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Today I got a nice message from one of my Atlantian heraldic peeps. The subject line said, "From my German family to your Lithuanian one..." And in the message he wrote: "Congratulations on a battle well fought." Yes, today is the 601st (601th?) anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald, and after last year, I would be remiss if I didn't mention it. :-)
This year, BTW, I didn't sign up to teach any classes at Pennsic. I just still don't know how long I will stay there. I want to travel there on Friday, August 5, when the $40 premium for getting there during the first week goes away. I have a big feature article (freelance) that is due on Monday, August 1, so there will be no land-grab weekend stuff for me, that's for sure.
I checked on the standard DC-to-Pennsic route online. Tolls have gone up slightly on the Pennsylvania Turnpike since last year. The "standard route," Exit 161 (Breezewood) to Exit 28 (Cranberry), will cost $11.35 if you're paying by cash or $10.61 if you have E-ZPass (as I do). Last year it was $10 flat.
For the heck of it I put my address and Pennsic's into Google Maps and found an alternate route that is supposedly a couple of miles shorter and a couple of minutes faster, with less time on the PA Turnpike. It goes something like this: Exit 161 (Breezewood) -> Exit 146 (Bedford) -> north on I-99/U.S. Route 220 -> Exit 28 (just south of Altoona) to U.S. Route 22 west -> that becomes U.S. Route 422 west of a town called Ebensburg -> through Butler -> turn right onto Currie Road.
Has anybody gone that way? I'm thinking that there might be fewer trucks to dodge on that route. I'm no fan of the PA Turnpike -- I appreciate its historic significance, but it's full of trucks and construction zones and too often, when the slow-uphill lane is supposed to end, the left-hand lane ends instead, making the slow-uphill lane into the normal right lane and the normal right lane into the left/passing lane, where I suddenly have speeders up my butt. At age 15 years and 151K miles, my car isn't as peppy under a full load as it used to be, and I hate to do a number on the engine or transmission.
(A possibly little-known fact: On the trip from my place in the DC 'burbs to Pennsic, there is a net gain of about 1,000 feet in elevation. So the trip to Pennsic really does seem to be uphill.)
In other SCA news ... the dance group is having a sewing afternoon on Sunday, so I will probably go to that, now that I've found my sewing machine's "missing" foot pedal (it wasn't really missing, I just didn't look in the tote bag that was hanging on the back of the bedroom door). I have some light blue IKEA linen that I bought in 2004, and slowly I'm making it into a short-sleeved T-tunic dress. Not terribly historic, but something to wear in soupy-hot weather besides a chiton or "bog dress." I'll trim the sleeves with that "Spike" ribbon that Baroness Janina gave me years ago, and I could wear it to Atlantian 30-Year in September.
This year, BTW, I didn't sign up to teach any classes at Pennsic. I just still don't know how long I will stay there. I want to travel there on Friday, August 5, when the $40 premium for getting there during the first week goes away. I have a big feature article (freelance) that is due on Monday, August 1, so there will be no land-grab weekend stuff for me, that's for sure.
I checked on the standard DC-to-Pennsic route online. Tolls have gone up slightly on the Pennsylvania Turnpike since last year. The "standard route," Exit 161 (Breezewood) to Exit 28 (Cranberry), will cost $11.35 if you're paying by cash or $10.61 if you have E-ZPass (as I do). Last year it was $10 flat.
For the heck of it I put my address and Pennsic's into Google Maps and found an alternate route that is supposedly a couple of miles shorter and a couple of minutes faster, with less time on the PA Turnpike. It goes something like this: Exit 161 (Breezewood) -> Exit 146 (Bedford) -> north on I-99/U.S. Route 220 -> Exit 28 (just south of Altoona) to U.S. Route 22 west -> that becomes U.S. Route 422 west of a town called Ebensburg -> through Butler -> turn right onto Currie Road.
Has anybody gone that way? I'm thinking that there might be fewer trucks to dodge on that route. I'm no fan of the PA Turnpike -- I appreciate its historic significance, but it's full of trucks and construction zones and too often, when the slow-uphill lane is supposed to end, the left-hand lane ends instead, making the slow-uphill lane into the normal right lane and the normal right lane into the left/passing lane, where I suddenly have speeders up my butt. At age 15 years and 151K miles, my car isn't as peppy under a full load as it used to be, and I hate to do a number on the engine or transmission.
(A possibly little-known fact: On the trip from my place in the DC 'burbs to Pennsic, there is a net gain of about 1,000 feet in elevation. So the trip to Pennsic really does seem to be uphill.)
In other SCA news ... the dance group is having a sewing afternoon on Sunday, so I will probably go to that, now that I've found my sewing machine's "missing" foot pedal (it wasn't really missing, I just didn't look in the tote bag that was hanging on the back of the bedroom door). I have some light blue IKEA linen that I bought in 2004, and slowly I'm making it into a short-sleeved T-tunic dress. Not terribly historic, but something to wear in soupy-hot weather besides a chiton or "bog dress." I'll trim the sleeves with that "Spike" ribbon that Baroness Janina gave me years ago, and I could wear it to Atlantian 30-Year in September.
