• My car is indeed totaled but still limping.  By the time I’d gotten back from PAX, the other two insurance companies involved had fought it out, and determined that the fault, in its entirety, lay with the van driver who hit me.  I collected an insurance settlement for my destroyed vehicle and kept driving it.  Some of that settlement is waiting for when the car finally bites it and needs replaced – the rest got me a new TV. 
• Days after returning from PAX, I started seeing an incredible woman, on a more-than-friends level.  I’m working on bringing her to a PAX, when her schedule allows.
• Road2PAX preparation is starting to feel a little more normal.  This is good and bad – we know how much we can get done given so many hours with so many hands, which is good; we take for granted that we will get everything done, so we got a very late start on the work for this next trip.
• Two of our members – myself and recent initiate Brandon – have chosen to don the Black (Note: Red) and volunteer as Enforcers at PAX East.  This will be my 5th PAX, Brandon’s second.  It’s really taken the excitement up a level.  I wasn’t sure that was possible until it happened.

And there are also some pretty big (relatively speaking) updates:

One: we’re moving! The site isn’t live yet, but pretty soon we’ll be migrating all our content over to http://zarkingfroods.com.
We felt that Road2PAX is a fantastic project and a great vacation to look forward to twice a year, but not really a venue for year-round blog updates.  However, we’ve already been using the site to talk about our other, rather nerdy interests – D&D, music videos, horror movies, etc – and so it seemed like a new name was in order.  Road2PAX will become just one of several categories over at ZF.  We figure it’s a pretty good bet that if you were interested in our trip to PAX, you might be interested in those things too… but they deserve a home of their own.

Two: I’m giving away two 3-day passes to PAX East! Everything you need to know, if you’re interested, can be found here.  I wanted to put the two extraneous badges to a good use, and I definitely want to make sure anybody who has been following us at all finds us at our new home, so this just seemed like a natural fit.  We should have (new) content up over there very soon, but in the meantime we’ll try to build up a little twitter following and help a couple people out in the process.

So that’s it for now.  There’s been progress made on the RV, but that’ll have to wait for a later post.  Until then, all the best from the Road2PAX team!

She returned to the forest only days away from giving birth to Tanthalan. It didn’t take long for the other elves to realize something was different about this child. His mother, ashamed and under constant scorn, left the forest while Tanthalan was very young. The early part of his childhood was spent being passed around from family to family.

Tanthalan struggled with his weight when he was young and was often taunted by the other elves. His human side seemed to be the more dominant side. After one particularly bad run in with an older kid, he took off running through an opening in the trees and nearly ran into the tallest elf he had ever seen. He barely caught a glimpse of the elf’s face before he was blinded by a bright flash. By the time he could see again, he realized he was standing on a wood platform probably 100 feet in the air. He made his way down the tree and met the elf that would become his guardian and mentor for the remainder of his childhood. His name was Galenthrel.

Galenthrel met a young elf that was broken. His body was more bruise than anything but that was nothing compared to where he was mentally. He had no confidence and would rather have his nose in a book than look someone in the eyes. If Galenthrel was going to turn this boy’s life around, it was going to take a lot of work.

One morning during his studies, Tanthalan found a scroll mixed in with his books. He had been taught some basic magic but he had never seen anything like this before. It was obviously way above his skill level but he is his mother’s son. While he may have lacked confidence, he was full up on curiosity.

He studied that scroll for weeks. Every time he thought he had it figured out, all he could manage was a fizzle. The scroll hadn’t been touched in weeks. That wasn’t because he lost interest; it was because he had every inch of that scroll put to memory. There was one thing bothering him about the scroll though. The bottom of it was missing a small section. Enough of it was showing that he assumed he knew what it said. But was he right? Could he have that last line wrong? If he was wrong, what could it be? The scroll was written in common although the title was written in a language he had never seen. In fact, he didn’t know if it was a title or just scribbles. Whatever it was, it wasn’t elven.

It was a beautiful day and instead of sitting at his desk in a secluded part of the house, he decided to find a shady spot outside to read. He was perhaps 400 yards from his home and nearly napping when he heard a loud crash that shook the ground. Startled, his first instinct was to freeze. There was another crash and Tanthalan instantly stood up and started to run in the opposite direction. He made it maybe ten feet before he stopped. He had spent his whole life running. Not this time. He reached down and grabbed the largest stick he could still easily handle. He tossed it from hand to hand as he gained speed towards his adopted home.

At first, he didn’t see anything. He approached the North East corner of the building but nothing was there. Quietly he circled around to the front of the house and finally saw the source of the commotion. Standing in front of the door was a creature he had never seen before. It was spider like but also strangely appeared humanoid. He was going to need more than a stick if this creature was a threat. Dissolving any doubts about its intentions, the creature turned and used one of its massive legs to break through the door. It let out a snarl and charged through. Knowing his master was inside, Tanthalan tightened his grip on the stick and cautiously walked in behind him.

To his left, he saw the creature. It was hissing like a snake and leaning forward as if it was preparing to charge like a bull. To his right was Galenthrel. He had a staff in his hand and appeared way too calm considering he was staring at a hideous monstrosity. Galenthrel began to chant. Almost immediately the room began to tighten. It seemed like the air was being sucked out of the room. Tanthalan was having trouble breathing in enough air even though there was enough wind to blow items around the room. Galenthrel’s chant turned into a yell. His voice was like thunder and the walls shook with every syllable. Tanthalan got down on one knee and started to cover his face. He was terrified. His body was about to shut down in fear when suddenly it hit him. He knew what was happening. He knew this enchantment. He had been studying it for weeks!

Sensing danger, the creature began to charge. It hadn’t made it half way across the room yet when Galenthrel lifted his staff and pointed it at him. That was the moment Tanthalan realized what had been missing from the scroll. The staff burned bright red as if it had been lying in fire. A massive bolt shot from the staff and easily found its target. The creature didn’t stand a chance. Tanthalan had just learned magic missile.

We rolled for our starting attributes and did pretty well.  Thanks to my prior study, I knew where to put the points.  What really got me were skills and feats.  The feat I took was one that was supposed to be free since I was a half-elf wizard.  I played the first session without that extra feat!  That isn’t as bad as my next mistake.  I didn’t add my modifier to any of my untrained skills.  Perception checks were done based on my roll without modifiers. Oops!

I was also not very confident with spells.  I did more attacks with my light crossbow than I did with my magic.  N00b mistake I guess but still embarrassing.  I didn’t quite understand how many spells I got or how many times I could cast them.  Cantrip?  Huh?

Even with my mistakes, we still have a pretty successful campaign.  No one died but we had terrible luck with the dice.  No one could hit and there were some points where we were close to dead.  Dash came up with a good story and we all enjoyed it.  I was hooked.

After we played, the campaign was stuck in my head.  I spent the next couple weeks figuring out my mistakes and planning what I would do during the next session.  I realized fairly quickly that I majorly screwed up my skills.  The points were wrong and modifiers were non-existent.  I picked got my feats sorted out and did more reading of the core rule book and APG.  Then things began to get really nerdy.  I didn’t feel like I had enough dice. So I bought a pound from Chessex.  Also I didn’t like how I did spells in our first session.  Writing them down didn’t work for me.  Instead I printed out every spell onto postcard sized paper and laminated them.  Yes I laminated every one of them.  Now I can write right on the card with a dry erase marker and wipe it off when I’m done.  Yeah I know it is overkill but I wouldn’t be a nerd if I didn’t go that extra step beyond what is necessary.  Just look at the TV built into the bunk bed in the Road2PAX RV!

In the next day or two, I’ll post the short backstory I wrote for my character.  It was quite a bit out of my comfort zone but still a hell of a lot of fun to write.

The 8th Plague

It Doesn’t Matter If You Believe In Hell…Because Hell Believes In You

2006 – Directed by Franklin Guerrero Jr

Give me the gist of it…

A young woman in search of her missing sister finds an abandoned jail full of dark spirits that posses the living if they glance upon the demonic runes written on the wall.

Care to get a little more in depth?(spoilers)

Launa and her friends go looking for Nikki (Launa’s sister), who mentioned exploring this old jail while camping.  They go to the local Sheriff, who is of course a bumbling red neck.  He sends his deputy to escort them to the jail, and on the way they pick up a former guard named Mason(more on him later) and the town drunk, who seems to know what’s going on.  He rants and raves about “don’t read the walls” and “they can’t get you if you don’t have eyes to see”.  Pretty quality foreshadowing there.

So everyone heads into the jail to look for Nikki, but they leave the drunk handcuffed in the car.  He meets his end moments later, and not a lot is shown here.  I was getting worried at this point, because this is a low budget film, and while I don’t mind low quality film stock, at least give me some gore to balance it out.  Fortunately, I was soon placated, and this movie started doing all the right things in the low budget play book.

So naturally, everyone splits up and searches the creepy jail.  Crystal and Gavin start exploring the cells and decide this is as good a time as any to have some dirty prison sex.  They get naked and Gavin hears a strange sound, so he goes off to investigate, telling the nude Crystal “wait here.  I’ll be right back.”  Of course, minutes pass and he has not returned.  She did have the foresight to get dressed though, and good thing she did, because the monster starts showing up.  The following scene is borrowed directly from Evil Dead, and starts the action off.  Crystal pokes her head out of the cell, and sees something that scares her.  We then begin a chase scene from the monster’s perspective that even uses the same sound effects as the Evil Dead.  Crystal runs for it, trips a bunch, and is eventually grabbed form behind.  I was expecting her to just scream and die, but she bit the hands of whoever had her and booked it.

So to recap, we have a group of teens, paired off, gratuitous sex scene, and Evil Dead homage.  I’m officially starting to enjoy this movie.

We then cut to Mason and Launa.  Mason is a former guard, and tells the tale of the riot that closed the prison.  He says one guard got a hold of a book full of ancient writings.  IN yet another Evil Dead reference, we see him reading form the book, and then people start going bat shit crazy.  he says the guy reading the book worshiped some ancient guard of darkness, and has summoned it to the prison.  This si the beginning of us finding out what a bad ass Mason is.  When we meet him, he’s just some redneck with his shirt off, aimlessly chopping firewood.  As soon as the hot city girl shows up asking for help, he knows the score.  Her and her friends are going to the prison to fight an Elder God, and all he does is grab his t-shirt and an axe and heads off with them.  The balls on this guy.

So at some point, they get separated, and Mason encounters the first “zombie”.  I don’t now what else to call them, but they are undead flesh eaters, so we will go with that.  Anyways, he thinks it’s Nikki, so he doesn’t want to kill her.  So even after she takes a huge bite out of his neck and arm, he just gives her a bewildered stare, and smacks her in the face with the axe handle.  When it becomes clear that won’t work, he finally gives her a good chopping and goes to report the good news to Launa.

So we go back to Crystal, who is looking for Gavin, wither so they can escape, or because it’s time for another sex scene, I’m not sure.  She finds him and of course he is a zombie, but instead of eating her, he makes her look at some runes on the wall, and she becomes possessed too.  SO now we have the basic mechanic involved here;looking at the runes makes you one of them.

What about the deputy you ask?  Well let’s deal with him.  I forget when this happens so I’ll just throw it in here.  He finds some radio tower, but is startled by something, slips on some blood, and knocks himself out on a toilet.  Pretty slick.  So he comes too and sees a zombie slowly coming towards him, and reaches for his gun, points it at the zombie, and just kind of waits for the zombie to knock it out of his hand.  Not sure why, but it did lead to a nice death involving a power drill, so I was ok with it.  We had the first really cool death in the movie, and I gave it a nice round of applause.

So Mason finds Launa and brings her down to the body.  Turns out it wasn’t Nikki, but her friend Deann.  Launa assumes Mason is psycho and freaks out.  Gavin walks in and she goes to hug him, but he tries to eat her, so she’s willing to give Mason the benefit of the doubt.  Mason begins to hulk out, and disembowels Gavin with his axe, before smacking Gavin right in his stupid mouth with the axe.  Up until now, I had no use for Mason.  He was just a bad actor with an axe sulking around the place, but he started going postal right around here and I became a fan.  Launa got lost in the shuffle, and Mason goes off looking for her like the bad ass he is.

Unfortunately, he turns a corner, and sees a rune inscribed on a wall.  Oh no!  Mason begins to turn, but decides he’s not going to stand for it, so he stabs himself in the face with a butterfly knife, and the rips out both of his eyes.  Read that again and let it sink in.  Mason isn’t done though, no sir.  He gets up, wraps his t-shirt around his his eyes, picks up his axe and his enormous testicles, and goes off looking for more trouble.  From here, he manages to actually kill another zombie blindfolded, before finally being brought down by two others and eaten.  I took a drink of whiskey for our fallen hero, and finished the movie.

The rest of the movie is Launa manning up, grabbing an axe and running through the woods like the hardcore fox she is chopping shit up.  It takes her a minute to get into the swing of things(ha!) but once she does, she fully morphs into a badass heroin.  She finally meets her zombie sister, and manages to kill her in the most tender and loving way you can kill someone with a fire axe.  The movie ends with her in a hospital.  She is looking through a video camera of her sisters, and they got footage of the symbol, so the movie ends with Launa getting possessed, about to mess some people up.

So who’s in it?

Unkonwns for the most part.  The most notable person is probably Syn Devil, who played Deann.  You may recognize her form a large variety of low budget horror, including Curse of Pirate Death, which is one of the worst movies you can see.

DJ Perry played Mason, who was in a TON of shit, but he is also a producer and writer, so his name is all over a bunch of genre flicks

Leslie Ann Valenza as Launa.  I have not seen her in anything else, but wanted to note that she is by a wide margin the best actor in this thing.  According to IMDB, she was in another movie by the same director called Carver, that takes place in the same town, so maybe it’s a sequel of some kind.

So what works in this movie?

It does everything right for a low budget flick.  The gore effects are really well done, and makes for some awesome scenes.  it pays homages to some older horror movies and contains a lot of the tropes that genre fans love.

What doesn’t work?

The biggest issue for me is the editing.  The director could not seem to decide between long establishing shots, or the frenetic quick cuts that seem to be all over today’s action flicks.

The acting was also a bit of an issue.  I felt bad for the lead, because she actually showed some talent, but was working with a bunch of stiffs to be honest, and it made her seem like a fish out of water.

Well is it scary?

Nah, but I don’t think it was supposed to be.  It’s more a make up and effects driven picture and that’s ok.

What about blood?  Is it gory?

Oh yeah, in a great way.  The movie opened slow, but by the time Gavin was getting his guts chopped out I was fully on board.  For a low budget picture, the make up was very well done.

Final verdict?

I had a lot of fun watching this movie.  It’s certainly not a great movie, but it is a lot of fun, and if you go into this expecting a low budget film that can make you and your friends smile, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

60 out of 100

Final Thoughts…

The world needs more hot chicks covered in blood running through the woods with a fire axe…

Mason is ridiculous, in all the right ways….

There is however one major checkbox on my nerd card that I hadn’t checked until recently.  I have a confession to make.  I never played Dungeon’s & Dragons or any other table top roleplaying game.  Yeah I know.  Point at your screen and laugh.  Proceed to the next paragraph when you are done. 

You’re not done yet?  Fine.  I’ll keep typing.  Catch up when you finish.

Growing up, I was among fellow nerds.  One guy recorded every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation to VHS whenever it was on.  Most of us were band nerds and would spend a lot of weekends playing epic games of Risk or other board games.  I didn’t get into comics until later in life but if I’m in need of damn near any major comic released from 1985 on, I had friends that could loan me theirs.  The pieces were there but we never got into D&D.  I always wanted to and even brought it up a couple times but there were no takers.  Apparently that was one too many steps towards full on nerd. 

After graduation, I left that small town for college.  One summer, I stayed at an apartment next to a group that really got into it.  Every few days I would see a half dozen wizards, fighters, and elves walk in their door.  I wanted to ask them about it but I never got up the nerve.  Plus this was the first time I wasn’t living with my parents or in a dorm room.  There was a lot of partying to do and a lot of girls to act awkward in front of.

Many (many) years later, I learned that a group of my friends dabbled in D&D.  I dropped several hints about my desire to play but the timing was always off.  Recently one of them decided he wanted to put his DM hat back on and run a Pathfinder campaign.  Finally I had my chance.

So far we have had one session and I’m hooked.  It was as much fun as I had hoped.  My next post will talk about the first session and what has happened since.  Our second session is tonight so you can expect some more soon.

The Evil Dead

The ultimate experience in grueling terror!

1981 – Directed by Sam Raimi

Give me the gist of it…

5 friends rent a cabin in the remote woods of Tennessee for a weekend of partying, and find some mysterious artifacts in the basement, including a cruel looking knife, a tape recorder, and of course, The Necronomicon (although in this movie it is called (Nyturan Demonta). They bring all the stuff upstairs, and after listening to the tape recording that contains passages from the text, evil spirits are awoken in the woods that begin to possess the living.

Care to get a little more in depth? (spoilers)

There actually isn’t much more to it than that.  After the demons awaken, they begin picking off the survivors one by one.  Sheryl is the first victim.  She hears something outside, and when she goes to investigate it, is actually attacked and raped by the woods themselves.  Yes, you read that right.  Fighting off her attackers, she makes it back to the cabin, and begs Ash to take her home.  On their way out, however, they find the bridge they crossed to get here is now out, and there is no way to escape!  Bum bum bummmmmmmm!

To be honest, there’s not much more worth talking about.  The plot here is largely immaterial, as it is all about the ride.

So who’s in it?

Bruce Campbell as Ashley Williams (Ash).  Bruce is a living legend in horror, and has been in Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, and Bubba Ho-Tep as well as countless others.  You may also recognize him from television in The Adventures of Brisco County Junior, and Burn Notice.

Ellen Sandweiss as Cheryl Williams.  After this movie, Ellen seemed to quit acting altogether, but then in 2005 showed up in Satan’s Playground in a leading role.  She then showed up in Bruce Campbell’s My Name Is Bruce and has done a few low budget affairs since then.

Betsy Barker as Linda.  Like Ellen, she vanished from acting for years after this movie, but began a comeback in 2007, appearing with Ellen in Brutal Massacre: A Comedy.

Theresa Tilly as Tilly.  Theresa also disappeared from acting, doing only a few bit television roles form time to time.  She also had a minor role in Brutal Massacre and had a recurring role in Dangerous Women.

Hal Delrich as Scotty.  Scotty did one other movie, Crime Wave under a different name and that’s about it.

So what works in this movie?

The production quality is excellent, especially considering this is a low budget film produced in the 70’s.  Sam Rami was obviously a perfectionist with an eye for detail, even at the beginning of his career.  For starters, most of the shots are just fantastic.  He manages to let the camera linger for just the right amount of time, and avoids the confusing jump-cuts that so many directors seem to utilize.  This leads to a very tense and dark atmosphere that lets you lose yourself in the film.

This is one of the better examples of “less is more” in a horror movie when it comes to showing your villains.  Sam knows that whatever is in your mind is far scarier than what he can put on screen, so no actual creatures are shown for the first portion of the film.  The faceless entity that stalks the woods possessing people is never shown.  Instead, we get fantastic chase scenes of the camera chasing the teens, leaving the rest up to your imagination.  This angle was used in many other horror movies (Street Trash), and is so iconic that it is immediately identified as Rami-esque.

The effects and make-up are fairly well done as well.  Some of it is incredibly cheesy, but a couple of scenes are truly unsettling.  I don’t know many people who can sit through the “ankle scene” without squirming, and Sheryl’s witch make-up is truly frightening.

What doesn’t work?

In my opinion, the movie loses a lot in the second and third act when the actual action is occurring.  Once the deddites are on screen, they tend to cease being scary.  The film was always suspenseful leading up to the monsters appearance, but once they showed up, the suspense was gone.  For the most part.  Linda was creepy as hell, and shelly biting her hand off was a little off putting too.

Other than that, this film is remarkably wlle done given the era it was made in, and the resources available to the film makers.>

Well is it scary?

Boy, that’s hard to say.  The first time I saw it I was 13, and I refused to go into the woods again for a couple of years.  However, that was a different time, and most people discovering this movie now might be aware of Bruce Campbell, and that’s sort of the problem.  He’s the sort of actor who just bring a smile to your face, and even if he is running for his life from a couple of cannibalistic Kandarian demons, you still smile at his antics, and that can take you out of it.

That aside, I must say that this movie does an excellent job of building atmosphere.  In my opinion, the scariest parts of the movie are the bits where there are no monsters to be seen.  Waiting for the next person to be possessed is such a well done experience throughout the film, and this can all be attributed to Sam Rami’s directing.  His use of unorthodox angles, lighting, and music, really help to build a sense of dread throughout.

So final verdict, if you have never seen it, have no idea who Bruce Campbell is, and are the kind of person who can lose yourself in a horror movie, then turn out the lights and get ready for some creeps.

What about blood?  Is it gory?

Man, there is some truly comical, and truly horrible effects in this scene.  I will say this, it’s not for kids, between the tree rape(yup), pencil in the Achilles’s tendon(sweet mercy) and the demon eating its own hand, there is some really well done stuff for an independent horror flick produced in the 70′s.

Final verdict?

Growing up, this was one of my all-time favorite horror films, and it still is.  That doesn’t mean it’s particularly great however, but it’s hard for me to be objective here.  This is an absolute classic that any fan of the genre should see, and probably already has.

80 out of 100

Final Thoughts…

Is Evil Dead 2 a sequel or a remake?  I’ve always thought of it as a bit of a remake myself, as there is very little in the second to reference the first one….

Are the monsters zombies?  I’ve heard of them referred to as such before, but I always thought of them as demons myself…

In the basement, when they find the Necronomicon, there is a poster for The Hills Have Eyes on the wall.  Win!…

The Rami’s hired a couple of wannabe film maker’s to assist in the editing room.  They were the Cohen brothers…

During PAX Prime 2010, I convinced Robert (El Tejon) to post one of his Old Ass Music Video Thursday Facebook posts to our site.  I enjoyed it so hopefully he does some more in the future.  One of our East Road2PAXers has been watching a new horror movie everyday all October leading up to Halloween.  He has been posting entertaining reviews to Facebook.  Since I apparently like stealing content from friend’s Facebook profiles, I have asked Joe (Dash) to post them here as well. 

I haven’t met anyone that seems to know more about horror movies than Joe.  In fact, his generic movie knowledge is rather impressive.  The more obscure the movie, the more he seems to know about it.  I have enjoyed his movie posts and I imagine if you are like us enough to read this site, you will too.

Enjoy

What Went Right:

You have no idea how awesome it is to ride on this RV. It is engineered perfectly towards a singular purpose: being a perfect atmosphere for a geek on the road. If you want to play vidjagames, check. If you want to watch a movie or TV show, check (provided you can convince one other person to join you). If you want to sleep, there’s room for one or two people to attempt that scenario. If you want to read, no one’s stopping you.

There came times, about once every 24 hours, where a grin spread across my face at the realization of what a great time I was having. If I wasn’t experiencing a fungasm, it was most likely because I was awash with contentment or relaxation.

Every project we undertook for this trip bore fruit. The Bunk TV was an unmitigated success. I rocked Borderlands and Shadow Complex on this TV, and there really is no better way to play a game, in my opinion. We showed this apparatus to many people, and although the ridiculousness of it is immediately apparent, the true measure of its awesomeness is in just how practical and comfortable it is. Understanding this requires time with the device.

The total comfort of the sleeping situation was made possible by the inclusion of the single bunk bed, although I would have been perfectly happy with far less posh amenities. I slept on the top bunk each night, and that mofo could not have been better engineered or implemented. Solid as all get-out. Another unmitigated success.

Room for Improvement:

On the trip, we at R2P are on the lookout for any ways in which we could “fix” the experience or carry it to the next level. This trip rocked, but nothing is ever perfect. Everything may be made better through conscious effort and a healthy sense of self-one-upsmenship.

First, our storage situation seemed to be at a maximum, and I certainly wish I would have brought a spare bag for the swag/dirty clothes I accumulated. More storage or tighter packing may be in order for PAX East. We’ll see what’s possible there.

We also noticed a few things that broke or needed improvement (like the ledge behind the couch, the weather stripping on one of the outer storage spaces, or the charging area that somehow kept getting drenched in SoftSoap). The ledge will be a tricky project that should also remedy the cup-holder situation that has plagued us, so that should be a priority.

Aside from technical problems with the RV, the whole R2P experience should be working towards a larger goal. We at R2P are huge fans of the Child’s Play charity (childsplaycharity.org), so maybe there is someway to leverage our unique situation into cash-money for a worthy cause. We are looking into several angles regarding this, hopefully this will bear fruit. Any suggestions you may have, let us know!

In any event, we have several months and several nerds, so this $#!+ is gonna get realz.

In summary, I had probably the best time of my life on this trip. The whole package was necessary: The 4800 mile road-trip and the convention. I loved hanging with my friends, meeting new folks and experiencing the expo in the way I chose. Mike and Jerry deserve their success and earn my admiration many times over every time they open their mouths, and I thank them for fostering this community event. Many thanks to them, the Enforcers, the concert performers, the industry professionals and the 67,000+ attendees. See you at PAX East.

Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana have passed under the tires of the RV since my last post.  We’re stopped at a Flying J for a gas / bathroom / stretch break (1 hr).

So.  Let’s talk about the Rockies, shall we?  I never thought they’d be easy, and indeed was more than somewhat concerned that we would be forced to fall out of the CCST.  That said, there’s a difference between knowing a thing is going to be difficult and doing a thing that is difficult.

These goddamned things have their own time zone.

I already told you we’re in Idaho, so I guess the secret’s out that we made it.  We lost sight of the caravan pretty early, radio contact not long after, and were without both for about an hour.  One thing that did surprise me was that going up was the easy part – cruising down off the last part of the range was downright terrifying.  Our visibility can’t have been more than 100 feet and felt more like thirty.  Every curve was preceded by a sign denoting “45 MPH” with an accompanying image of a box truck tilted up on two wheels.  It doesn’t take much imagination to see it rolling off the cliff the sign is buried in.

If my experience (the last half or so of the Rockies) is any indication, the RV handles a lot like one of those trucks.  We had to bring it down to near 45 on most of those turns to avoid tipping over.  Even then, I was taking advantage of the fact that nobody else wanted to cross the Rockies at 4 in the morning, and broadening my turns through both lanes.

I was constantly trying to balance speed with safety.  Because I prioritized the latter, we didn’t catch up with the main group of the CCST for probably forty minutes after clearing the steepest part of the mountain range, during which time they were all graciously travelling about five under the speed limit, keeping an eye out for us.

We pulled into the Flying J in Post Falls, ID at around 6:30am and I thankfully handed off the reins to Robert.

Two more stops…

Gary Numan Cars
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We pulled out of the KOA in Fargo at 8:30-ish today to meet up with the CCST for breakfast and such.  It’s safe to say that the fellow CCSTers lost their shit when they saw the RV and its ammenities.  Had we actually had a hood to our RV, this would’ve happened:

On we went through North Dakota’s gentle, rolling hills and a dearth of anything resembling civilization.  Honestly, N. Dakota was like that section of The Legend of Zelda where the screen kept repeating unless you travel in a certain pattern.  After 3 or 4 hours, we got the combo right and finally encountered all this damn majesty we’ve been hearing so much about.  Sprawling canyons, drumlins and pointy hills, cool-ass storm clouds, the whole shot.

Iron Maiden – Run To The Hills
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We next rolled into Pizza Hut 20 strong (next to Doc and Eddy’s Casino/JJ’s Chinese Cafe) and ate…there’s not much to say here, so I’ll move on.  CCSTer Mark, from here on to referred to as “Mark” joined us for a couple of legs on the trip.  “Mark” and we [us?] watched a few episodes of Archer and Futurama and got down on some Halo ODST (system-linked Firefight).  We think he enjoyed himself.  We think this a) b/c it’s impossible not to, and b) he told us.

Beastie boys – Fight For Your Right
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At the time of this writing, we are leaving Billings on route to Butte (heh), and I’m signing off.  The CCSTers have been going non-stop, sleeping in the backs of their respective vehicles while others drive, I can’t imagine their mental state.  But we’ll all keep on driving, and I’ll say it’s because we are road warriors so as to make us appear all noble and badass and whatnot.  Toodles!