damont

Happy belated birthdays to

isenglass!

The weekend after Easter, in addition to being Tax Day weekend, was Emmaus Fair up in Eisental. So, after mailing off the extension request for our taxes,

montuos and I headed for Pennsylvania. Friday the 13th was a bit windy, and the trip north was not only complicated by the known construction on I-78, but also by some power lines downed and lying on the roadway, thus completely closing 78's eastbound lanes about 10 miles *before* the start of the construction zone. Luckily we heard about it in time to ditch the interstate several miles before everyone else was forced to, and took an extra-wide detour around the problems through the Berks County countryside. A pretty drive, although

montuos hopes she never has to see Irish Creek Road again -- and I'd rather skip it myself unless I'm in a vehicle that corners better than a minivan.

We met

bunnyjadwiga at the event site in Schnecksville. It turns out that another group was using the building for a dinner that evening, so we couldn't set up until Saturday morning after all. So

montuos headed off to Easton while

bunnyjadwiga and I went up to Lehighton in order to get hay bales, in case we needed to. On our way north, after passing Palmerton but before getting to route 209 near Lehighton, we passed a sign that said:

ADULT TOY BINGO

Needless to say, this set off waves of hilariously stunned speculation as to what that might entail. We got to the hay bale place around 6:30 to discover it closes at 6. In an example of serendipitous timing,

juergen called right then to tell us he'd gotten all the hay bales we needed on his way north from the Philly area, so we were okay. Then the lady who was cleaning up the closed store opened up the front door and asked us if we needed anything. We asked for the store's phone number (against future need) but assured her that we'd just been told we didn't need to buy anything immediately. Went back to the event site to unload the hay bales, and then back to Easton to eat and crash.

stringlady was, like us, crashing with

juergen and

maziemaus and

bunnyjadwiga and the Beckster; it was nice to get to talk to her again.

Saturday dawned on the chilly and breezy side, but it wasn't raining, which was a great improvement over last year. It got tolerably mild outside once the sun came out from behind the clouds. I spent the day trying to catch all the A&S stuff that was on display *and* be "glue" making sure things held together reasonably well. I forgot to make sure the autocrat stayed hydrated though... and everybody else (including said autocrat) forgot as well. Oops. Oh well, it was a fun event. Among the people I got a chance to see and talk with were:

alphaggek and Shannon and Cat, plus

amykb and

isenglass who stayed with them and all 5 rode up together.
Christopher and his girlfriend Carrie, who along with their gang were doing the dayboard.
Grace (from Stierbach!) which was a bit of a surprise. She was selling glass beads. (Not surprising as she hosts half of our barony's Glass Guild meetings.)

loosecanon and

baavgai, and

kass_rants -- had an interesting discussion with them that ranged over multitudinous topics.

h3salthea and Grimm, and

zaduzbina who took Althea as a student.

izzy_the_good and her menagerie.

krings_keep and her portable spinning wheel.
There were probably others who I've now forgotten, and/or whose LJ handles I don't know.

A couple dozen of us were there until about 7:30 cleaning up and setting up the tables for Sunday's flea market. Dinner at the City View followed; in best college freshman style we shoved 9 or 10 tables together. Then back to Easton to crash; slept until about 10 AM. It rained all morning and most of the afternoon on Sunday, heavily at times.

bunnyjadwiga had told us on Friday that she had a conference in DC starting on Monday, and asked if she could crash with us. So during the Sunday after-brunch conversation I got online and checked out where the conference was (Hyatt Crystal City, former home of CastleCon 1) and what the transportation options were. Huzzah, they run a free shuttle bus all around CC, including the metro stop -- so we figured out when J. needed to catch the bus from our corner to the Metro fish-hook at Vienna (thence Orange Line to Blue Line to shuttle bus). Of course J. was completely crispy on Sunday and in no shape to drive, so she rode home with us. I'm pretty sure I was the only awake person for a significant chunk of the drive home. We stopped at Baker's for dinner (it was a good weekend for eating at Pennsylvania diners, yes it was) and otherwise made it home without incident.

Monday night we took

bunnyjadwiga to Ludus and introduced her to Power Grid. I suspect she might like it better when her brain wasn't quite so fried, but she seemed to have fun. Thanks to

killernurd's monopolizing the oil supply at a critical point, I was able to catch up, and CT7 and I ended up in a tie for first place. (We even tied on the tie-breaker!)

Tuesday evening we imitated vegetables. Wednesday I picked J. up at West Falls Gulch and drove us to Bowie, where we got to see the usual Wednesday Night Crew. From Bowie we drove back up to Easton, arriving about 0145. Thursday I stopped at

alphaggek's to see Shannon and Cat (and eventually

alphaggek himself) before heading home.

This weekend on Saturday night there was a birthday party for

patches023 at her and

maugorn's house. I got there in time to see

gorgeousgary and

the_sheryl as well as some other LJers whose handles I don't know. Stefan and Evelyn (local SCAdians) were also there as well; Evelyn had brought some homemade cordial along to pass around. Yummy... and that was one reason I was one of the last folks to leave. Sunday we imitated vegetables for most of the day, though

fuzzface00 came over in the evening and we went on an ice cream/Game Parlor/dinner run (yes in that order).