Ep. 1 - Roadtrip for a Rhinox - Closed

::Should be able to. It's less than 10 hours to Berkeley from here. Should have time to spare, and be the first ones in line.::

Of course, there was the issue of getting permission to go. Silly military and all.

Jazz wasn't terribly worried about that, though. Worst Optimus would do was likely to tell them to take the ground bridge instead to minimize time away. Still. Official requests needed to be made....

::Jazz to Optimus. I uh...I know I'm on monitors from now til forever, but could I and Rhinox have a day or two to go visit this?:: "This" was the corpseflower page. Somehow showing it was a little better than explaining to Optimus Prime that you wanted to take the resident horticultural geek to see a rare smelly herbaceous sex organ. ....though Jazz REALLY would have loved to see the look on Optimus' face.

::It's a hobby of Rhinox's. He'd mentioned he'd like to see one of these flower, and this is one of the few around here. He'd really like it, and I think he'd like to have someone to do it with. And ok, ok, I wouldn't mind seeing a bit of the west coast. I'll really owe you one? I'll take extra monitor shifts! I'll scrub the floors! Clean the medbay! Organize your crystal collection! Whatever you want! Pleeeeeeeaaaaase?::

Ok, the youngling-esque glyphs on the end there might have been over the top, but Jazz had learned them from the galaxy record-holder in sparkling-opticked begging. And he had so few chances to bring them out....

Jazz huffed a fond sigh that he let show in his glyphs. ::You heard me loud and clear, Prime. You know me, helpful as anything. Always ready to lend a hand. And I heard the words "48-hours of leave", right? Right! Great! Rhinox will be soooo happy. Thanks, Prime! Jazz out.::

Woot, Jazz thought, grinning as he burst a status update on the cohort channel, letting Hide and Blue and Shadow know why he was disappearing on such short notice (and fielded a few "...you're going to go see WHAT?"s), then switched back to the channel with Rhinox.

::Aaaand we just so happen to have 48 hours of leave starting right now, so we can take our sweet time getting there.:: Jazz updated the mainframe with their leave and vague plans. ::So. Roadtrip once I get off-shift? Anyone else you want to bring with?::

Jazz had to admit that he was looking forward to this. A great mission, another great mission that he'd enjoyed vicariously through a very happily-getting-better cohortmate, and now...a roadtrip.

This week was turning into an awesome week.

Jazz finished fielding his cohort ("Be good, keep Ironhide in line for me, don't destroy the place while I'm gone, and Blue...Blue...c'mon, mecha, not with the turbopuppy eyes, 'kay? We'll go on a cohort roadtrip some other time.") and headed to Control by way of his rarely-used quarters to grab a few things for the trip. Y'know. Just in case they might need them. He still made it to the Control Room before Rhinox and spent the rest of his time waiting queueing up a roadtrip playlist.

He wondered if Rhinox liked Tom Petty or George Thorogood better.

"Awesome, my mech." Jazz walked backwards, grinning at Steeljaw on the monitors. "Watch the place while I'm gone, don't let the younglings eat too many gummies, and if something goes wrong, definitely DO NOT call me. Be back later, ta!"

Jazz skipped (literally skipped) over to Rhinox, collapsing into his vehicle form. "C'mon, my mech, we got us a flower to visit!" He revved his engine.

His first real chance to explore a major metropolitan area. He was perhaps a bit excited.

"So! Your trip, your choice of road. Though I might suggest that we make a loop, to maximize our roadtripping pleasure. 395 and 120 one way, Interstate 5 the other?"

Jazz grinned as he followed Rhinox through the gate.

The place he'd picked to land the bridge was not THE closest safe place to Berkeley. All right, it was actually a lot farther from Berkeley than was really necessary, but Jazz figured that Rhinox wouldn't mind the slight diversion.

The 'bridge landed them on a wooded dirt road, under a clear blue sky. The trees on either side of the road were tall and straight, and after a moment to let his GPS update, Jazz nudged around Rhinox's larger frame to take the lead. "C'mon...this way!"

More roads, more trees (and they were pretty trees, Jazz had to admit, even though he was far from the expert in the group). Then, finally, a larger, paved road marked with brown signs. Jazz stopped at one that read "Sherman Tree Trail & Parking ---->" and followed the arrow into a parking lot. The lot itself was empty of people at the moment, though cars and trucks were scattered here and there. A sign for the trail was off to the side.

Jazz let his field GRIN. "Thought you might enjoy this on the way to the flower. C'mon, let's go for a walk."

<<Yup. Jazz's gonna take Rhinox to see General Sherman. They'll need to pull out hardlight holograms to go walk on the trail. >>

Jazz rippled his EMF in laughter. "Me neither. Yours looks good, though. How's mine?" He set his holoform -- a smiling, curly-haired, dark-skinned woman in jeans and a t-shirt that he'd scanned while she and her friends walked down Jasper's main drag one evening -- next to Rhinox's. "Aaaaw, we look cute together."

He had the holoform stretch to get the kinks out of the movement algorithms, then had it nod to the trail. "C'mon. It's not a long walk, and it's got a big reward at the end of it."

His holoform walked up the trailhead, taking his viewpoint with it. The trail itself was packed dirt, studded with lumber-backed steps as they descended over about a half-mile. The trees to either side were like those from the road: a mix of pine and deciduous, many tall and straight and studded with insects and birds that twittered high above. Sunlight filtered through the trees, though Jazz attempted to avoid it as much as possible. Sunlight and holoforms did not mix so great.

They encountered only a small group of shorts-clad hikers who smiled and waved as Jazz and Rhinox stood to the side to let them pass.

Jazz smiled as they turned the last bend and saw the whole point of this exercise down a short, wiggling path. He turned, grinning, walking backward toward the humongous sequioa tree so he could see Rhinox's face. Jazz stopped next to the ridiculously tiny enclosing fence, throwing his form's arms wide. "Rhinox, meet General Sherman. Largest known living single-stem tree on Earth."

The General -- 275 feet tall, 25 feet in diameter, and nearly 2.5 million pounds -- tossed his leaves in the playful breeze high above.