GCRF Words

[fbhjr]

Thursday I went into work early so I could get out by 3:30 and pick up ravena_kade at the train station near where I work. We then drove
home where palusbuteo met us and we headed out.
We were on the road by 5PM, which isn’t too bad. There have been other
years we haven’t been on the road until after 6.

My wife had also gotten up early and met with morgan_lafaye,
blue_micha & the new guy. They had breakfast together and were
on the road somewhere around 8 in the morning.
As I worked through the day I checked on their progress with my wife’s
cellphone locator. I had to admit, it was a bit sad seeing them move south
away from us.
But, when we got on the road, we did our best to catch up.

It’s about 1200 miles/2000 km each way. It takes more or less 24 hours to
do it. The theory is that if you maintained the speed limit the whole way
and somehow could do it without stopping for anything you could do it in 20
hours. But, you need fuel, bathrooms, food and just time to get out and
move around.
(Yes, there was one year when perrin_o_ravnos and I did it in
18 hours. But, we were very intent on keeping the schedule.)

After 18 hours of driving, my wife’s car stopped for the night. My car
kept driving to make up the 8 hour head start they had on us.

One of the hardest parts of the trip is staying awake. So, having people
with you who know how to keep you awake is critical. The best way to keep
me awake it to get me to tell stories. I can’t tell stories if I’m falling
asleep and I love to tell stories.
While palusbuteo has heard many of my stories ravena_kade had not, so that worked out well.
And, in the Carolinas palusbuteo and I had a long discussion of
the Star Wars theme music, how it ties into other music and the meaning
behind the themes. So, that kept me going until the sun rise. I’m fairly
solar powered, so I did much better when the sun came up.

During the night we only ran into one big problem. Just south of
Washington DC, the highway stopped. It was just before midnight, and the
shut the road down.
This is the same place where my wife and I were stuck in 4 hours of traffic
at Christmas. I had thought at midnight on a Friday morning it would be OK.
But, they were doing construction and they through that was the best time
to close the road.
It was only 14F/-10C out, so we sat there burning gas to keep warm while
not moving for an hour and a half.
In the middle of that, my camera decided to stop working. I’m not at all
sure what was wrong with it. It just jammed halfway open and said “replace
battery”. I put in a new one. Same thing.
I did take some photos with my iPhone, but it isn’t the same.
Once we got out of Virginia it started to work again. So, between traffic
and the phone I think Virginia doesn’t like me.

A gas station in North Carolina also didn’t like me. Well, didn’t like my
credit cards. It wouldn’t take them for gas. I didn’t feel bad as four
other people had the same problem. We never found out what it was as I
could use my card to check my balance, but not to take out money of pay for
things.

As the sun rose and the other car got going again we had closed the gap to
about an hour between us.

The last section of the trip is to drive south on route 65 through Alabama.
This is a section of the country without a whole lot in it. It is a couple
of hours where there are only a couple of towns and most of them very small.
My wife’s car called to say that there was construction on this road and it
was stopped.
Given the hour of notice, we consulted our maps and decided to take back
roads instead of the highway.

We got off the highway and got on what I thought was the right road.
It was not.
We went for about 15 minutes and noticed a lot of smoke.
We came to a place where there was a big area of trees and brush on fire.
We decided it wasn’t the right direction and went back.
We did find the right road and got on it.

We did still keep to the 24 hour travel time. But, only just.

Car one beat us by an hour. They were given the location of setting up on
the spot that broke our old tent 2 years ago, or next the performing poodle
lady.
Although I love dogs, the poodle lady has complained about the noise of our
sword fighting before. And, that has been when we were only on stage and
not right next to her.
We picked in the tent eating spot and I think that was best all around.

By the time my car got there the tent was mostly up. We helped do the
final sides of it and then unpack the things that could stay overnight at
the site.

We drove up to the hotel, which was not far away, and unpacked the people.
We ordered Chinese food and had it delivered to the hotel.
I slept.

About 2:30 in the morning, our member from New Orleans, David, made it
over. So, I woke up to greet him and feel back asleep. It’s a bit strange
that with the 3 hour drive he got there so much later than the others, but
that’s how it often works. The rest of us were to leave for the faire at 7
the next morning. I told him to sleep until 8 and meet us.

The other good thing about where we set up our tent, it was right across
from the place where most of our sword shows were going to be. So it was
an easy carry to get out stuff there and back for the show.

The weather was great! 70F/21C both days. Bright and sunny both days. A
bit of wind, but nothing compared to what often comes off the Gulf of
Mexico.
So, no complaints about that in any way!

Our shows went well. The “main act” of our show was based on the 7 deadly
sins and a sword fight over each of them. The loser of the sword fight was
brought to the front of the rail and the folks in the audience were allowed
to throw plastic fruit at them.

Personally, I like the educational shows we do. Our first show of the day
is about demonstrating the actual sword techniques from the sword masters
between 1300 and 1700. We have lots of different types of swords, daggers,
sickles and such. We do different styles from Germany, Italy, England and
France.
We get a dozen or two people to watch.

Give out plastic fruit and let people throw it at you? Easily double to
triple the audience and more come and join every time you do it.
Ah well, bread and circus. Plastic fruit may count as both.

David, our New Orleans guy, didn’t show up at 8 as I had asked him. Or 9.
Or 10 when the faire opened.
I tried calling him. No answer.
I tried calling the hotel. No answer.
I tried texting him. No answer.
I was starting to worry that he had somehow died in his hotel room and
wouldn’t be found until we were done with our shows and could find time to
go back and check.
But, he did eventually show up. He had just been so tired he slept through
it all.
That’s better than dead.
He is on our books as a guest star instead of a regular member. And, he
wasn’t critical to the show. But, I still would be happier if he showed up
on time.

For the last three years the stage where we do our end of the day fire show
has had a speaker system set up. For those three years, we have carried
our own speaker the 3000 mile round trip and not used it.
This time we left the speaker at home and there was no speaker on stage.
The fire show without music isn’t as good as with.
It was still OK, but just not as good.

The real problem we have is that it is right at the end of the day as the
last joust ends. We are between the crowd and the exit. That’s a good
location to be doing a show. But, the crowd wants to go home.
I can’t count how many people I’ve heard say “that’s really cool, but we’re
still going home.”
I guess the good news is that the folks who do stop and sit down are very
interested in it.

After the show we went back to the hotel. One of the barbeque places we
often go to eat while in Pensacola was right behind the hotel and there was
a walking path to it. There was a big pool of water next to it too, so
there was a lot of discussion about walking with alligators. But, we
didn’t see any. That doesn’t prove much. I don’t often see them even when
others do.

The family from Mobile who has been coming to our shows for many years now
drove the 40 or so miles to come see us this year too. They were staying
at the same hotel as we were, so they joined us for dinner.
The restaurant seemed totally OK with about 20 folks in costume walking in
and asking for a table. The folks eating there didn’t seem quite as happy
about it, but what can you do?
The waitress was even willing to climb up on a table to get a group shot of
us all eating there. So, they seem pretty happy to get our business.

After dinner we had our traditional debriefing meeting and everyone seemed
happy with the way things had gone. So, we made very few changes in the
show for day 2.

Day 2 went much as day 1.
David got there a bit earlier. He came up to me at 11:30 and said “See, I
made it for the show this time.”
“They show started at 11, and is done now,” I said.
“What?”
“We’re finishing, not starting.”
“Oh. Well, I almost got here in time!”

For reasons not clear to anyone, there were less people there Sunday than
Saturday. Usually it’s about 4000 people on Saturday and about 6000 people
on Sunday. This time it was 4k and 2k. For a total of 6000.
Now 6k people is not an audience to complain about. But, it was less than
the organizers expected.
One of the problems was that it was Mardi Gras weekend. There was a parade
Saturday and a lot of people showed up to the faire after the parade.
Sunday maybe they were partied out.
Don’t know.

Throwing fruit still went over well. I had several different people come
up to me and tell me what a good show it was and how much they liked it.
Some of them did hours after we did the show. So, I guess they did like it.

My wife hired a drummer from the belly dancing group to come do music for
our fire show. He came up to me and went on about how generous my wife was
and how happy he was to do it and what great people we were.
“How much did you pay him?” I asked my wife.
She told me it was $20. While that’s a lot for a half an hour of work, he
seemed very grateful for it.

Saturday had been blue_micha’s birthday. To celebrate, Sunday
we went off to a seafood restaurant that is right on the beach. (Crabs we
got em)
Packing the car took a while. And, folks wanted to change out of costume
before we went. So, by the time we got out there (it is at least ½ hour
from the hotel) capt_amos & mythfish were paying
their bill to leave. (They don’t have a big fancy tent as we do. There
are pros and cons to this.)
But, they stayed for the birthday party. The family from Mobile did as
well. The only problem with that was reminding people to watch their
language in front of the kids.
Once dinner was over we went and walked on the beach. It is nice to be
right on the Gulf of Mexico when it is warm. But, it was very dark so you
couldn’t see much.

It is very nice that the folks from Mobile think so highly of us that they
come to all our shows and like to hang around with us afterwards. It’s a
husband, wife and two kids and they are all very nice. It’s a bit strange
to us that they seem to like us that much, but we aren’t going to complain
about having fans.

The crab place is very touristy. So, the food is only OK and the drinks
are watered. But, they have a woman who puts on a crab suit and dances
around. And, the rum drinks come in big buckets. My wife drank two and
said it wasn’t even close to even one drink at the sushi place at home.
But, everyone seemed to have fun.

Sunday night we said goodbye to the folks from down there and went back to
the hotel for the night.

I was quite worried because after the faire Sunday I couldn’t find my
camera. I knew I had it at the end of the faire when we were carrying
stuff to the cars, but I couldn’t find it before the crab place or back in
the hotel room. My worry was that I had put it down on top of the car and
it had fallen off somewhere. I went back to the faire site and looked
around, but couldn’t find it.
I was very sad.

Monday morning we got up to get on the way by 7. We walked out to the car
and palusbuteo wanted to drive the charger. So, I handed him
the keys, he opened the driver door and found my camera between the seat
and the door.
I was very happy.

As we loaded up the cars to go, the hotel had the national weather on the
TV in the lobby. Everyone was talking about the rain/ice/snow storm that
was pounding the east coast.
The same east coast we needed to drive to get home.
The storm was very large and there was no way we could go around it without
doubling our trip. As it was already 24 hours, we couldn’t afford that.

The good news was the storm was already hitting and the places it was
hitting were 8-9 hours away from where we started. So, we decided to head
north, but not too fast.
We stopped and had a nice breakfast in Alabama.
We stopped and had a nice dinner in South Carolina.
By the time the sun set, most of the storm had moved off shore and they had
had a chance to clean up the snow.

The flaw in the plan was discovered in North Carolina when the road turned
to ice. I don’t mean it had some ice on it. I mean it was ice from side
to side for several miles.
The folks in our cars know what to do about that. Slow down, drive steady,
no moves or direction changes and keep going as steady as you can.
We passed close to a dozen cars that had just shot off the edge of the road
into the ditches to either side. One van decided we weren’t going fast
enough and tried to cut between us. He lost control between our two cars
and almost wiped out the second car. But, he got control and all was OK.

This continued for several hours. Us driving slow on very bad roads.
Folks around us not knowing what they were doing and crashing off the road.
We got through it OK, but only moving at half speed for a long time.

The new guy hadn’t heard any of my stories before, so I had plenty to tell.
That was good for keeping me awake for a long time.

By the time we got into Virginia, it had been snow and had been plowed.
So, that was much easier to deal with. By the time we got up into Maryland
and New Jersey, they seemed to have missed the storm and the roads were
dry. So, we could go back to normal cruising speed.
But, the storm had been enough to stop construction so for the first time
in a long time we went through Virginia without problems.

The downside, we reached the NYC area at 7AM.

Rush hour in New York City. Not good. Not good at all.
So, we took an alternate route and ran through New Jersey to a part of New
York above the city to cross over into New England. That cost us more time
as even going close to NYC at rush hour meant the traffic stopped.

We eventually got back about noon. So 28 hours total. That’s certainly
above average, but I feel no guilt at going slow on the ice. Too many cars
went off of the road for that.

Everyone helped unload the car into storage, then we went back to where
they parked at our place and folks went to their cars.
ravena_kade got a ride from palusbuteo to the train
station and I’m pretty sure she got home there. (I feel bad she had to
take the train home from our place, but I can’t say I was in a great
condition to driver her back home either.)

My wife and I went to return the rental car. It was so covered in salt you
could no longer tell it was red. As there is a clause about bringing it
back with “excessive dirt” on it, I took it to get washed before turning it
in. It was nice and red again at the end.

My wife and I then drove up to our favorite restaurant, O’Connor’s.
As we walked in the owner came over.
“So, does your group have any shows this spring?” he asked.
“We just drove home from one in Pensacola,” I said.
“Right now? And you came here for lunch? God bless you, lets get you some
food.”
It was good to be home.

Comments

[evrgreen.livejournal.com]

Glad that you are back safe and sound!

IF anyone got a picture of the waitress in tehe crab costume - I want to see it!

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

No worries.

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

“So, does your group have any shows this spring?” he asked.
“We just drove home from one in Pensacola,” I said.
“Right now? And you came here for lunch? God bless you, lets get you some
food.”

that's awesome. :D the drive home, not so much. gah. i'm so sorry you ran into the weather and so thankful you shose to take the extra time.

i'm glad, though, that it sounds like your shows went really well. :D i had no idea you let the audience throw plastic fruit at the loser of a sword fight; it sounds like a lot of fun. :D

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

We don't let everyone hit us with fruit. Only this one show...

[tatjna.livejournal.com]

Does the salt from the roads make cars rust faster? Ones that are kept on the coast here tend to get more rust, but we don't have road salting.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. The car washes around here all say "Salt Eats Cars" on their signs.
And it is very true.
Especially the amount of salt they dump on the roads.

But, it does make them much better to drive on in winter...

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

that you do that at all is fantastic. i can see why they love it. :)

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

Glad to know you are home safe and sound! Driving in icy weather doesn't sound like much fun at all.

Can't wait to see some photos.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

It wasn't much fun. But, we know how to do it. I feel bad for the folks who didn't and ended up in the ditch!

Photos are up whenever you feel like seeing them...

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

saw them! and they are fabulous!

[circumspectly.livejournal.com]

Congrats for making it through...it sounds like most of it was fun...even with the bratty "guest star" and the crappy drive back!

Welcome home!

[perrin-o-ravnos.livejournal.com]

Folks have never bathroom-ed so fast as they did the year of 18 hours. Glad the shows went so well. I prefer doing the educational shows as well. Man do I miss those buckets of rum. The first year we had them it wasn't so watered down. Of course, anything tastes watered down compared to the drinks Osaka's gives your wife!

[meathiel]

Glad to hear you got back okay ... those icy roads must've been scary!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Wow, what a long drive! Sounds like it was well worth it though. :) Glad you found your camera!

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

A black camera in a black camera case somewhere in a black carpeted car at night?
I don't know why I had trouble finding it...

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

I think it was because it was the day of the Marti Gras parade. The first folks there had to wait for it to go by before they went in. So, we had just missed it by minutes.
I think maybe for events like that the drinks are...extended, maybe with more water than normal.

[ravena-kade.livejournal.com]

Gotta love the owner of O'Connor's. That's better than anything ever said about the fictional CHEERS.

[hindustar.livejournal.com]

Wow. Glad you all made it safe!