted to share this experience with you all, and the only way I can do that is through my words. So here goes.


Photo by Cybersusan
I was at the set with CyberSusan, who kept John Dye's website for him, and there was one other lady with us, nicknamed Catwoman. We arrived in the earlier part of the afternoon, and since John was in hair/makeup at the time, we were shown to the food tent at first, which was incredible. They seemed to have something for everyone there. (Why doesn't *my* job feed us like that?) ;-)

The food tent was filled with folks from the staff and crew, and extras. Most of the people around us seemed to be wearing costumes of one sort or another. Some folks were wearing lovely native American costumes while some men were wearing suits and had slicked back hair. I couldn't identify what decade the suits were from (for one thing, I was a bit distracted by *all* the neat things to see) but they looked to be from several decades ago. We never did find out exactly what all the costumes were for. We were thinking maybe they were used in some of the flashbacks for the episode, but we were never sure.

Fairly soon our guide came to collect us and bring us over to the set. She brought us across the street, to where John and Roma's trailers were set up. John's trailer said, *Andrew* on the door, while Roma's said *Monica* on the door and featured an "Angel Crossing" sign in front of it, sort of like the one to the left of this. (And those nameplates had little stars on either side of the name, where I've typed asterisks.) We waited a bit more while our guide consulted with Roma about some business. John came out of his trailer while we were waiting near Roma's, but we were all too chicken to go over and say 'hi' without our guide's OK, and he didn't see us there.

By the time our guide was ready for us, John had disappeared inside a building across from the trailers. We followed, to find a huge, spacious warehouse with *tons* of lighting and camera equipment just inside the door, extending well into the warehouse. There was a big scaffolding set up, with a platform about 12 feet above the floor on it, and white siding attached to the front of it. Hanging well behind that was a huge green screen. I later learned this was the 'edge' of the "Hollywood" sign that Monica and Andrew were sitting on in the episode. Off to our left was a set that looked like a window with a bar sign outside of it. I really wasn't paying much attention to all of that yet, however, as we were about to meet John, and I was just a trifle nervous.

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