Herein lies a tale of the Wisconsonmoot.
It was a dark and foggy morning as my sister drove me to the airport.
"I can't believe you're meeting strangers from the internet," she said.
"You're registered there too," I replied.
"Shut up,"
Oliphaunts_Rule retorted eloquently.
Not even waiting to see me off, she sped off in her rattly little red car, blasting Ace of Base as I surveyed the revolving door before me. This took little time to navigate, and within the hour I was on a plane to connect at MSP. Minnesota is, of course, raining when I am there.
And very soon I am at the Wisconsin airport. There is a nice little display of Grimm's Fairy Tale items there that I take pictures of as I am waiting for my ride.
Diamond18, who graciously let me sleep on her couch and chauffeured me, arrives soon after due to inferior online directions featuring such instructions as "Turn left, then turn right".
"Stupid Mapquest!" I offer.
Diamond laughs uncomfortably, and I decide against using an Uncloaked joke.
She took me to the place where she works, which features an indoor theme park. We were butt-kicked at lazer tag, but excelled at go-carts and the ferris wheel.
Diamond turned out to be quite adept at the rope jungle, while I experienced gut-twisting vertigo and turned back like a little(r) girl.
Though this is not a cat reviewing website, I will say that
Merry and
Pippin are five-star cats and are fuzzy and exceedingly cuddlable.
The next day we went to a waterpark, which was something I had never been to, but henceforth loved. My efforts to awkwardly grope
Diamond and kick her in the head were mildly successful.
We arrived at
Ibrin's on Wednesday a little later and a little more frustrated than we wished, as I kept giving such wonderful directions as "Turn left here. Yes, that way is left...no no! It's right!" and "Um...I think...yeah, that was our turn back there.". Usually I am a decent side-seat driver, but my directionlexia was flaring up.
We ended up meating
Ibrin and
Mr. Ibrin,
Lommy,
Agan,
Greenie and
Noggie at a restaurant that evening, and much squeeing and hugging was done by most.
At
Ibrin's we talked about many things, excluding cabbages, sealing wax or kings, but did include Mythbusters, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Paper Telephone.
McCaber joined us here, and we told him of our adventure in finding him.
The Tale of the Wrong McCaber
We were told which kind of store McCaber worked at, but as it was a very common store, we did not know which specific store he worked at. The hunt was long and fruitless, as the store we tried did have someone with the same first name working there, but was obviously not the right nerd.
Upon inquiring a sales associate if there was a person belonging to a certain name working at that time, a blank stare was returned to us, in addition to an "Uhhh" and an "Umm". She pointed us out to a young worker, to whom Aganzir boldly walked up to.
"Are you from the Barrow Downs?" the pretty young thing asked in her lovely accent. The young man's gaze flitted from her to the four other young women from the internet giggling insanely several feet away. He muttered something inaudible and dashed outside. This was not the right McCaber. So we gave up.
Here endeth the tale of the wrong McCaber.
Henceforth, we returned to the house of
Ibrin and watched Mythbusters and talked.
McCaber did join us later, and more talking ensued.
Aganzir was extremely tired that whole night and disappeared for a while, before being found asleep on the floor.
Sleeping was done in rather tight quarters, and
Diamond claimed she sat up in the night at some point screaming, but nobody remembered that happening. Heh heh. Nobody at all. Nooooooooobody at all. Hem.
Not a one of us was happy to be up by eight the next morning, but it could not be helped. Certain Finns wished to be away to their next stop, alas.
Ibrin was not able to join us, so
Diamond,
Nogrod,
Aganzir,
Thinlomien,
A Little Green,
McCaber and myself picked up some doughnuts on our way to a picnic.
We talked Werewolf for quite a while, and enjoyed the pleasant if still muddy weather. At last came the Departure of the Finniship, despite
Diamond's best efforts to get us turned around and despite my best efforts to be kidnapped.
Ibrin and
McCaber I hadn't the pleasure of interacting with yet.
Ibrin was a very nice lady with many stories to tell.
McCaber seemed to be a little too obsessed with Cthulhu and the Old Ones and and that combined with his interest with hydroponics and ichthyology was bit worrying, but a fine young nerd nonetheless, and quite nice.
Lommy,
Greenie and
Agan were just as sweet and enthused as they seem on the board, and while I've skyped with
Lommy and
Agan I was very happy to finally meet them in person.
Nogrod was very enthusiastic and animated about everything.
On my final day in the Cheese state,
Diamond took me on an epic quest to free the four elemental wizards. We were only successful in freeing one, although much knowledge of the arcane was learned. And I totally defeated a dragon.
That dragon found itself defeated.
Group shot:
It was an great time and was awesome to finally meet some of you. I'm saving up my pennies and hope to do it again in the not-too-horribly-distant future.
