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![]() ![]() On April 12th, 1997 as a sort of joint birthday relaxation
weekend, Mikey humored me and took me up to Paramount Ranch in
the Santa Monica mountains where Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman was
filmed. (This was to be my first visit of many that I would make
before we departed for Japan and before CBS decided to bow to
the powers of the marketing world and take Dr. Quinn off the
air.) We arrived at the Raddison in Agoura Hills on Saturday
afternoon (late) and got settled in. From there we cased out
the park area, did some roaming around and then headed out for
supper. On Sunday morning, after a relaxing breakfast, we wandered
over to the Park and checked out the sets for my favorite television
show (and about the only one I watch). Sunday was a leisurely day as there was no filming on the
set. Consequently, we got to roam around all the sets, sit on
the porch of the homestead and Preston's Spa and idle for lunch
at Grace's café. Monday morning we were up early and raring to go. After a hearty breakfast at IHOP, we headed back over to Paramount Ranch only to find that they were starting off the day by filming at the homestead. We hung out at the big Tree in the round-a-bout for quite a while and watched them set up. Most of the filming was done inside the homestead with only a brief stint outside. Even the filming outside wasn't very revealing. We could hear Brian hollering that Daniel was coming and see John Schneider ride up to the homestead .... Many many times...... While we hung out at the Tree, we met some other DQMW list members and talked about the show, the potential changes and life in general. It turns one two of them were from my neck of the woods (San Diego) and we struck up a friendship. Mike and I ultimately got hungry and wandered back into town so that we could head out and pick up some lunch. Not wanting to miss anything (they were - theoretically - due to start filming in town by 2pm.) we hit the nearest deli, grabbed sandwiches and headed back to the town of Colorado Springs (California style).
Well, the drive home went reasonably well. We grabbed supper from the closest fast food joint and headed back to San Diego. Traffic was light and we made the trip in record time. My next trip to the Ranch occurred during the first part of June. I drove up with Trudy........ For this trip, I had my new "Lando Lover" T-shirt. This trip, I met, through Trudy, William Shockley who plays Hank on the show and we also spent some time talking with John Schneider who will reprise his role for the season as Sully's friend Daniel.
They finished filming in town with a brief trip into town by Jane & family riding in the buckboard. Once they finished up, we headed for supper and then home. My third trip to the Ranch with Trudy occurred the day before final shooting for the summer. Trudy made me a shirt with both Joe's & William's pictures on it in bright pink so we certainly were eye catching. We didn't have high hopes of catching anyone we knew but Trudy was trying to get autographs, etc. for her friend Pat Brown who interviewed various members of the cast for KYXY Radio here in San Diego. Pat was leaving KyXy for a teaching career. She was also hoping to give Joe Lando his wedding gift. Well, we got lucky as far as the other cast members go, but not so lucky with Joe. He was still consigned to the dreaded "Cave" and went directly from his trailer to the cave in the very late afternoon.
The filming for the rest of the day was done inside the Clinic. All the extras and cast members gathered inside the coral that surrounds Grace's. We watched from the sidelines as they pumped cold air into that small building, turned it off, shot the scenes and turned the a/c back on. As various cast members wandered in and out of the area, Trudy was able to get the rest of the signatures for Pat Brown.
All in all the trips were fun but require a great deal of patience. There is a lot of standing around waiting to set up shots, to reshoot scenes sometimes with many takes per scene. Most of the time we couldn't really see much and got only a gist of what was happening. It's not something I have the patience to do on a regular basis but I did enjoy the chances to socialize and definitely liked the opportunity to relax.
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