Driving

Ok, time to saddle up and hit the road.

               

It is critically important that you have your ID, your SCA membership card if you have one, and cash or a credit card to pay the remainder of your site fee – the Coopers do NOT take personal checks. If you do not have these, you will be sent back, and they don’t care if you drove from California, they will not let you on site. They will not let you go to your camp site to find someone to pay your fee either. No ID and/or No Money = No Entry. So, before you get out of your drive way, put your hand on those items so you aren’t completely screwed.

 

Just like any vacation, stock up on music, road snacks, maps, all the usual stuff. If you plan to carpool up there, get all those plans figured out. I like to have those Motorola walkie-talkies in each of the cars, so you can find each other and also just chat and cut up.

 

Some people like to drive part of the way, get a hotel, then finish up. Some people just want to get it all done. However you break down, plan where you’ll stop for the night. Don’t expect that there will be available hotel rooms out there for you unless you reserve them. You never know when there will be a volleyball tournament in the little town you picked on the map, thinking “Nobody will be there…”

 

From the Triangle Region, in North Carolina (where I live), there is an annual debate on how to get there. Check the appendixes, there are maps there that explain how to get there the three ways. One is called the Mountain Route, and takes you though almost all of West Virginia. The next is called the DC Route, and takes you around Washington DC. The last, I call the Super Secret Middle Route, and takes you up though Virginia but west over the mountains.

 

If you are going to pull a trailer and really tax your vehicle, you probably don’t want to use the Mountain Route, and the DC Route might be the best way. If you car can do it, the Mountain or Secret Route will probably be the fastest for you.

 

Either way, you are going to take exit 99 off I79 in Pennsylvania. Coming from the South, if you miss exit 99, you’ll see Pennsic on the left as you drive by it, so turn around and come back. Either way you get off the highway, take a Left to go West on 422. Pretty much the next road on the right is Currie Road, so take that. There’s a big sign that tells you the time and temperature there, and a bus depot for the county school district as soon as you turn on. Follow Currie road down, and you’ll go across a one lane bridge, then up a hill, and you’ll see the battle field and castle.

 

The One Lane Bridge. This is the boundary for me between Pennsic and the Real World, so please do me a favor, and be nice. Approach it slowly, and be courteous, let others go over it. If you hear sirens, it’s because someone is being evacuated, so get the hell off the bridge and let people though. Once you cross the bridge, you are there, you have arrived, so act like you are on vacation.