Recirculating Cheese

"We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!"

Kylie went on an adventure today, and was later for dinner. She wasn't around when I was striking camp around 1pm, although she'd packed her clothes. She still wasn't around when it was time to leave at 2, and the crowd was a lot thinner then. No one had seen her since around 10am, so we looked down in the sanctuary and other areas on the grounds. By 3, we were searching the trails, and enlisted the Abode staff to help. By 4:30, it was time to call the State Police, although they helpfully didn't show up for an hour. All the time, I was thinking that, even if she hadn't fallen off a cliff, even if she was just lost, she might have gotten picked up by Someone. Around 6, after talking with the trooper for a while, JB was just about to send an APB to the attendees mailing list, to see if anyone had better info about when she was last seen, who she might have been with, whether she might have left with someone else (as if), etc. And the trooper was saying that, if we were going to get sniffer dogs search party helicopter etc, we needed to get it going now while there was still a bit of daylight. THEN and only then, with impeccable timing, did Kylie show up.

She had, in fact, gone exploring, gotten lost, and made some poor choices about how to get un-lost (including heading back uphill, away from roads, and incidentally up a different hill). She eventually encounted a trail maintenance crew on 4-wheelers, who gave her a ride back to the Darrow School, where she got a ride to the Abode (but didn't think to check in with the Abode staff), and walked up the hill, except, wanting to avoid getting run over on the narrow mountain road, walked up one of the back trails to the retreat. Or something like that.

Anyway, hugs all around, handshakes with the state trooper (who was very good-natured about it, since she had just saved him a lot of work), some lovely parting gifts from the kitchen, and (eventually) exeunt stage left, pursued by bears.

[Coda 1 was our passenger getting terrible news about a friend, and not being able to call until we were down off the mountain.]

[Coda 2 was getting stuck in an I-93 night road work traffic jam, tantalizingly close to home.]

ETA/footnote: "Lost in the Woods Con" was a Robin of Sherwood fan picnic around 1990. No one here other than wereterrier would know that. Some in-jokes are really just in my head.

So much has happened in the last month that I should have posted about. I'm lame. You knew that. I'll dribble it out as time allows, but I might as well start with the most recent subject.

Baitcon was fabulous as usual. It really is a faulous group of people, some of whom I've known for decades (I'm old), some of whom I've finally just met (I'm lucky). However, I didn't get any pictures, because I couldn't be bothered to unpack my camera (again, I'm lame), except for a couple phone-snaps on the way out.

This is at the side of the road on the way to/from Baitcon. What is it?


It's the burned-out shell of the Great Stone Barn of the Mount Lebanon Shaker Society. Nearly 200' long, 50' wide, four stories high, it was the largest stone barn in the country, until it was gutted in 1972.

Mount Lebanon was one of the first and most important of the Shaker communities, but it died out in 1947 (celibacy not being a good long-term survival strategy). The land and buildings are now owned by the Mount Lebanon Shaker Village museum, Darrow School, and The Abode of the Message (a.k.a. the Baitcon landlords).

The Mount Lebanon Shaker Village has a master plan to build a new 50,000 sq ft museum and library in the shell of the barn, but for now it's a glorious (dangerous and unstable) wreck. In the meantime, the existing museum is closed. However, the nearby Hancock Shaker Village is open and thriving.

Leaving Baitcon, I turned that way on a whim; even as we were walking in the door, I swore it was just a little look-see. Meh, who am I kidding? After Louisbourg and Sherbrooke last summer, were we really going to pass it up? Well, we kept it down to two hours, and skipped some buildings we would have liked to have seen. Next year?



( moar pixs )

Leaving for Worldcon on Wednesday, and I recently did the drive down to Phila for aikido camp (although iabervon did almost all of the actual driving, and lyonesse did the rest). So while it would be great to see everyone, I can't muster any enthusiasm for either the time or the other logistics of getting there or being there.

This will be the first Baitcon I've voluntarily missed since I started going in '92 or so. Last year wasn't, and the year before I was biking through Utah. Have fun, and I'll probably be there next year.