We survived! (and had a good time)

Pennsic was an adventure this year.  Between not having enough people there for landgrab, storms, and not having some of the pieces for hooking up the water, shower, and stoves, setup did not go smoothly at all.  Among other things the BAFT (our large common area/rain shelter) was smashed flat by a storm during the first week.  However, everbody rallied around and we recovered.  By Saturday evening the BAFT was back up and shower and stoves were working.  From there on Pennsic was good: hanging out around the fire and talking until all hours, good classes, fencing, shopping, and relaxing.  Bork's Tavern Party went really well again and the Rapier Woods Battle was great fun.  Lots of action, fighting alongside X & Z, and good sportsmanship on all sides.  The Cleftlands unit fought well together and we did a good job of achieving our objectives.  It was a good week totally away from mundane life.

However, the adventure was not over.  After tearing down camp and packing everything into our two cars, the minivan wouldn't start.  It had started fine that morning, it turned over fine, there was no sign of anything being wrong, it just wouldn't start.  After Nial and I fiddled with it for a while, we gave up and called AAA only to find out that it would be several hours until a tow truck could get there (apparently there was only one tow truck covering the whole county).  We discussed the situation and decided to have B, X, & Z drive back because X had to catch a train at 5 a.m. while I dealt with the minivan.  I had pizza with the remaining Bork crew, helped marVid take down his tent, and periodically confirmed that the car still wouldn't start.  Finally the towtruck showed up and offered to tow me to the one garage that was open on Saturday.  He goe the minivan all hooked up to thw towtruck, turned the key, there was a big puff of smoke and it started!  The towtruck driver figured that it had flooded.  Any way, it ran fine and I was able to drive home in the rain rather than spending the rest of the weekend in a garage.

I wasn't even that late getting home.  However, yet more adventure awaited.  When I got home I discovered that Rodents of Unusual Size had invaded while we were gone.  The good news was that they had been neutralized by our perimiter defenses while we were gone.  The bad news was that they had been neutralized by our perimiter defenses while we were gone and had sat for a week.  It was pretty gross but it didn't take long to clean up.  Then all that was left was to do all of X';s laundry and get up at 4 a.m. and take him to the train station.  Despite the tribulations, everybody's spirits were good and we had a great time.

Now we've had a week to recover and we're looking forward to next year.