I woke at the hotel with no plans for the morning. I would meet Clint and Annika for lunch at Pressed Cafe, which is just inside the New Hampshire border (Exit 1). I rose, made coffee, and started on the blog. I put a dress shirt on a hanger in the bathroom and let the shower run hot water. The steam would clear many of the wrinkles from the suitcase. I wrote the blog for an hour or so and then showered and dressed.
It was crowded in the lobby when I got there before nine, and I soon found breakfast, though industrial, it was complimentary. I finished the blog and mailed a postcard to Mom Wild. I read some emails, checked on my investments, and did the usual morning tasks.
Next, I put on my coat and headed to the car. I again forgot that my room is on the other side of the hotel, took the closest door out after taking three sets of stairs down, then had to walk all across the hotel outside to the overflowing parking lot. The hotel is nearly complete for Thanksgiving. I headed south on Highway 3 to almost Massachusetts.
I was early and talked to Deborah for a while. It is nice to be again in the same time zone. Clint and Annika showed up, I rang off, then met them at Pressed Cafe. I had the Jerusalem Mezze Plate of various tiny bits. I like the idea of a lunch of little cups of flavorival food. The veggie kabobs were great. All our food was great.
Annika took the car, and I took Clint back to Spyglass for some more brewed beverages. We met a gentleman with white hair and a DD-840 hat, my dad’s ship, USS Glennon. He did not remember my dad; he did not work with Fire Control. But he was on the US Destroyer at the same time as Dad Wild. I could tell he wished he could remember my dada and was sad to learn my dad was gone already.
It was nice to chat. Clint and I talked about our experiences as caregivers. There were some tears. But the beer was good and the conversation excellent. It was snowing too, with bursts of wind and snow that seemed like a whiteout. None of it would stick here, but in Manchester, it was 1/4 of snow by Saturday!
We returned to Clint’s and Annika’s house. Clint got a space ready in the basement, and I made a few corrections for our Dungeons & Dragons game, version 5E, for the evening. We ordered Chinese for dinner and Clint and I picked it up.
I had six players plus myself as DM for the evening. I selected to stand for the evening. If the players were using pre-made 7th-level characters and a sheet for my 7th-level specs for my old character, Rath. I had revised an adventure I wrote in 2014 for 5E and 9th level. As there were two more 7th-level characters, the ninth encounters would be challenging but doable for this group.
My first set of practice encounters took an hour each, and so I edited out the middle section. I had revised the 2014 to be smaller, and the last encounters could be moved up in the story. My dice rolling was below average, and at one point, I had six attacks on Clint’s character that all missed (even with a 50% to-hit). Yikes!
Still, the players liked my slightly creepy adventure, When Stairs Lead Down, and I will have to finish it up someday and publish it. I was back in my room about midnight and even talked to a sleepy Deborah.
Thanks for reading!
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 