The "Wing & a Prayer Tour"

Hey ho Mischievites, friends and family!

Well, it's been quite a wild ride.
We've named this trip "The Wing & a Prayer Tour" and it's aptly named!!

From our first blog of telling you about our beginning trip complications of having our car having engine problems....as in....there IS now NO ENGINE in our car....

To a miracle happening and thankfully borrowing Elaine's car and getting safely out of Central New York just as a winter storm came in suddenly....

We got to S.C. to see our dear friends Kristin, Jeff and the kiddos!
YAY! Relief in the form of friendly faces, hugs and food and wine! Thank you so much!

 What a lovely family and one that we care for deeply!

 We sure relished a glass or two of wine about the time we got there! There were a lot of crazy drivers and some crappy weather to drive thru! Thanks to the Izzo family for such a lovely, yet quick stayover and we were back on the road at 7am next morning!

Pictures are worth a 1000 words. There was some "weather" on the way down, as you can see....
Elaine, your car is fine (and now is washed!) but people down south were giving us dirty looks, (even tho' we'd only been on the road 1 day) so Harry & Jeff washed it! Great car and the mileage is 35 mpg!

 This is the dried on salt and sand from the storm. All gone now, but man, Harry did great traveling thru it all in a car that he really didn't know well!

We got in to Cape Coral Florida to stay with Dre & Max Rousseau and Jay and Abby (The Harper & The Minstrel) in our annual "Musician Infestation" at Dre's house....
but just in time and out of the car in time for Tornado watches, and torrential downpours!
The faire DID open yesterday, but it was very saturated with water, and there was so much mud. But Rennies being Rennies, we truly all did "muck in" and we STILL managed to get crowds and have a good day.
It was a little rough.
Here's pics from opening day:

 Hey!
Can you see our stage????

So, when life gives you lemons...you make lemonade.
And when faire gives you water...you sing a lot of Sailing Songs!
We still had a lot of fun tho and made a lot of people happy.

 And then last night this happened....click this link

We got dressed for a faire work day and we went, but after last night's 2nd terrible storm, the faire was cancelled. There was such damage from the storm on top of another storm....

This is what faire looks like today when we went in for morning meeting:

 Gods Bless the Vendors!

 Where the water is here is usually just grass....

Abby and I are sort kinda in ren garb...as much as necessary for the morning meeting on a day that the faire cancels anyways...
We are making the best of it.
Hey, at least we are together! <3

 An Orb on me!

 Me with my stage behind me.
This is usually called "The Tavern Stage"
Now it is "The Moat Stage" or "The Swamp Stage"
(no, no bodice for me...going home soon back to Cape Coral for a boon day off....)

Come on...You gotta just have a sense of humor about shit like this.
Here's my stage!
LOL

Come on...

At least the sun is coming out!

Thank you to everyone who donated to Heather Jenson's GoFundMe page for us to help with our engine repair back home Hopefully all will be well one of these days. :)

At least we are alive, happy and with friends in a borrowed car. Signing off from sunny wet Florida for now!

Hugs from Merlyn & Harry

Your Wandering Minstrels

Magick of Mortality

I think, in retrospect....

THE most magickal aspect of this trip is the fact that total annihilation was avoided.

Really.

Our car problem could very well have been a different ending.
Even though we'd had the car checked out and work done on it before we left for FL (front end alignment and inspection recently, and radiator and water pump changed before we left....)
The CV joint was bad on the front end of the car. The universal was about to break. Boot cracked  sometime on the way down to fl...the fluid drained out. We went all over hell and high water....

I mean we went from Central NY....drove thru the Troll Country of the Mountains of Va....all the way to Fort Myers....then down and across Alligator Alley back and forth....back up to Tampa area ....back and forth the Skyway Bridge....back to Fort Myers....

ALL ON A BAD CV JOINT.

When I finally talked Harry into 'getting an appointment to have it looked at", my water bottle in the car's cup holder was shaking like it was put in a paint spinner. The car was shaking our livers out.
We put it into the shop JUST IN TIME.

We were SO LUCKY it was MAGICK!

1) We were able to stay at our dear friends' house, safe, and happy....with a little extra time with them for a visit while the car was worked on before the trip home...(which we couldn't made any other way).

2) We didn't lose control of our car while we were on any of those highways and crash and burn and have to get scraped off the road.....

3) We had a reputable dealer that was recommended...(i.e. NOT BillyBob's Garage in South Bumfuck late at night on roads we didn't know...)

4) We got out of it with a brand new CV joint, 2 brand new tires (of the RIGHT size w/all tires now matching!) all for less than $500. (We'd like to thank Larry's Auto & Truck Service in Cape Coral, FL for being so kewl with us. We even brought the 2 wrong sized /but good shape tires, back with us. Any one need a pair of 215s? All season tread. $25 bucks for the pair....alright so we're trying to recover some bucks on this one....)

5) We even got better gas mileage on the way home!!
Gas mileage on way down was 20mpg....and got 25 mpg on the way back.

 We are VERY LUCKY.
It was a MUCH better car after that mechanical operation. The "tapping" sound we heard earlier, that we thought was a "lifter"...was gone. There are some noises we've yet to investigate, but we are HOME, happy and SAFE.

I read another book outloud to Harry on the way home. It is something kindred to share a story, while passing the time... and it sure goes by faster.
Two- twelve hour driving days can be hard back to back.

For my Big Bang Theory friends....I read the book "Supernature" by Lyall Watson.

Sort of a "Sheldon" book of science investigating super nature-al subjects. Very interesting. A South African, botonist, zoologist, biologist, entymologist...combining String theory and Clairvoyance and Dowsing and Telepathy all rolled into one strange 1970s book.

Some of it was mind boggling.
Some of it was bizarre.
Some of it was archaic by our standards now.
All very curious.

We saw things on this trip that you usually don't see....

Oh, and we bought some Page Oranges.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
This is Sunshine on your plate.
The SWEETEST hardest to peel oranges you ever had.
I think I've eaten 10 in a food frenzy.
A drippy, sweet, savory, citrusy delightful, food frenzy mow down.

We saw lots of the world.....

Glad to be home. Monty has been soaking us up and was so glad to see us.

Nick took VERY good care of him. They were buds.

Our "adopted" son, Nick, did fabulous here with Monty. Sort of like a young novice hermit holed up with the squirrels and Monty. Very hermetic. Protective. Zen like, Spartan existance. Very respectful. He didn't even eat the leftovers I left for him. And he even changed the sheets and did his dishes. And I still have food.

Here's my boon acquisition :)

Like I said. It's all very lucky.... and a perfect end to the Magickal Mischief Tour.

A magickal trip to Hogwarts and The Lost Continent....

Our magic started early today....
Ravyn, Harry and I set off on an adventure!

and it was spent going to Mecca. Yah.

Harry Potter's Hogwarts Theme Park at Universal Studios.

Like I said.

Mecca.

And in the words of the Genie Johmbie, "Mecca lecca high, mecca hinney ho!" This turned into our chant as we set off to Orlando to arrive at opening at 9am. Of COURSE the first character we saw welcoming us into the gates was a GENIE. (no shite).

As I said, "Mecca Lecca Hi, Mecca Hinney Ho!" :)

The whole place was awesome! There was Dr. Seuss Land and a bunch of kooky trees....

As Horton says...
"We are Here! We are Here! We are Here!"
and lots of fun stuff for us to play with :)

and we sorta kept on our path, because we wanted...nay, NEEDED to get to Hogwarts.

And then?

THERE it was!

It was PHENOMENAL.

We went straight to Olivander's Wand Shop

and then to Hogwarts for the ride.

I was concerned, because I'm not a big ride person (long story) so I was pretty hesitant with all the disclaimers along the way to the ride.

We wandered through the castle on the way....

(BTW~ an aside...I never saw this Unicorn tapestry. It is the magick of this place. I see I was right BY it...never saw it till now when I'm adding pics!! )

 But, after getting buckled in and a few moments of disorientation, it was great! I was almost fried by a dragon! I narrowly escaped having my life force sucked away by a Death Eater!

 I also know now how awesome it would be to fly in a Quidditch match! You have to be fast when being chased by dragons in flight! There were enchanted pictures on the wall,

and Dumbledor himself welcomed us to the school!

Looks like I was even under the "Sorting Hat" at one point!!

Slytherin wants me bad. :)

I told Harry that I will make him a robe, because he does look very similiar to him and he would look SO GOOD! So we got Harry a Dumbledor's hat...

and well...

Scabbers the ratty HAD to come home with me.
(and YES....he is missing a toe :)

We had just finished our fabulous ride, when Merlyn said, "I need a pint after being so brave on that ride!" and we ducked into Hogsmeade Tavern

for a drink and some fish & chips.

Even Scabbers got a nosh and a drink :)

Harry saw a Hogwarts "student" sitting next to us, and asked to have his pic taken with her (it's only fair after all the pics we get asked of us at ren faires :) and she obliged. She also ended up asking us if we wanted to pal around with her, and go on a rollercoaster ride with her. Her name was "Aria" because...she liked to sing :)
She showed us the ins and outs of the park, turned us on to Butter Beer (YUM!)  AND (BONUS!) gave us her employee discount on a few purchases (which included Dumbledor's wand for Harry!)

We traveled to Jurassic Park....I had made mention that IF we were to see Jeff Goldblum that "he was MINE". But we didn't....damn. I would've run after him like a velociraptor :)
Speaking of velociraptors, I saw the birth of a baby raptor! And well, then we had to run for our lives like crazy when a pack of Velociraptors saw us...we managed to get away with our lives.
Thank god there were others behind us that couldn't run as fast :)

Then we went to The Lost Continent

and sat in on the "Eighth Voyage of Sindbad" stunt show and then we almost were trapped forever in Poseidon's Temple by a demon. Thankfully it all turned into a pretty great pyrotechnics and water works show as "Poseidon's Fury".  (whew :)

The last bit for us this day was our visit to Super Hero Island. Ravyn went on "The Incredible Hulk Coaster" and we all went on the "Amazing Adventures of Spider Man" ride. This ride was fun and crazy and wild and a 3-D adventure where I was nearly killed by several Marvel comics nemesis! All while dropping thousands of feet (in my head) or topping skyscrapers!

Then it was HAPPY HOUR and time for Marguaritas in Marguaritaville!

Scabbers was even hoping for a sip...

We thought about it....but Harry said NO SALTY RATTIES :)

All in all a VERY magickal day! I am SO tired! It's hard walking the pavement, being chased by toothy dinosaurs, being on the Quidditch team, and fighting crime and scaling buildings with Spiderman.

And all in a single day.

Now I'm off to bed....

with a fellow who looks remarkably like Dumbledor...

and I hope Scabbers doesn't snore :)