ARGH! I can’t believe I didn’t know the date of it. And I was probably right in the neighbourhood, too! :smack:
We are “home” (my place) after an eventful if trying night and morning/afternoon.
I have no further desire (if I did at any point) to drive to or from York, PA.
I would attempt to do picture IDs, but 8 hours of sleep, and Beltway driving have taken a toll on me.
Tomorrow we get to drive back down to SWVA, which will be at least as much fun as the drive up was.
My thoughts about…
Drive up: uneventful
Paul: gracious pre-dopefest host and kitty refuge, patient underarm-fart instructor
New Oxford: scariest, biggest yard sale EVER
Gettysburg: very narrow roads
Picnic: loads of fun! I met lots of new people and saw old friends. ;j Had a total blast.
AnitaVacation: best party crasher ever! (so glad you made it!!)
Mud: apparently the greatest thing ever, in addition to having black-hole like qualities with regards to sucking in children.
Wind: makes juggling hard.
Evening/Night: total clusterfuck. Pizza was good, though. Will make for a good journal entry when I get the energy.
Fizzymobile: surprisingly comfortable with five [very understanding, patient] people in it.
AT&T Cell phone coverage: sucks in Central PA
Morning: mmm… free hotel breakfast. Given how tired I was on the drive home even WITH the sleep I got, it’s probably for the best that I didn’t end up going out the night before after all. Glad I wasn’t the one with the hangover (does that make me evil?)
Drive home: boring, but shorter and prettier than the drive up.
Photos and video clips are up: http://tinyurl.com/2359k
Note: Anyone who took photos, I would really love to add your photos to this gallery (even if you have them up on your own site) if you would let me.
I’ll have more to say when I’m not all benadryl’d up and half comatose. 
I’m home, got here a little about an hour ago. Good to see 'punha and fizzy made it to NOVA safely, after I followed (coughtailgatedcough) them all around Hanover and York this morning/afternoon trying to get DocCathode to a bus station (AFAIK he’s still there, the next bus to Philly doesn’t leave til 7:15…) and then find our way back to a major highway. 
I must say it was an extremely interesting time. 'Twas my first 'Fest, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had tons of fun, and it was so cool to meet so many people. Everyone was awesome and I enjoyed it immensely. I didn’t get a chance to really talk to everybody, but you all seemed really cool. Much thanks to fizzy and 'punha for sharing their hotel room with me, being generally super cool, and being my navigators, as I followed them all over the place. Everybody else was really great, I’m so happy I went. Me having such an awkward location makes it tough but hopefully I’ll get to another sometime in the future.
Oh, and I did take some pictures, not many, but I’ll try to get them posted sometime soon. Too exhausted right now, it was a long night.
In the style of OpalCat’s posting:
Drive up: Not bad, but 522 and 30 suck.
Chambersburg: Why was it so hard to make it through this town?
Gettysburg: Someone point me to that thread about roundabouts so I can complain about them.
Picnic: Interesting and fun, but not sure the next one in whatever area I’m in will be on the “to-make-no-matter-what” list
AT&T Cell Phone Coverage: Funny, I’ve never had a problem here at school or in Gettysburg (not that I was looking at the reception on the drive either way)
Drive back: 522 and 30 still suck, and I’m glad I didn’t try to climb that hill on 30 in the dark. Those were an awful lot of curves both ways.
My phone kept going into “Emergency Only” mode… or sometimes flat out “No Service”. GRR.
OpalCat, Dominic is your son, right? Please pass along a thank you from Colin, who enjoyed having a “big boy” to play whiffleball with. He’s asked about Dominic a couple times since yesterday, most recently this afternoon when we were playing ball in my brother’s back yard.
Will do. Dominic absolutely loves younger kids (even babies) and would gladly play with them all day long.
BTW – dances – your jar of Nance’s mustard was in the bag I forgot. I’ll give it to you next time we meet – which, since I have your blessing to remain int he flock, I hope will be soon. 
No names, just file numbers, but the pictures came out OK.
I had a wonderful time! I can also predict that sometime this week, Polycarp, and perhaps Skulldigger will be back to da Dope!
Thanks to everyone for the fun, the food, and for eating all that kimchi!
Oh, please feel free to download the photos, although I will leave them up for a month or two, anyway.
Tris
Can I upload the photos to the gallery, T?
Yes, certainly. You can use them for any legal purposes you desire.
And, if any are suitable for blackmail, you can use them if you cut me in on the loot!
Tris
Are you running on a GSM national plan? I am, but that’s because I wanted to easily use the phone at home, at school, and all points in-between.
Anyway, I’m hijacking. Back to the wrap-up.
My pics (which weren’t many, actually…much fewer than I thought I took!) are posted over on the lj community, this post.
I had a great time. I was so happy to meet everybody (especially Siege and Polycarp, two meetings that had been badly delayed). I had (and listened to) some VERY interesting conversations. I ate some GREAT food!
This better be the first annual central pa dopefest and not the only…
GREAT pic of the jugglers! Poor Frank, Opal just throwing clubs at him like that…
I had expected to wait until 7 for a bus. But, I had only called the toll free Greyhound number., The terminal is shared with Capital Transport. Capital had a bus leaving at 3:50. This gave me an hour or so to visit local shops.
Gloria’s Grocery And Lottery- This quickiemart has no merchandise worth mentioning. But, atop a shelf sits a stunningly gorgeous antique radio. There are steel, teardrop toggle switches, a bulky black dial, and rows of pristine vacuum tubes, some in designs I’ve never seen before.
Historic York- This is a wonderful antique store. Its merchandise is largely aimed at the repair and preservation of old homes. But, they also had shelves full of odd, miscelaneous things. I was able to obtain many things perfectly suited for my various projects- and the owner let me have all these treasures for only a buck.
DancesWithCats ummmm I was performing a mole inspection? I am a doctor you know. As my Mother now has WebTV, and may read the SDMB someday, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
GingerOfTheNorth One of the many marvellous things that happened as a result of my missing my ride back home was ending up in a hotel room with your apple cake. It was sweet, but not overly so. It was moist, yet crunchy. I woke up many times during the night and ate another slice. For a shikseh, you make a mighty fine Jewish apple cake.
Re The Kite
EUREKA! It came to me while I was waiting for the bus. My original concept of a kite that rises based on the air within being heated by the sun, would have worked. If only I’d thought to fill the mylar skin with partially inflated balloons. This would have made it a simple matter to keep the hot air within the kite. Not inflating the balloons to capacity would have left room for the air to expand without popping them. I shall test this design sometime this week.
Interestingly enough i had service on my cell, though i’m with Verizon, which seems to cover central PA fairly well.
Here are the pictures that Magickly took with my digital camera. I apologize for the blurriness of the first few, it wasn’t until about halfway through that she noticed that i had it set between the “macro” and “closeup” settings. It’s hard to tell how blurry the pictures are with the small screen, so you can blame me for the fuzz. Oops.
Also, i think i got everyone right, but in case i mis-identified somebody, married someone off by accident, or created new relatives for people, feel free to let me know so i can fix it. Opal and others are welcome to do whatever they like with the photos, though they may only want to take the few clear ones.
All in all it was a grand time, it was nice to meet you all. I’ll have to keep an eye out for the next one in the area; this one was certainly well worth the trek from the not-so-frozen north.
Good pics, theckhd! Seeing Airman’s sister makes me realize that I captioned her as nyctea scandiaca in my Antares guitar photo because they were wearing similar colors. I don’t think nyctea got there until after the photo I took…
Sorry about the AT&T users whose cell service went to the land of lost left sox-part of why I went to Nextel.
Glad you’re home safe DocCathode. Whatever you were doing I’m sure was purely for clinical or research purposes. Kewl.
Glad to see you made it home safely, DocCathode, and didn’t have to hang out in York for 6 hours! Felt kinda guilty about leaving ya there, but apparently it all worked out okay.