Ah, vacation
Back!
Ah, what a vacation. Short, sweet, and stress-free.
REPORT
Ravenwood Castle's about two hours from our house, more or less. It's a bit of a boring drive, but most of it's either freeway or major route. It's north of a tiny town called Macarthur, that probably hasn't changed much since the 60s. You know the kind... Old buildings, masonic hall near the big intersection (THE big intersection. Not sure if the town has any other major streets), WWII artillery piece out on the front lawn of the courthouse. Not a bad little place, just don't expect anything much from it.
Ravenwood was precisely as we left it. Well, this time they had the chess pieces out for the big outdoor board. They also had checkers, but we never got around to playing.
Rapunzel's tower was up a lot of steps. Also, a single room. (Not counting the bathroom.) Still, it was clean, the window AC cooled things nicely, and it was quiet. That was all we asked. For dinner we ran out to the Dutch Kitchen up north... The Hocking region is a little further away than I remembered... It was easily a 20 minute drive to get to the major routes. Still, that's okay. Probably helps to keep prices down at Ravenwood, so I don't mind at all.
While tooling around the antique place and the dutch kitchen, we noticed a canoe livery down the hill. Turns out they offered a 5 mile trip for $35. Not 35 per person, 35 per CANOE. Good deal! It was a bit late by then, so we put it on the list for tomorrow.
That night, after getting back to the castle, I broke out the Iconica cards and we gave the game a whirl. The general consensus was that it was quite good! For around $100 on Etsy all told, the three sets gave plenty of characters to construct parties with.
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42727/iconica
It takes a little longer to play a battle than I thought, but it never felt like it was dragging on. And the rules were elegant, I always appreciate that.
And late at night we wandered out to watch the stars. Clear sky, no real light pollution around, thick woods... They were glorious.
-T was zonked in the morning. She woke up long enough to get breakfast, but then retreated back to bed for two more hours. Which put us behind schedule a bit, but we'd deliberately left it loose. I figured we'd have a busy day regardless.
Heh, not so much.
Mind you, we did get in a fun canoe trip down the Scioto. (We got started at noon thirty instead of 10, but that's fine.) But afterwards she was ZONKED again. Turns out being pregnant really takes it out of you. After a bite to eat at the vintage diner, we strolled around the shops a bit, and she was really, really dragging. Back to the castle! This time she slept for four hours straight.
I caught up on my miniature painting and reading. Going through a Song of Ice and Fire again. Good times.
Her punishment for sloth was running out to get us sammiches. Then she turned in early again, leaving me to my solitary pursuits. I wandered out to look at the stars again, but interrupted a couple in the spot we had used, so I left them to their privacy.
In the morning, while checking out, we learned that the castle had been purchased by a young couple from Cleveland. They were talking about redoing some of the rooms, so I assume that things will continue on as they were. GOOD. We are fond of this place, and I can tell it gets enough business to at least support it, if not make it prosper. Taz and I will be back, and we'll probably work our way through the various cabins and castle rooms. We've got our eye on the King Arthur suite, now that we know where it is on the castle... Hopefully the new owners don't raise the prices too much. For po' working folks like us, it's right at the range we want. I can go a little higher, but not too much.
Oh, and we ran into a black cat outside. Old, battered tom. Poor thing had a MASS on its head. I went to pet the guy, and Taz freaked out. "No! You don't know what it's got! Don't bring some nasty disease back to our cats!" I could see the point, so we said our farewells to him. Later on I checked with the owner, and found out that the mass was scar tissue. "Yeah, that cat got into a tussle with a racoon over the dumpster. They both eat from there." After that, I went outside and gave the tom the scritching and backrubs of its life. Me and him, we share an adversary! Death to racoons! And seriously, any cat who can survive an angry racoon trying to chew through its skull gets badass cred in my book. If the little guy's there next time we go, I'll buy and slip it some catfood on the sly.
The drive back was uneventful. Totalling up the bills, we had us a nice and cheap weekend vacation. Food was a little pricey, but we ate well for what we paid. My only souveneirs were a bunch of ginormous no-bake cookies from the amish restaurant, and a bag of horehound candy. (Good stuff, I recommend it. Nice and mild, and made from dried tea.)
So yeah. Fun times! Looking forward to Origins next week. After that, time to buckle down, save money, and prepare for Gencon...
Also made up my mind about something else entirely. Took me long enough, too. But we'll see how it goes, 'cause the dice have been rolled. I am hesitant to be too optimistic too quickly, but I am hopeful. Time to wait and see and hope that I'm not wrong...
Ah, what a vacation. Short, sweet, and stress-free.
REPORT
Ravenwood Castle's about two hours from our house, more or less. It's a bit of a boring drive, but most of it's either freeway or major route. It's north of a tiny town called Macarthur, that probably hasn't changed much since the 60s. You know the kind... Old buildings, masonic hall near the big intersection (THE big intersection. Not sure if the town has any other major streets), WWII artillery piece out on the front lawn of the courthouse. Not a bad little place, just don't expect anything much from it.
Ravenwood was precisely as we left it. Well, this time they had the chess pieces out for the big outdoor board. They also had checkers, but we never got around to playing.
Rapunzel's tower was up a lot of steps. Also, a single room. (Not counting the bathroom.) Still, it was clean, the window AC cooled things nicely, and it was quiet. That was all we asked. For dinner we ran out to the Dutch Kitchen up north... The Hocking region is a little further away than I remembered... It was easily a 20 minute drive to get to the major routes. Still, that's okay. Probably helps to keep prices down at Ravenwood, so I don't mind at all.
While tooling around the antique place and the dutch kitchen, we noticed a canoe livery down the hill. Turns out they offered a 5 mile trip for $35. Not 35 per person, 35 per CANOE. Good deal! It was a bit late by then, so we put it on the list for tomorrow.
That night, after getting back to the castle, I broke out the Iconica cards and we gave the game a whirl. The general consensus was that it was quite good! For around $100 on Etsy all told, the three sets gave plenty of characters to construct parties with.
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42727/iconica
It takes a little longer to play a battle than I thought, but it never felt like it was dragging on. And the rules were elegant, I always appreciate that.
And late at night we wandered out to watch the stars. Clear sky, no real light pollution around, thick woods... They were glorious.
-T was zonked in the morning. She woke up long enough to get breakfast, but then retreated back to bed for two more hours. Which put us behind schedule a bit, but we'd deliberately left it loose. I figured we'd have a busy day regardless.
Heh, not so much.
Mind you, we did get in a fun canoe trip down the Scioto. (We got started at noon thirty instead of 10, but that's fine.) But afterwards she was ZONKED again. Turns out being pregnant really takes it out of you. After a bite to eat at the vintage diner, we strolled around the shops a bit, and she was really, really dragging. Back to the castle! This time she slept for four hours straight.
I caught up on my miniature painting and reading. Going through a Song of Ice and Fire again. Good times.
Her punishment for sloth was running out to get us sammiches. Then she turned in early again, leaving me to my solitary pursuits. I wandered out to look at the stars again, but interrupted a couple in the spot we had used, so I left them to their privacy.
In the morning, while checking out, we learned that the castle had been purchased by a young couple from Cleveland. They were talking about redoing some of the rooms, so I assume that things will continue on as they were. GOOD. We are fond of this place, and I can tell it gets enough business to at least support it, if not make it prosper. Taz and I will be back, and we'll probably work our way through the various cabins and castle rooms. We've got our eye on the King Arthur suite, now that we know where it is on the castle... Hopefully the new owners don't raise the prices too much. For po' working folks like us, it's right at the range we want. I can go a little higher, but not too much.
Oh, and we ran into a black cat outside. Old, battered tom. Poor thing had a MASS on its head. I went to pet the guy, and Taz freaked out. "No! You don't know what it's got! Don't bring some nasty disease back to our cats!" I could see the point, so we said our farewells to him. Later on I checked with the owner, and found out that the mass was scar tissue. "Yeah, that cat got into a tussle with a racoon over the dumpster. They both eat from there." After that, I went outside and gave the tom the scritching and backrubs of its life. Me and him, we share an adversary! Death to racoons! And seriously, any cat who can survive an angry racoon trying to chew through its skull gets badass cred in my book. If the little guy's there next time we go, I'll buy and slip it some catfood on the sly.
The drive back was uneventful. Totalling up the bills, we had us a nice and cheap weekend vacation. Food was a little pricey, but we ate well for what we paid. My only souveneirs were a bunch of ginormous no-bake cookies from the amish restaurant, and a bag of horehound candy. (Good stuff, I recommend it. Nice and mild, and made from dried tea.)
So yeah. Fun times! Looking forward to Origins next week. After that, time to buckle down, save money, and prepare for Gencon...
Also made up my mind about something else entirely. Took me long enough, too. But we'll see how it goes, 'cause the dice have been rolled. I am hesitant to be too optimistic too quickly, but I am hopeful. Time to wait and see and hope that I'm not wrong...