As things opened back up we went back to food exchanges. We did a few this year, all of them taking place in our back yard. As we got vaxed we got closer together and were more comfortable with masks off. The food was always amazing, and we really enjoyed all the leftovers over the next few weeks. Archer also liked to make an appearance, and he really wanted to come and visit with everyone.
Tina, Amit, and myself drove to Kanab, UT to visit Adam again. I was working that week, and Steph was off diving in Mexico again.
The trip down had one major snag getting into Vegas, with a garbage truck on fire taking the highway down to one lane. This caused about a 2 hour delay of stop and go traffic, which I happened to be the driver for. We had to make an impromptu rest stop, but otherwise the ordeal was just some extra driving time.
Over the week I only joined in one hike, but it was certainly the one I would have enjoyed the most. We went to an amazing slot canyon called Buckskin Gulch. This slot canyon went on for miles and at points was hundreds of feet deep and narrow enough to touch both sides. There were a lot of interesting formations, like chimneys, arches, and big swirling patters along the sides. The start of the hike is close to the start of ‘The Wave’ hike as well, but we didn’t get the passes for that hike despite Adam going every morning to enter the lottery for them.
We also played plenty of games throughout the week, which I was able to join in for. I had been wanting to achieve the full emigration in Feast for Odin, and was able to pull it off in one game.
The drive back was less eventful than the drive there, thankfully.
Debby and Andrew set up a viewing of A Quiet Space 2 in the new Sunnyvale theater. We watched some of the reviews of the first one. I was hoping the second would be more action, in the same way Aliens was an action movie to Alien being a horror movie. There was certainly more action, but it was still mostly horror and suspense. I still enjoyed the movie for the most part. There was a distinct lack of strategy for the characters in dealing with the aliens in this movie. I kept on thinking “Just throw a rock!” when they were being hunted.
After the movie we went to Dish Dash with Jeremy, as Lindsay, Kevin, Andrew, and Debby had to head out.
Steph and I decided to try out some parks we hadn’t been to before around the area, and one of them was Hidden Canyon Park, which has Waterdog Lake in it. The park was pretty big, and had a lot of trails running through it. We got a little side tracked once we got to the lake, and ended up taking the trail around it instead of continuing along the edge of the park. We accidentally found ourselves on the path back to the car that was quickest, despite going through a neighborhood and just went with it. The lake itself was quite nice, if small. The hike itself took a bit longer than expected, but we still had a good time.
Lee set up a group to play the RPG game Traveller. The group is composed of Adam, Tina, Andrew, Tim, and myself. Tim is someone I hadn’t known before, and he is very knowledgable about RPG games. A few weeks ago we rolled our original characters.
I was pretty happy with my character, Kenzie Carson. She is a law officer who is a beast with the blade. Adam rolled a social pariah, who is a decent pilot. Andrew rolled a trader, gambler, rogue, and entertainer, who’s a great shot. Tina rolled a minor noble who was locked away for the crimes of a gang boss she was impersonating, who became streetwise after being locked away. Tim rolled a navy careerist who is a great mechanic and gunner.
We got together the next week to roll alts, which all turned out much better now that we knew what we were doing. I rolled a crazy Vargr (wolf like alien) Doctor, who likes to remove unneeded body parts. The others also had better rolls on their characters.
We had our first gameplay session last weekend and it went pretty well. We all got our missions and were able to discuss with the rest of the group how we were going to proceed. My character is desperately poor, so I wasn’t able to get the best gear to start out, but I should have the skills needed to make up for it.
We left Flammarion station heading two jumps away to Walston. In this session we made the first jump and ended up at the planet that hasn’t even earned a name, just a serial number. The planet was mostly empty, but seemed like a place that would have lots of pirates. We found out about a possible pirate crew member, so left as soon as we could. We had trouble starting our jump to the next system, which is where the campaign paused for the next session.
I’ve also been having fun making materials for the game. I made our backstory timelines:
I also made the Flammarion system map:
Then I got sidetracked into making world maps that could be used with the traveller world system. I got pretty far in making visually pleasing spheres that could unwrap into the traveller hex maps of worlds.
Steph and I took an afternoon to do Los Trancos Trail Loop in Foothills Park. This is the park that was controversially open to only Palo Alto residents up until 2020. The trail is 7.3 miles with 1460 ft elevation gain, so a moderate hike.
The trail and park was very nice. I especially enjoyed the bench under the large mossy rock covered in ferns. The small stream next to it was a pleasant way to take a break.
Since the cases in San Mateo have dropped significantly, we again felt comfortable with a food exchange in our back yard. We had over Tina and Amit, Paul and Yutong, and George. Each group got their corner of the patio table, which quickly filled up with delicious food. Yutong brought a bunch: Orange and Kiwi Kombucha, Okonomiyaki, Coconut bread sticks, and Mango Sticky Rice. George brought several dishes as well: Brunch Scramble and Hashbrowns, and a Noodle Dish. Tina brought her world famous Mochi Waffles, and all the fixings to go with them. Steph made Snickerdoodles, and I made Tom Yum. We had a ton of great food. We kept the gathering at 4 groups, but Steph stopped by Michelle and Michael’s new place to deliver offerings from the others and receive some Scallion Pancakes and Pasta Salad.
Tina and I decided to break in her new kayak with a trip through the sloughs leading from Alviso to SF Bay. I estimated the trip would be about 2 hours, and that we could time the tides so that there wouldn’t be too much flow to fight on the way back in. The trip out was nice and we made it to the power towers in about 45 minutes. The trip back was much harder and took much longer than I anticipated. That was probably due to the rain we got the night before, which increased the water flow by about 4x. Even though we weren’t fighting the tides, we were fighting the flow of the stream. It wasn’t too fast, and we were able to hide in the eddies for most of the trip back up the slough, but it was hard. Both Tina and I were worn out at the end of it, but all in all it was a very nice paddle.
Steph got us spots in a survival class in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We made a debris hut, which was meant to hold one person tightly and stay warm. There was a young kid there who had tons of knives on him. He was a big talker too, and we were convinced he was going to hurt himself. He did, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as we were expecting.
We also made fire with bow drills. Almost everyone was able to get it to work.
It's an Exciting World 