Impromptu Trip to Universal – August 12, 2004

Impromptu Trip to Universal – August 12, 2004

Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin

 

I really wanted to send a thank you gift to the cast before they wrapped. I kept thinking about it and I just really wanted to give them something in appreciation for all of their hard work. I kept thinking of toys, something small but couldn’t come up with anything good.

 

I was planning on hanging out on a Thursday with Julie, whom I just met at the San Diego Comic Con. She lived near where I work so we had been trying to get together for two weeks. So we both had Thursday off. Now since Jewel posted about the wrap party and Alan was set to start shooting (according to IMDB) Into the West on August 16th, I thought this might be their last week shooting Serenity. Carol was on vacation and so I told her about wanting to go back to Universal. I e-mailed Julie and she was totally up for a little adventure. I told her I couldn’t promise anything. My mission was to get a little something to the cast, not necessarily directly to the cast. I was hoping for a nice production assistant or security guard.

 

The plan was to go in the afternoon and see if we could catch anyone coming back from lunch. We arrived at the infamous bushes around 2pm and sat around writing thank you cards for Chris, Joss and the whole cast. We included some candy. We waited for a while and finally we saw Nathan on his way to the set. He saw us and waved. I was holding the bag of goodies for him. Carol shouted, “We have a present for you.” So Nathan jumped out of the cart and took the bag. He had to run because he was needed on the set, he thanked us and he was on his way. I was just so happy to have been able to give him the bag. Poor dear was in such a hurry getting back in that he bumped his head.

 

Julie takes a picture of  Carol and Rosie in the bushes.          

    Nathan taking our gift to the cast.

So now I was totally satisfied. We continued to sit there hoping for a view of someone else. I really wanted a chance to talk to Adam again. Lo and behold who was walking toward the set, “Adam!!!” I called out to him and he came to us. Julie was wearing a Serenity shirt she made from the promotional material at the con. I told him about the gift bag and he noticed the Serenity shirt and said cool. He asked her name and shook her hand; simple little things that just make such a difference. So he told us they were filming actiony stuff today. He mentioned putting the security guard in his place at San Diego Comic Con and I smiled. I told him we came down now since I thought they might be wrapping up soon. He said their last day shooting would be August 26th-27th. Summer walked by as we were speaking but we did not call out to her. Then Adam had to go.  He did take a moment to pose for some pictures.

 

          Adam posing for the camera.

 We were hoping to catch Summer later but we missed her as she made her way back onto the set. We waited for a while. It was hot and it was nice to sit in the shade. Once our tummy’s started rumbling we figured we needed to get some food and enjoy the rest of our time in the park. We made our way to the Mummy the Ride this is where we met Jeremy. He noticed the Serenity shirt and called out to us. We told him we were fans as we walked by. He was a Browncoat, a lurker more than a poster. He was in charge of the priority front of the line access. We were going to the single rider line since that was faster than the normal line. I looked back at Jeremy and he was calling us over. He said you’re lucky I like Serenity and hand us a front of the line pass for the Mummy. Normal wait time is 55 min the last time we checked. We are astonished, overjoyed and incredibly happy at our good luck. We went in and the line plus the ride was closer to 5 minutes than 10 minutes total. Afterward we posed for a picture with him and I gave him links to the OB. He is such a shiny Browncoat. It just made me proud to be a Browncoat. He was definitely a BDH to us that day.  It was a truly shiny day.