Fly-2-Pennsic-msg - 5/13/07 Comments on flying to and from Pennsic and other events. Also traveling by rail. NOTE: See also the files: Fire-Book-art, New-2-Pennsic-msg, BPThingie-art, Pennsic-water-msg, Pennsic-Prep-art, P-Food-Safety-art, P-storage-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: peerlady at hotmail.com Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Pennsic via air Date: 28 Jul 2003 09:26:29 -0700 Try the Lenz airport shuttle. I've used them in the past and they are less expensive than a taxi. They are familiar with Pennsic (even if they spell it wrong). http://www.csatours.com/shuttle.html -- Signy -- wrote in message news:... > I'll be heading to Pennsic via airline into Pittsburgh. How's the best > way to get to Cooper's Lake? Is a taxi going to be outragous? Is there > any public transportation? > > Galen From: Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Pennsic via air Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 04:46:50 -0400 Organization: Cornell University I hope this helps people for future travel. A fighter friend of mine said he gets around the baggage weight limit by telling them his armor bag is sports equipment (which it is) and apparently sports equipment is exempt from the weight limit. He was domestic flying from colorado to Pennsic. Angeline Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 01:29:36 -0500 From: Stefan li Rous Subject: [Sca-cooks] [OT][OOP] Pennsic Customs Question To: SCA-Cooks maillist SCA-Cooks Giano asked: > I've just had a most fascinating conversation. It was suggested I might be > able to partly fund a Pennsic visit by selling my period cosmetics and > aphrodisiacs. "Giano's Medieval Makeover" > Now, this is still all very theoretical, but even if it works I'd be > Limited to flight luggage, and a chunk of that would be scents, > cream bases, Powders and such. Ship your merchant items to Pennsic rather than carry them with you. I think this option has always been there for merchants. What was added four or five years ago, was the ability of non-merchants to ship things to Pennsic. Because I have been flying in to Pennsic 27, except for this last one where my work situation wouldn't allow it, I can probably give you some ideas because of what I've learned and been doing. Because the luggage allowance is rather small, at least for two weeks of camping, I have depended upon shipping in another large footlocker of stuff. International flying might be even more restricted. I've never had the chance to do that, so I don't know. I do know that the extra luggage charges can be rather high. And the footlocker I use would get hit with both extra baggage and oversize charges. There is a semi-trailer in the merchant area where you pick up your boxes. I think for merchants there may be no charge for this. For non-merchants there is a nominal extra charge. At the end of Pennsic I use the regular U.S. Post Office to ship things home. There is a small postal cart set up at Pennsic each year, so you don't have to get into town to mail things. However, it has rather limited hours 10 AM to 2 PM and it is only open Monday through Friday, so if you are leaving on that last Saturday you have to keep this in mind. My luggage consists of a footlocker which just fits under the maximum baggage size, and an ice chest plus a carry-on bag and my cloak. The cloak I carry over my shoulder since the airlines allow you to bring a "coat". The footlocker has wheels on it. I strap the ice chest on top of the footlocker, sling my carry-on bag over one shoulder and the cloak over the other. I can handle everything this way myself and not depend upon bell-hops. When I get to Pennsic, the stuff in the ice chest goes elsewhere and I have a place to keep foods and drinks. You can get ice on site. I have seen ice chests with wheels now, so you could also invert the two boxes from what I've been doing. Again, your international luggage limits may differ and you may have to modify this, but hopefully this gives you some ideas. Oh yes. I do lock all my checked luggage. The footlocker has a built in lock bracket through which I can put a padlock and I put a chain around the ice chest, from end to end, through the handles and lock it closed. I also tape both of these boxes closed with duct tape. I have had to change this in the last few years to using the new security locks which the airport security folks can open, but supposedly the baggage handlers can't. I've also had to figure out how to seal both boxes with duct tape and yet get the duct tape home in something other than my carry-on bag. I suspect that duct tape, like fingernail clippers are no longer allowed on in carry-on baggage. > I don't assume Pennsic has 'crash space', so how is this > Handled for overseas visitors? I think there is usually a Drachenvald encampment. As a merchant I think you can also camp in your merchant space, but I don't remember for sure. One problem with merchanting is that as many merchant spots as Pennsic provides, they get snapped up pretty quickly. They may already be gone for next Pennsic, but you'd have to inquire with the person in charge of merchants to know for sure. I think it is one of the Coopers. If you are new to SCA merchanting, this file in the COMMERCE section of the Florilegium might be of use: merchanting-msg (60K) 9/ 4/04 Merchanting in the SCA. > Are there 'hotel' tents? Do you stay with allied households? As someone else mentioned, you can rent a Grimm's Tent, but they are rather large and expensive for one person. I think you also have to be onsite when they deliver it, and that might be difficult if you can't spend the entire two weeks there. There is this file in the STRUCTURES section of the Florilegium: tent-rental-msg (5K) 7/ 3/00 Rental of tents at Pennsic and Estrella. You also need a way to get from the Pittsburg airport to Pennsic. It is about an hour's drive. You can rent a car, but that gets rather expensive when it is going to be spending most of its time just parked at Pennsic. The best way is to have someone drive to the airport to pick you up and reverse the process at the end of Pennsic. For the past four or five years, Phlip, one of our household members of SPCA or another friend not in the household have been taking me to and from the airport. I hate to take this time out of someone's Pennsic, so I am very grateful for my friends who have helped me out. I bought a cell phone initially with Pennsic very much in mind. It is rather difficult otherwise for either you or your friends to tell the others that problems are occurring. One year while Phlip and someone else were waiting for me to arrive, they came across the Prince of Lochac and entourage who had been stranded at the airport for a day or so. They had had "the trip from hell" with tussles with the immigration folks and other problems. Phlip had loaded their stuff into the van when their regular ride showed up. It can be very anxious waiting for your ride to show up and not know where they are. So a cell phone is nice. SPCA my Pennsic household, actually members of it, Margali and Rob, have kept a small tent in storage for me as well as a cot and sleeping bag. While I have transported all those to Pennsic before, it is very nice not to have to ship them. Before I had the loan of the cot from Margali, I took a large, coarse linen looking sheet, folded it over and sewed it closed on one long side. I then bought a bail of straw at Pennsic for $5, broke it apart and stuffed this sack with it. This was much smaller to transport than an air mattress and wouldn't suffer from a disturbing "hisssss" in the middle of Pennsic. The $5 is slightly high, but it also includes the clean up of the straw at the end of Pennsic. If you expect to bring a propane stove, remember that you can't ship the propane canisters by air. But you can buy them there, assuming European and American canisters and valves are compatible. Plan for all types of weather. Check the various files in the PENNSIC section of the Florilegium for more info and how-to stuff about Pennsic, as well. I hope this is useful to you. Someday, I'll probably get around to writing an article or creating a message file on how to manage flying into large SCA events such as Pennsic, but it hasn't happened yet. Stefan -------- THLord Stefan li Rous Barony of Bryn Gwlad Kingdom of Ansteorra Mark S. Harris Austin, Texas Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 01:04:46 -0500 From: Stefan li Rous Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [OT][OOP] Pennsic Customs Question To: SCA-Cooks maillist SCA-Cooks Huette replied to me with: > Ah, Stefan, Giano lives in Germany ... It would cost a fortune to > ship anything from there and > would take at least several weeks, to a month. That is a big problem > for those living in Drachenwald. Yes, I was aware that he lived somewhere in Europe. I believe I even mentioned the possibility of his camping with the Drachenwald folks. Yes, the shipping might be high. I don't know since I've never had to ship things to/from Europe. But "high" compared to what? I've sure that it is cheaper to ship stuff than to carry it as excess baggage. I didn't say I had THE solution. I just figured it might give him some ideas to work with. The last few years the Pennsic folks haven't been exactly advertising the fact that individuals could mail/ship stuff to Pennsic. Probably because they don't want folks forwarding their regular mail there and such. So, that possibility might not even occur to him. If there is a large spread in the shipping time for stuff from Europe, he may have to arrange to ship it to an SCA person who could bring it along with their stuff to Pennsic, since if something arrives a week or two before Pennsic, I don't know if the Coopers will hold it or send it back. Then again, before they started allowing non-merchants to ship stuff to Pennsic, one year I shipped my box UPS to the shipping office in Buttler? (the larger of the two towns near Cooper's Lake, but not the closest) and they held it there until I arranged to come by and pick it up. Unfortunately, the UPS website only listed one hour a day that that station was open for pickup, and they gave the wrong hour. It has usually taken ten days or so to for my package to get from Austin to Pennsic. Surprisingly, it seems to come back quicker than it gets to Pennsic. Perhaps because I have sometimes put my dirty clothes in the box to ship and used the resulting space in my luggage for all the books I usually buy. :-) Federal Express is several days faster than the ten days for USPS, and cheaper, but until I moved they were on the other side of town, about 45 minutes away. Federal Express also has better logging of the package so you can see how close it is to Pennsic before you fly out. I came across a number of surprises when I investigated how to get things to Pennsic. One was that it would cost me as much to ship my box by bus to Pittsburg as it would be to ship it as excess baggage on the airline. And I would have to go to downtown Austin and downtown Pittsburg to the bus stations to ship and retrieve it. Of course that is not an option for Giano. Shipping my ~50 lb. box to Pennsic is between $24 and $30 if I remember correctly. Even if Giano couldn't use all of the info I gave, I thought it might be of use to others, such as those in the wilds of Montana :-) or the West Coast, who might like to fly to Pennsic. Stefan -------- THLord Stefan li Rous Barony of Bryn Gwlad Kingdom of Ansteorra Mark S. Harris Austin, Texas Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 11:15:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Huette von Ahrens Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [OT][OOP] Pennsic Customs Question To: Cooks within the SCA My SO is coming to GWW next week and is taking AMTRAK. It takes a bit longer than flying, but is less physically stressful than driving 2000 miles. He will be allowed two carry on bags free and three boxes [weighing about 50 lbs each] of check in luggage free. And for $10 a piece, he is allowed another three boxes of about 50 lbs each. So for the price of his train fare + $30 he can bring 300 lbs of stuff. I don't know if that will translate to Pennsic, but it might be worth looking into for others. Huette Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 20:58:38 -0400 From: "Daniel Phelps" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [OT][OOP] Pennsic Customs Question To: "Cooks within the SCA" >>> My SO is coming to GWW next week and is taking AMTRAK. It takes a bit longer than flying, but is less physically stressful than driving 2000 miles. He will be allowed two carry on bags free and three boxes [weighing about 50 lbs each] of check in luggage free. And for $10 a piece, he is allowed another three boxes of about 50 lbs each. So for the price of his train fare + $30 he can bring 300 lbs of stuff. <<< That is how I did Estrella from New Orleans many years back. Except then it was $5 for the extra three. The extra three at that time could total 150 pounds with no one totally more than 75 lbs. by itself. Daniel Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 01:41:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Huette von Ahrens Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [OT][OOP] Pennsic Customs Question To: Cooks within the SCA --- Stefan li Rous wrote: > Last I looked at the train schedules, they only stopped in Austin > once or twice a week. Perhaps they've improved this, though. > -------- > THLord Stefan li Rous Barony of Bryn Gwlad Kingdom of Ansteorra > Mark S. Harris Austin, Texas Stefan, According to the Amtrak website: http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/HomePage The Texas Eagle (#422), which leaves Los Angeles daily, swings through the Southwest, including Austin, Texas and ends up in Chicago. You then transfer to the Capitol Limited (#30) in Chicago, which has a stop in Pittsburgh. So according to the Amtrak schedule there is a daily train leaving and arriving Austin Texas. The one way trip will cost about $137 and take about 36 hours, not counting layover time. Huette Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 23:05:34 -0500 From: Stefan li Rous Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [OT][OOP] Pennsic Customs Question To: SCA-Cooks maillist SCA-Cooks Huette answered me with: >> Last I looked at the train schedules, they only stopped in Austin >> once or twice a week. Perhaps they've improved this, though. > Stefan, > > According to the Amtrak website: > http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/HomePage > > The Texas Eagle (#422), which leaves Los Angeles daily, swings > through the Southwest, including Austin, Texas and ends up in Chicago. Thanks for the link and the info. So, taking the train would be on the low end money wise of flying to Pennsic, but take >36 hours vs. 5 hours but have the advantage of being able to carry more stuff with me. One of my concerns has always been "will that shipped box show up?" and if it doesn't, did I do a good enough time splitting supplies and clothes between the two shipments that I can still be comfortable at Pennsic. I also pick my flights so they land in Pittsburg at a convenient time for those picking me up. The single arrival time in Pittsburg, if the train is on time, doesn't give as much choice. The train takes 36 hours vs. 27 to drive to Pennsic. However, the first four Pennsics which I attended were Pennsic 21, 23, 25 and 27, which was the first time I flew up. The reason for the gaps, as well as there being no 19 and 20, was that I couldn't find a ride. Everyone was already full or was only taking riders that could also share the driving. Certainly worth considering though. Traveling by train might well allow those even further away from Pennsic than I to bring along their pavilions and armor and other niceties, which they couldn't bring by air or ship. And if you could get a group of people to do this together, the trip itself could be a lot of fun. "Principality of the Mists goes to Pennsic" or some such. "What do you mean we're already in Pittsburg? I've still got three more cases [of beer]...":-) Stefan -------- THLord Stefan li Rous Barony of Bryn Gwlad Kingdom of Ansteorra Mark S. Harris Austin, Texas Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:16:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Huette von Ahrens Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [OT][OOP] Pennsic Customs Question To: Cooks within the SCA Another thing to consider in taking the train v. driving a car is that when you need a potty break on a train you just get up and walk to the bathroom and you continue traveling while doing so, while in a car you have to stop your travels and find a place that has one and hope that it is a) open b) functional c) clean d) all of these. When you are hungry, on a train, you get up and walk to the dining car or the snack bar and purchase what you wish all while the train continues on to your destination, while in a car you have to stop your trip while you dine. If you get tired, on a train, you just tilt your chair back, close your eyes and sleep, all while the train continues on. If you close your eyes while driving, you will have a nasty accident and a) die b) get hurt c) wreck your car d) a combination of these and you will not be able to continue on to Pennsic. Yes, having only one arrival time is more problematical that having multiple choices, but either way, you still have to be picked up or rent a car or find some way to transport yourself, your family and your stuff from whichever terminus to the war site. I just brought it up because most people don't think of trains as a viable option anymore. I have also traveled once to an event by Greyhound bus, which took a lot of time, was exhausting and didn't have many amenities. I don't think I will ever do that again. Huette Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 08:06:35 -0400 From: "Daniel Phelps" Subject: [Sca-cooks] Eventing By Train was Pennsic Customs Question To: "Cooks within the SCA" Huette listed most of the advantages but one. Not having to spend money on increasingly expensive gasoline for you car. Stefan discussed eventing in a group. >> if you could get a group of people to do >> this together, the trip itself could be a lot of fun. "Principality >> of the Mists goes to Pennsic" or some such. "What do you mean we're >> already in Pittsburg? I've still got three more cases...":-) That is how I did Estrella many years back. Five of us went out via the train from New Orleans and it was fun. Daniel Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 09:51:40 -0400 From: "Terri Morgan" Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] [OT] Pennsic Customs Question To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" FYI - Packages that arrive at Cooper's Lake before Land Grab day are usually sent back. There's no place to store them until the Merchant's office gets set up. Hrothny, Pennsic Quartermaster Edited by Mark S. Harris Fly-2-Pennsic-msg Page 8 of 8