[Sca-cooks] OT-Sometimes the adventure is traveling to Pennsic (long)

[Stefan li Rous]

>> So, here I am, 6 hours on the road to Pennsic, and still at home.
>>
>> Why do I think this is going to be an interesting War?
>>
>> <Sigh>
>>
>> Saint Phlip,
>> CoD
>
> Wow, call for AAA and get an Assault team. Interesting War? Sounds  
> like you
> have survived the first battle.  Godspeed and blessings on your  
> further
> travels.
>
> Tod

Sometimes the drive to or from Pennsic is more of an adventure than  
Pennsic is. Perhaps the fact that it is a 27 hour trip from the  
center of Ansteorra to Pennsic, affects this. Although Phlip had  
plenty of adventure just a few hours from home.

For Pennsic 25, I caught a ride to Pennsic with Sir Kief and his  
group. Some of you will recognize Sir Kief as the one-legged knight  
from Ansteorra. The one whom, in a tournament or war, you really,  
really don't want to take out his one remaining leg. He fights even  
better on the ground than standing.

Sir Kief lives in the barony of Ravens Fort, mundanely Huntsville,  
TX, which is three hours east from Austin. So, My wife drives me  
there and I wait a while until everyone shows up and we load up. Kief  
is driving a full-size van and towing David St. David's 24 ft, dual  
axle flatbed trailer and David is hauling Kief's smaller trailer.  
Well, this is in east Texas. We can go directly to Pennsic going  
northeast, but there is no Interstate going that way and it would  
mean stopping at the signal lights in every small east Texas town.  
And there's a bunch of them. So, we take the Interstate to Dallas to  
the northwest, before turning northeast towards Pennsic. So after  
three hours getting to Ravens Fort, several hours waiting and getting  
everyone loaded up and three hours on the road to Dallas, I'm four  
hours from home. Sigh.

Kief has lined the outside edges of the flatbed trailer with the big,  
rectangular "barn door" war shields from Ravens Fort and then piled  
all the gear in behind it. We are probably plenty close to having the  
trailer overloaded if not there already, but the trip to Pennsic is  
uneventful. Quite a sight, I'm sure, though.

On the trip home, things go very differently. Those last days of  
Pennsic, people keep coming up to Kief and saying "I don't have room  
for this. Can you please take it back to Ansteorra with you?". Kief,  
being Kief, says "Sure. Just put it in the trailer". This was also  
the year that Sir Kein built either the second of the big Ansteorran  
towers using scaffolding, plywood and a number of 2 x 4s. Well, Kief  
asked Kein what he was going to do with all the 2 x 4s. And Kein said  
"Nothing. I'm dumping them. If you want them, you can have them.".  
Which Kief, again being Kief, proceeded to do, loading them onto the  
trailer as well.

We were the last Ansteorran group to leave Pennsic and there really  
weren't that many other folks left at Pennsic. By this time the  
trailer was definitely overloaded. Coming down the hill on the road  
leaving Pennsic just before the little bridge, we found out that  
someone hadn't snapped the trailer hitch lever down on the hitch  
ball. Oops. Luckily the safety chains were attached. We stopped on  
the down slope of that hill with the center of the trailer hitch  
about and inch or two ahead of the center of the hitch ball. So, we  
scramble around finding enough rocks and such to chock the trailer  
wheels and then ease the van forward and reseat the hitch and the  
ball together. And *this* time several people check to make sure that  
it is secured. :-)

Okay, our two car convoy starts up again and turns on to the highway  
towards home. Smooth sailing now, right? Er, nope. Kief finds that he  
can't get above 35 miles per hour or the trailer starts dragging the  
*full size* van all over the road. So, at 35 miles an hour we proceed  
down the road. That night it had already been planned to stay at a  
motel to let folks rest and get a decent shower. (hot water? At  
Pennsic? From the public showers? yeah, right.) On the way to  
Pennsic, we had driven straight on through, with the last driver  
being able to stretch out on the raised bed with foam mattress in the  
back of the van. The next morning we try to figure out a solution. No  
one wants to drive the 1500? miles back to Ansteorra at 35 MPH.

Well, one of the things which Kief was hauling was the BFT (the Big  
F. Tent owned by the barony of Bjornsborg). This was meant to be put  
up in the Ansteorran encampment as a central gathering point.  
However, Ansteorra didn't get the land they had registered for (not  
an uncommon occurrence) and there was no room to put the tent up. It  
did get set up in the middle of one of the roads during the one night  
of the Ansteorran chili party. This tent has a huge number of large  
steel stakes, each about four feet long and an inch of more in  
diameter. Hey, I said it was a big tent. Each one is rather heavy.  
Moving these stakes from the tail end of Kief's trailer to the front  
end of the trailer that David St. David was towing, which he said was  
acting a bit tongue light, solved both problems. :-)

So, back on the road and we can now drive at highway speeds. We left  
a bit later from Pennsic than originally planned and we got slowed  
down because of the trailer issue, but it should simply be a just a  
long drive home, right?

Err. Nope. Kief had been religiously checking the grease in the  
bearings of the trailer wheels at each gas stop to make sure that  
they were okay. At one stop, perhaps Little Rock, he noticed that the  
grease cap on one of the wheels is gone. Apparently a bearing can  
overheat and blow off this cap, before the bearing seizes up. Or did  
Kief just forget to put the cap back on? So, we drive around the city  
a bit, figuring that if the bearing is going to seize, it would  
really be much better to have it happen in Little Rock than out in  
the middle of no where. Unloading the trailer to replace the bearing  
would be bad enough in town. Well, nothing seizes up, so back on the  
road. After all this, nothing else can go wrong can it?

Perhaps in Texarkana, around 5 am in the next morning, we were  
filling up with gas. One of our folks made the comment "Isn't the  
trailer leaning a bit to the right?". Sure enough, it was. When  
inspected it was noticed that all of the leafs, except one, of one of  
the two leaf springs on that side of the trailer were cracked  
through. So, we wait the several hours until the businesses in the  
town would open. After a bit of calling, it was determined that *one*  
shop *might* have a replacement spring which would fit. However, they  
didn't have a jack powerful enough to lift the loaded trailer. Unload  
the trailer!!!! Argh!!! It took us hours to load it! However, doing  
some more calling determined that there was a travel trailer  
dealership in town that had a jack which could lift that heavy a  
trailer. So, off at a slow speed to the spring place. And, Lo! they  
had a spring which would fit. Then a slow drive over to the travel  
trailer dealership. After a wait of several hours they got us into  
the shop, jacked up the trailer and replaced the spring.

So, back on the road, only a few hours from home. Well, Kief's home.  
We got there without any more adventures. Only 12? 18? hours past our  
planned arrival date and time. My wife has already arrived to pick me  
up. So, load up and head the three hours home, right? Not quite.  
Alina doesn't really like to drive alone, so she brought along my cat  
in the car for company. Okay, that's fine. He traveled in the car  
fine. Did I mention though that he was an all black cat? Alina  
arrived near twilight and it was quite, completely dark before we  
finished loading my stuff up in the van. Okay, off to Austin. But  
where's the cat? Look, look, search, search. Well, he's not in the  
car. Not under any of the stuff. Not anywhere. Start calling for him  
all around Kief's house. Everyone now out searching for my cat and  
calling his name.  I didn't mention that Kief lives on an acre or two  
of wooded pine forest. Well, we finally find the cat. Calmly sitting  
in the pine needles about fifty feet from the car and twenty from  
Kief's house trailer. "What? Me say anything? Why should I meow or  
anything. It's so interesting to watch all of you scurrying around  
making such a racket." sigh.

Well, the drive home from Huntsville to Austin, was uneventful.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****