lets start with leaving the house 16 HOURS late. the plan was to leave at midnight. yea. right. we left at 4pm Friday afternoon....i had to be at land grab at 9am sat morning.
why so late? I was cleaning the house while I was packing. and it rained. and it rained some more. than I went up to load Elisabeth's stuff....and had to unpack all the stuff that was in the car, than get her stuff outside, than try to pack the car while planning ahead for how I was going to get my stuff in there too.... by the time we left her house the car was full.
I would like to now point out that I am a car Tetris GOD! I was able to fit 5 totes into the all ready full car. we had to leave the water cooler, and strap the rugs to the roof, but I got everything into the car!
by then my bf was off work, we were hungry, so we all went out for supper.
finally at 4pm we were ready to go....
the drive wasn't too bad.
at least till we hit the monsoons......
and than the fog.....
we finally got to pennsic around 5am and were through troll at parked around 5:30.
I took a nap and let Elisabeth sleep while I did the land grab thing. it wasn't too hard, but we were delayed due to the lack of one land agent. luckily we had set up the map before hand so we were able to sign off on the map even though the one person wasn't there yet.
set up wasn't too bad. I did forget that there is one stage of setting up my tent that requires 4 people to hold the main poles in place. other than that it went well.
the ez up was great! we had it set up so both of our tents opened up into it. this worked out really well.
first week was great. it was hot but we just walked up the hill (like 30 foot) to the shade and chilled in the portable hammock. one of my campmates taught me how to do embroidery. we visited with some old friends, made some new ones....laying in the park at night chatting was a nice way to end the nights.
Jeremiah got there on the afternoon of the middle Saturday. he brought be an actual bed! very cool, his second wood working project (his first was the attempt that proceeded this one). it even had a message on it from his mom. written on the slat part of the bed was "no sex, bed squeaks!". ahhhh, its nice to know she was looking out for us.......
it was decided that he'd go to bed early, I'd go out with Elisabeth and folks, and than he'd be recovered from the drive/lack of sleep.
and than it rained........
and it didn't stop till Thursday.....
second week kind sucked. it was HOT and it rained, and much suckyness was had by all.
if I'm going to take a couple photos, of a friend, have taken care to put TALL sheet walls creating a corner as the backdrop, made sure NO ONE other than us are in said corner,which further more is not in the direction if anyone doing anything compromising, and have already talked with someone from the camp who was ok with the positioning and the fact its a friend of ours who is POSING for the photos (they were not bad ones either)......
DO NOT threaten me
DO NOT threaten my sister
DO NOT reach for my camera
what you can do is fuck straight off. I don't care who you have, or what they are doing. I made sure there was noo ne / nothing else in frame, so back off.
yea---alcohol and idiots don't mix well
we did make it out to take photos of the fencing one day, did some major shopping, got to play in the giant trampoline.....
the trampoline was cool. I went to get on it and my knees and arms shot through the holes, than I got my medallion stuck. from the distance you hear "WENCH DOWN!" LOL thanks captain! we got it bouncing pretty good, had lots of fun, moria did an awesome summersault dismount off of it, while I once again got the medallion stuck.
do not let the drunk firebreather pick up the crayfish. if you do, do not tell him people eat them. he WILL attempt to eat the poor thing and it will be hard to persuade him to let it go in the creek.
listening to the drunk campmate try to explain to your bf how he was just leaning on you for support and not to take it wrong, will result in a chuckle. it was the truth but boy did he freak out when Jeremiah came back to the party......
the last Friday night was VERY nice. went up to the ridden moon for a party. watched the lady dancing with fire fans and staff. watched the boys blow fire off her fans and staff. watched the burning of the pig. danced. finished the night off with singing.
Saturday Jeremiah got really sick. we started packing up while he napped in the shade. when he was finally feeling a bit better we went up to get the cars, stopping by to say good bye to some friends. got to the car and it wouldn't start.
dad had apparently took the jumper cables out of the car before we left..
no one we stopped had any either, but one guy gave Jeremiah a lift to my car (which did have a set).
the car wouldn't jump. after an hour of fighting with it we got ahold of dad and found out that there is a bad connection to the battery. apparently he forgot to mention it? so we find someone with tools and get everything tightened down and low and behold the car starts. YAY! by now we're hot and tired so we decide to run into town, get supper, and let the battery charge up at the same time.
we go to the pizza hut in New Castle, have supper, but when we go to leave the car wont start.
ok. fine. we'll pop the hood, wiggle the damn cable, and off we'll go.
mmmmmm? why wont the hood open?
apparently the thingy you pull in the car to unlatch the hood is connected to a cable that runs to the front of the car under the hood. can you guess where the cable is now unhooked?
so there we are, stuck in PA with a broken down car, no way to get under the hood to try and fix it, and no one to call for help. everyone from home is already gone, random people we know are all gone, the only people we know are still there are the folks from eoforwic, and I don't have a cell for any of them. this would be when we find out that coopers lake is not found in the new castle phone book....
the manager of pizza hut must have decided we were just too pathetic. he called AAA for us.
the number for coopers lake IS found on the car hangtags though. so we call the , get someone who would take a message down to pennsic services, leave a message with our land block/camp location, something about the carbreaking down, and my cell . the tow truck arrived right as a couple of the guys from eoforwic get there. the two truck guy was able to jump the car off the starter, than show the guys how so they could do it again in the morning. since it was AAA there was no charge.
we eventually made it back to camp, curled up by the fire, and eventually Jeremiah and I decided to go to sleep. it was kina cool to lay in bed with the rain fly off the tent and watch the stars as we fell asleep.
Sunday morning I look up to see one campmate walk up to the car with a hook in his hand. POP! there opens the hood. he just looks over and saying something about lots of practice...next here comes a guy with tools. he rehooks the cable, tightens it down, rigs a second release that can be accessed from outside the car "just in case", than proceeds to tighten the connection REALLY well so there'll be no problems getting home. have I mentioned how cool eoforwic is????
we finished packing up. Jeremiah loaded up most of the stuff (including all of the heavy stuff but the ez up), but he eventually had to leave ahead of us since he had to be at work at 5am.
the ride back was fairly uneventful. we had to pull over and retie the rugs. apparently I AM coordinated enough to stand with one foot on the seat, one on the door handle, and manipulate a ratchet strap. anyone who has seen me vs. a ratchet strap in person would have had all bets on me planting my face into the interstate, but nope! I even had a semi graceful dismount. other than that about the only interesting thing was the impromptu photo shoot at some random rest stop around midnight. we got home at 2:30 am Monday