This location in downtown Bathing Meadow is the location of many short excursions for supplies and evening festivities. This eve in particular was the trip in search of the local tavern to acquire food and beverage after a long day of walking, or more accurately waiting, around in the ER to verify the continued state of perfection of Lumpy's scull post encounter with the dreaded Floor. This was of course after Chubbly had crit failed his Obedience check and had set the stove top on fire having turned all the forbidden knobs on its front to full power. Unfortunately for him, and our kitchen, empty plastic sour cream containers and cotton rags have very little AC and resistance to heat and flame. Luckily Mama has taken a few courses in Fire Resistance and not only quickly doused the flames, but managed to save the remaining containers of BBQ and papers near the stove w/o ruining them. Mama: 1, Chubbly and Stove: 0.
Anyway, the local Clerics(or Doctors...sheesh.) have run their tests and declared Lumpy good to go without the need of any healing. As it was approaching dusk, we decided to head out in search of vittles. This is what brought us to the Pedestrian Zone, and ultimately to "Yours! American Sport's Bar". We wanted to check it out and see how "American" it really was, and were pleasantly surprised that we now know where to go if we are ever really really craving food from 'back home'. Outside of those scenarios though, we have little to no reason to return there. :)
Well we tired the poor little things out, and our faithful Epic dog was languishing away in the backyard back home, so back to the High Rest for some sleep, for the next day we had further adventuring to do. The Dragon, (*our minivan, named the Gold Dragon or Dragon several years ago.) had fallen ill, it seems he had let his Serpentine Belt dry rot and was in dire need of a new one. You know how it is, a Dragon that loses it's serpentine-ness is just not as Dragony after that. So we all got up bright and early and took the poor beast in to the dragon vet. While he was busy in the shop, I took the kidlets to yonder food court and a grand breakfast feast was presented to us by the Burger King. The King treated us well and we were thrilled to have been able to bask in his presence for a few hours, humid and warm as it might have been. We did encounter a wonderful family that had their own beast in the shop with the Dragon, they were preparing her for travel to Scotland in the near future. We sat and chatted while our kids frolicked and played in the nearly empty dining area. Then off to retrieve our charges, only to learn that while the other creature was ready to go, our poor Dragon was still on the lift. So into the air conditioned halls of Enterprise Rental we did creep, and there the children were delighted by the wonders of Phineas and Ferb whilst Princesss Lumpy cooled and slept. We finally got the Dragon back after 6 hours, the Burger King was gracious enough to allow us to eat lunch in his halls once more before flying off to gather Papa from work.
Pictures from the Dragon in flight:
We had much to do this eve as we were to be meeting some very important NPCs. (Non-Player Characters) For those of you unaware of how gaming campaigns work, it is common among continuing campaigns or follow on campaigns where friends play an on-going story to have PCs (Player Characters...ie characters played by actual real life people, such as Bob is playing Gwendolynn the elf...Bob is therefore a PC) turn into NPC's in future campaigns. That is where the character that the real person had been playing in a story that happened prior to the new campaign, or story, shows up in the new story and interacts with the new player characters or their world. Only now the character has become an NPC (non-player character, a character that is a part of the greater fabric of the story or world, but not being directly controlled by an individual person. So Gwendolynn would show up, but no longer be Bob's character using our example.)
Anywho...for the purposes of our adventures, assume that pretty much any non-important or nameless entity in these tales are NPCs, people like the sales clerk at Enterprise that graciously changed the TV channel from and adult movie to the Disney Channel. However, on this day we met up with some particularly important NPCs, these ones were close friends that have been friends with Papa and Mama for almost a decade now, and despite adventuring together for many years, we had to go separate ways 4ys ago. Now as NPCs to our story, we were still very excited to hear they would be in our neck of the woods and so we arranged a meet up in Frankfurt. As both their and our own travels have taken us all over the globe, many tales and laughs were shared. Much fun was had by all, Grins tried to take them home with us and it was all too soon that they had to take their leave of our fair country and continue on.
Oh and one last thing, our beloved Cow Carrier has finally bit the dust, after almost 5 years of constant and loyal service, the fabric has finally given in to retirement.
Flora and Fauna are inspected along the way. Soon enough we came across the first landmark on our map. A several century old quarry and masonry shop. Headstones to regular old yard signs, they have you covered, right behind the shop is the source of most of the stone in question. 
