The Feast 1: Getting There

I have decided I must write down my Feast memories somewhere, and this seems as good a place as any. Perhaps I was inspired by outside sources (yes I'm a copycat Heidi, sue me :D). This is mainly for my own memories, people don't have to read/comment unless they want to. And yes, unlike certain other people *coughAaroncough* I WILL be finishing this, whic means there will be four or five Feast posts.

It started on Monday morning, my dad and I arose before six and got in the car to drive two hours to join Paul, Andrew, and Susan for the trip south to meet our bus. The trip took about four hours, but it didn't seem that long; mainly because the conversation was entertaining. It was the usual fare; started off with talk of Evolution vs. Creationism, and conjecture as to why scientists will support a theory they know to be wrong; it evolved into talk of the 'Taking Over the World' thread that had been raging on MH lately, and other various wars/factions associated with MH/HT. Paul put forth his theory that the wars against Peeps and Olives were merely peices of Aaron's ultimate plan to take over the world; ie, we'll take out Peeps and Olives, then move onto the rest of the factions.

It was here that I came up with the idea that in a few years you'll be able to go to the Military History section of a bookstore and find a book entitled "MouthHouse Wars," and that at the center will be a huge fold-out diagram of everybody associated with these wars, and what factions they belong to; and that, if you work everything out, everybody probably should have both killed and supported everybody else at least twice. Paul showed me a sheaf of his comics; some of them were quite good.

We arrived in Altamont, IL, and drove around those ridiculous flat IL roads looking for the church where we were to meet the bus. We found it, stopped at the church for homemade ice-cream, before loading up and setting out on the seventeen-hour ride to CO Springs, CO.

The ride went fairly well; we watched stupid movies and talked. Most of the Altamont kids were jock-ish and kind of ignored us; but we talked to a couple of the more geek- (read: Star Wars) inclined kids.

Memorable moments: Paul created a new superhero, Meta-Chap. His power? He can chap people's lips. He and I sort of collaborated on a comic featuring him:

Evil Bad Guy: HaHA, Meta-Chap, now you are captured, and my evil minions will take over the world, and...

Meta-Chap: I have chapped your lips! Your evil monologue is cut short!

EBG: *Gestures to minions* Just kill him.

M-C: *Dies.*

Um, passing through Kansas (or maybe we were in CO by then) in the evening, we saw a stealth bomber flying pretty low. (Or was it a fighter? I keep forgettting. The military-geek kid explained it to us, and I still forget.) Anyway, 'twas cool. Paul took a picture of it, but only as it was fading. As I remarked then and Aaron would remark later on seeing it: "Well, it's either a Stealth Fighter or a smudge on the camera lense." I also came up with this dialogue:

"It's a picture of a stealth fighter."
"I don't see it."
"That's because it's a STEALTH fighter."

Also, while passing through Kansas, I could not help but notice the landscape, or lack thereof. That baby is FLAT. I remarked to someone, "I don't know what the Indians saw in this place." They said to imagine hordes of buffalo roaming the praire. Then I could see it; but still, you'd think that two of them eight hundred years ago might have a dialogue something like this:

Red Pony: You know, if you take away all the buffalo out here, what do you get?
High Horse: I dunno. Grass?
Red Pony: And what else?
High Horse: um... Grass? There's trees over there. No wait, that's also grass.
Red Pony: Yeah. Without the Buffalo, this place is pretty sad.
High Horse: So what do we do, move?
Red Pony: Maybe not now. Maybe we could wait till alot more people arrivve and shoot them all for us.
*High Horse and Red Pony stare at each other, and decide that the conversation never happened.*

(In case anyone's curious, I came up with this ON THE BUS. This, my children, is what fifteen hours on a bus will do to you.)

Sleep was a fitful thing that night; I'd doze off for a couple hours, wake up, read myself back to sleep, wake up again. I remember thinking that direct city lights are harsh, but are rather pretty when reflected panoramically in bus windows. however this thought came when I was half-asleep, so it should probably be ignored.

We arrived in Co Springs about four hours ahead of schedule, drove around a while, stopped at Wal-Mart for some stuff, then went to have breakfast at Perkins. I had what Susan called a "Heaping plate of meat and white flour," (pretty much their whole breakfast menu was variations on this).

Well, we drove down to CC and found the registration place. We were two hours early, but people were already registering. Susan went out for a quick scouting run, and almost immediately brought back reports of some weirdo in a purple toga. :P :D

Soon the bus dropped us near our rooms, and we had Arrived.

(Note for this and future Feast posts: if there is something essential I have left out, let me know. These posts may experience some slight editing. ;-))