Pennsic Sunday Part I

I remember waking that morning to one of the guys in Vicol’s camp waking him up to help batten down the camp against the looming rainclouds. I stayed under the blanket, still a little tired, but warm, as Vicol joined his campmates. He found his tarp and put it over the tent, and other things that I didn’t see from within his tent.

I think I fell asleep again from there. When I woke again, Vicol, Petreko and I talked Christian into giving us a ride topside in his car. He dropped us off, and we met up with Alex and Ailis to help set up Mystic Mail. As the work began, a few more people joined us, and soon there was a motley crew of big burly men with three “delicate ladies” watching from under the protection of a very, very large umbrella. I think they figured we weren’t buff enoguh to bash together pieces of wood, but I figured they weren’t bright enough to realize how to piece them all together correctly. So, I watched and told them when they were messing up. It was pretty funny.

It was raining off and on throughout the whole ordeal, but everyone kept in good spirits. Vicol was the “Master Bonker”, with his big mallet. It was amusing how thrilled he was with the job.

When it was all built (due to the fabulous teamwork of the people there, though affected very little by me, as I was too short to do half the stuff), we all sat inside and sipped drinks. Then, for no reason at all, all the guys started singing.

Different songs at once.

In the end, one song triumphed over the rest. I don’t even remember the song… the Moose Song? Something like that. The women were smart and just let the guys be foolish.

At that point, everyone went to the Beast and Boar to eat. I ordered some food, but really didn’t have the appetite to finish it. Vicol told me to ask Petreko if he wanted it. Supposedly Petreko was always hungry. Remind me next time to not doubt either of those gypsies when speaking of the other. Petreko was more than happy to finish off my food. Meanwhile, I managed to get a ride up to the parking lot on Dragon Hill to get my car. I figured that my campmates might start worrynig about me if I didn’t show up sometime soon.

Well, that was a wasted effort. The road up to the B-Blocks was closed due to the rain, which made the dirt road dangerously muddy. I was forced to park my car on the battlefield. Joyful.

So I walked up to my camp so I could at least announce my presence. But my camp was completely empty. Tents were set up, so I knew that at least people were there… but no one was actually in camp. I took the free time to wander over to House UmmLazy to see if Kalum was there. He was, and I also met two of his campmates. I let him know that he was missed at Maggie’s dinner the night before, and reminded him that Duncan had invited everyone to his camp for dinner that evening. He said he would try to make it, but he was pretty sure he had previous places he promised to stop at.

So then I decided to start heading swampside, since it was a very long walk. I stopped at Valle’e’s camp to find out if he wanted to walk with me to Duncan’s, but he said he needed to take a shower first. He promised that as soon as he finished his shower, he would come down to Duncan’s.

After he wandered off, I realized that I had no idea how to get to Duncan’s camp, since I was unfamiliar with the swamp and bog area of Pennsic, and it had been dark when I was there the previous evening. I wandered along the road for a bit and ran into Michael the Lost, who was escorting a Lady back to her camp. I asked him how to get to Petra Thule, and he gave me directions and said he would be at the dinner after he escorted his friend back to her camp.

I found the camp with little problem, and re-introduced myself to Duncan and his daughter and girlfriend. Khare and Rom brought chairs over from their camp (which was across the road, incidentally) and we all sat down and chatted for a bit. Isabel, Duncan’s daughter, was a polite hostess and brought drinks and whatnot for everyone.