Warning: correspondents sending epistles of an abusive, offensive, tasteless, explicit or illegal nature will be dealt with in the most severe nature that Caer Galen can devise...you will be ignored. The editors would also like to observe that the dungeon is not far from the wine cellar.

Dear Doge,

I am about to visit Pennsic for the first time. However, I am a little intimidated by the long drive there. I live in Atenveldt and will be driving with three other gentles over a three day period to get there. Is there any advice you'd give a Pennsic newbie about how to survive such a long trip and still be speaking to my travelling companions by the time we get there? It isn't Pennsic I'm worried about...it's the long trip!

Sincerely,

Road Warrior

Dear Roadie

Ah, one can almost feel the tingle in the air as that special time of year approaches...Pennsic, that event of events, drawing members of every Kingdom together in the warm (and often humid) embrace of Cooper's Lake...where the fighting is sweet, the merchants are well-stocked and the after-dark parties are the stuff that keep priests hearing confessions for months. You, my dear gentle, are in for a treat, and I would gladly go with you...Alas, duties to the Shire and the urgency of the brewing season (these grapes won't stomp themselves, now, will they?) shall keep me here. However, as a veteran of long trips, which are many in a Kingdom as large as the Outlands, I can give you some pointers on how to while away the time without whittling away at your sanity.

1. Make sure your vehicle is road-worthy and travel-worthy. Road-worthy means such mundane considerations as oil changes, tires properly inflated, fluids checked and rechecked, fuel tank topped off and an emergency kit including road flares, water, non-perishable food items and having a cellular phone handy for emergencies. Travel-worthy refers to the type of vehicle itself, and its amenities, the latter of which should include plenty of leg-room and a workable CD player, air conditioning and a heater, and enough cupholders. If you have, as you say, four other passengers, then I wouldn't attempt this journey in an inappropriate vehicle...say a Chevy Nova, a Pinto, or my favorite, a 1959 Volkswagen Beetle (though this will give you plenty of stories to compare with others when you get down to the road trip horror stories - I walked like Groucho Marx for a WEEK afterwards!). As the trip progresses, leg room will become more precious than gold, and you will find yourself whacking your head on the dashboard because you didn't spring for the Ford Exploder and bought a Fiesta instead (note, anyone attempting this in a Porsche, Spyder, or Miata can obviously afford plane fare and should be dragged from the vehicle and pummeled to death upon their arrival, if they haven't already been done in by their travelling companions).

2. Pack more that one CD. Trust me on this. To this day I can still hear the strains of Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fu-un", picked up and permanently imprinted on my grey matter on an unfortunate trip to Caid in the mid-eighties. Over and over and over. We won't even mention "Born to Be Wild"...

3. Clean the vehicle periodically on your way there. What seemed to be ample legroom will become a knee-deep well of fast food bags, used tissue, CD jewelcases, wallets, money, dirt, socks and sandals, gum wrappers, old Big Gulp Cups and the usual detritus of a car trip longer than an hour. It doesn't look good, nor does it impress the ladies to open the doors of your vehicle and flood the parking lot with the refuse. And then there are the rats...

4. Observe the rules of the road. Chivalry is something that is not often practiced on the highways and byways of this country, particulary at rush hour. Drive with the skill of Mario Andretti and the patience of Mother Theresa and you will probably arrive at Pennsic unscathed. Stopping for wild-eyed hitchhikers, particularly on dark stretches of isolated road, is like putting one's hand in a fishbowl of piranha and wiggling your fingers. Not that you'd have much room to allocate to a fifth passenger, unless he wants to ride on the roof with the pavillion.

5. Play nice with the police officers. I am pretty sure that the last thing that a state patrolman wants to do is sit with a radar detector on some godless, boring bit of road (say, between Denver and Anywhere, Kansas) and wait for you to trip his signal. You don't want to explain to the nice officer why you are carrying lots of sharp weapons and rope in your trunk (for heaven's sake, leave the daggers, dirks, and Claymores off your body when you hit a filling station and go into pay for the gasoline...clerks are nervous enough these days. Unless you are in the deep South...then you'll likely get a response of "Purty nice huntin' knife ya got thar... too bad it's kinda puny!"). Use some common sense and observe rule 4., and you won't have to deal with rule 5.

6. Learn the value of silence. Of course, you will get to know your travelling companions well during this trip because after all of the CDs have been exhausted, there really isn't anything left to do except talk. You will become very close over the next three days. Resist the temptation to use them for psychotherapy, as an audience for a recount of your love conquests, and don't, under any circumstances, attempt to play games along the lines of "I see something beginning with the letter `R'", to pass the time. This is grounds for you to trade places with the hitchhiker on the roofrack and the loss of bathroom pit stop privileges.

7. Leave your shoes on, for the sake of all the gods, not to mention everyone else in the car.

8. Remember that if you are planning to purchase large items at Pennsic (furniture, a pavillion, a harp, the entire inventory of Master John's pigment shop, a Tuchuck for use as a lawn ornament, etc. ) to leave some space on the roofrack. Unless you've managed to shake the hitchhiker, you may not have enough vehicle to get everyone or everything home, and postage is expensive. Nothing is more desperately funny than watching a Ford Fiesta lumber its way home across the landscape, with its trunk bulging and a roof-rack of stuff that equals or exceeds the weight of the vehicle it's strapped to. Frequently, in such cases, it is customary to make the person who purchased the most things at Pennsic ride on the fender or the trunk of the vehicle, lashed in place by ropes. If stopped by the police, simply explain to the nice officer, observing Rule 5 at all times, that you had heard that it was open season on Vikings and that you were simply hauling home your legal limit. I'm sure he'll understand.

9. Don't forget the map. Nothing is worse than being in a strange city without a phone and realizing that you've left the Pennsic brochure on the back of the toilet tank, either at home or at some seedy truck stop near Des Moines, Iowa. Staple it to your forehead or have it tattooed somewhere on your body and have one of your companions act as navigator. Better yet, staple it to one of the other passengers (it hurts less that way). If you do get lost, stay calm and ask for directions. Nothing will ruin your Pennsic experience faster than starring in the "Blair Witch Project" sequel, looking for a farmhouse with a phone (and don't even think about going into any strange castles you may stumble across).

Good fortune with the trip and bring me back something shiny from the War....

The Doge