Subject: The PPC Camping Trip
Author:
Posted on: 2014-09-10 05:58:00 UTC

(Inspired by http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/PPCLounge/ChatQuotes#PlanningAhead on the Wiki. Just because it was so utterly hilarious.
I do not have Permission, and I apologize for wrangling random Boarders into this. Just tell me if you want me to change you out of this.
I just felt the NEEEED.)

Okay, so let's say that all of us Boarders headed off and went on a Hypothetical Camping Trip. Which is probably a bad idea, because so many things can go wrong.

First, we met at my house and argued for about a week over where we're heading, and how long we were going to stay there. Finally, after much deliberation, we decided to find a Random Co-ordinate Generator, and just press the button until we found a place that wasn't in the middle of the Arctic or in the center of the sea. We found this lovely place right smack bang in the middle of Wisconsin. Ain't it beautiful?
https://goo.gl/maps/x8dZ4/
All right, fine, it is in the direct Middle of Nowhere. But I blame Desdendelle. He was the one who spilt the coffee on the laptop, and therefore made the internet go all wonky. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
And then we had to make sure we had enough money to wrangle all of the camping supplies, and food, and etcetera. We most definitely did not steal money from poor defenseless old ladies. How dare you. We’ve been accused of many things over the years, including being annoying, witty, clever, and extremely gorgeous, but us PPC-ers are most definitely not hired thugs. We leave that to the Mini-Balrogs.
Some of the newer recruits were understandably a bit apprehensive about heading off to the Middle of Nowhere with a bunch of near-strangers. This little group of nervousness included June Blue Night and 7.65x54R, who we managed to drag along by waving pie- juicy, steaming pie- under their noses, and shoving them into the back of the van when they got close enough.
Yep! We had a van! A big, shiny van! See?!
<img src="http://images.thecarconnection.com/lrg/2008-dodge-grand-caravan-4-door-wagon-sxt-side-exterior-view
100298164l.jpg" alt="http://images.thecarconnection.com/lrg/2008-dodge-grand-caravan-4-door-wagon-sxt-side-exterior-view100298164l.jpg">
Okay, maybe it wasn’t that big. Or shiny. But we stole some tech from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Doctor Who, and soon enough, it was bigger on the inside. At least, big enough to fit a hundred-odd Boarders into it. There was a brief scuffle over who was going to be the one to drive the van from Australia (my house, remember?) over to Wisconsin. Obviously, they’d have to be skilled in the ways of shortcuts. We left the Permission Givers to fight it out at Kings Park while the rest of us took a coffee-and-hot-chocolate break.
http://www.urbanwalkabout.com/img/bus/countryroadcafe05.jpg
(We’re inside the shop. No cameras allowed, see?)
The bill was pretty big, but we all pitched in, and brought back a few cappuccinos for the PGs. Neshomeh and Huinesoron had reached some sort of compromise, apparently, and were all set to take turns in the van for the long drive over.
And all of us crammed into the back, apart from the people who were driving or had bribed their way up to the front. Snowy the Sane Fangirl, wanting to be different, tied herself to the roof and held on tight. At one point, we drove through a rainstorm. Or the Pacific Ocean, I’m not sure. Either way, Snowy was soaking wet at the other end.
Halfway there, Pretzel pulled out his phone, and tried to take a group shot. We all smiled, and yelled ‘cheese’!...
http://blacklabelsociety.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/spacer.jpg
In retrospect, maybe he should’ve turned the flash on first. It was pretty darn dark in there.
And then, we were there!
It was, er, very leafy. And green.
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/42412421.jpg
But it is America! Home of the brave! And possibly some bears, too, if you’re lucky/unlucky...
We pulled out our tents and items from the smaller-on-the-outside van, and Huinesoron went slightly insane trying to stretch his legs from the ride. To be fair, it was probably extremely cramped in the front, and us lot in the back got tons of exercise trying not to land on each other/punching and generally hurting the people that did land on us. Hieronymus Graubart thought we should set up the tents in a way that made the area look like HQ- completely randomly, that it. And most of us thought that was a great idea. So we did it. And it was utterly awesome.
<img src="http://totallycoolpix.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/27062011
glastonbury2011/glastonbury029.jpg" alt="http://totallycoolpix.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/27062011glastonbury2011/glastonbury029.jpg">
Some creative and inventive people (e.g. JulyFlame and Ekyl) finished setting up rather quickly, and went around making a map of our illogical campsite. I think they did it, I’m not sure. It’s hard to keep track of as many people as there were. I think this was the biggest Gathering (it’s a Gathering, right?) that we’ve ever had.
And then someone suggested looking for Cute Animal Friends.
<img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/06/20/article-0-13B26F60000005DC-22
964x771.jpg" alt="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/06/20/article-0-13B26F60000005DC-22964x771.jpg">
Ack! Iximaz found a Cute Bear Cub in the woods, and we were all fully prepared to exterminate it with our Pointy Sticks. But I then pointed out that this is the Real World, and CAFs don’t exist in the Real World. So The Irish Samurai adopted it, and took it to his tent. (He said he was going to train it up as his guard bear. We all trembled in fear.)
And then it was night. And night is dark, as we all know. So we all settled down in our tents and sleeping bags (apart from James Shields, who pretended to be a werewolf, but we all sat on him) and went to sleep.
<img src="http://astrobob.areavoices.com/astrobob/images/Laurie
Vietsmoonrise12910.jpg" alt="http://astrobob.areavoices.com/astrobob/images/LaurieVietsmoonrise12910.jpg">
WAIT. WHAT WAS THAT SCRATCHING NOISE AROUND THE OUTSIDE OF THE TENT PERIMETER?
Suddenly, everyone woke up (except for me and a few others, we buried our heads in the pillows and tried to block them up) and chaos reigned. A couple of people thought it was the Mary Sues or the Enforcers of the Plot Continuum, which was ridiculous.
So, the next morning, when Thantosiet cooked pancakes, everyone was asleep. Except for us clever ones, who got all the pancakes we wanted. Yay!
<img src="http://imworld.aufeminin.com/manage/bloc/D20110307/american-pancakes-1-123448
L.jpg" alt="http://imworld.aufeminin.com/manage/bloc/D20110307/american-pancakes-1-123448_L.jpg">
Then people began to wake up. And then we spent the whole day playing awesomely improbable sports. Some people attached a few large tents together so we could play Australian Indoor-Rules Quidditch, which I opted out of. Instead, I started a game of Calvinball, which will always be my favorite. Someone taught us all a verbal game called ‘Kamoulox’, which is awesome, and can be described as Verbal Calvinball.
The elves amongst us re-enacted the Ring Quest in full, complete with a little wooden ring and the fire pit that wasn’t exactly a volcano. But it worked.
And then, marshmallows! On a stick! Over the fire! Wow!
http://www.lazy5ranch.com/images/marshmellows.jpg
I get the feeling that Ailavyn Siniyash was feeling pretty smug about bringing them along, since we were worshipping at her feet. And I’m pretty sure that someone crafted an altar too. Only the second day, and we were all going insane. Well, half of us were already insane, so... I guess it didn’t make much of a difference.
The next day, we played Hide-and-Seek inside the crazy maze of tents that JulyFlame and Ekyl had spent so much time mapping up. I think by the end of the game no one really remembered who was It in the first place. And DoctorLit got lost. We didn’t see him for a while.
Anonymouse became Queen of the Llamas somehow on the fourth day. I didn’t even think Wisconsin had llamas. It was that crazy.
http://www.alpacasllamaswoodsedge.com/images/suri-llamas.jpg
Miah, meanwhile, had been constructing the most massive treehouse at the forest edge. He had assembled a group of shiny newbies to be his construction team, and we only noticed once he started expanding the treehouse to be just over our heads. Not to worry, it was quite stable (us PPCers do have a few tricks up our sleeves) but, you know, just the feeling that it was over our heads was slightly creepy. You know?
http://www.buysellrentspain.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Treehouse.jpg
Seriously, that was only a tiny little part of it. It had gotten to the point where some of us were calling it New New Hogwarts. About half of the gathered congregation migrated up there, leaving the other half (including me) on the ground.
Not to be outdone, this happened.
http://inthralld.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Camp-In-A-Suspended-Tent-With-Tentsile-3.jpeg
PoorCynic had gotten the idea from a magazine. And yes, there were a few screaming Boarders tumbling out of trees during the night, but mostly all was calm.
The next few days passed in a tumble of joking, impromptu recreations of books/movies/episodes of the TV show of your choice, and fun. Numerous things happened that I’m mostly too lazy to talk about. You may fill in the blanks as you wish.
On the eighth (and final full) day, all of us put aside our rivalries and problems and gathered on the ground underneath New New Hogwarts for a game of Sues Versus Agents. By unanimous voting, Outhra and Huinesoron were the leaders. We tossed a few coins for who was going to be the Sue team, and who were going to be the Agents. There was the pre-toss, the pre-pre-toss, the after-pre-toss, the toss of the just plain confused, and then we decided to compromise and say that Outhra’s team could be the Agents first. And then we could swap.
I’m not entirely sure what the rules of the game were. It was mostly just madness mixed with the paintball guns EatPrayLove had managed the smuggle in. Also, some of the more creative Boarders improvised weapons. Bows. Sticks. Catapults. You get the message.
And suddenly. The forest was quiet.
http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Parks/name/mukwonago/images/forest700x270.jpg
And then! BOOM! The Agents dropped out of the trees and onto the Sues, who fought valiantly, but we managed to subdue them.
One final meal, which was basically a smorgasbord that was cooked up by the more resourceful of us. It was delicious. There are no words to describe it, so I’ll put a picture instead.
http://www.easeintoyoga.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Tuscanfeast.jpg
Then we loaded everything into our awesome van, and headed home. Neshomeh took the wheel for the whole trip, and Snowy opted to stay inside this time.
I jumped out quickly before we left just to take a last picture. But they left me behind. And now... I have to walk home. I’m writing this in the hotel that I’m currently staying in.
I’m going to kill them when I see them next.
http://www.miltbogs.com/whitevan.jpg

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