Day
One: From Benelux to Beergardens
The residents of the Alpine Turf Club (ATC)
were waiting patiently for Benelux to show up with the Equinics flame
so they could get on with their very first official simwide event. As a
newer residency, they had not been in existence at the time of the last
Equinics although several of their members had participated as members
of other residencies. The head of ATC, Delta Tiger, was reknowned
within the sim for her helpfulness, generosity, and quiet confidence.
She was exhibiting the quiet confidence at that moment, her head buried
in a science fiction fantasy book that Exploder of Minds (aka
Winterheart's PITA) was avidly drooling over.
Exploder of Minds leaves sunny CA for Germany
|
Winter bundled in a ski sweater
on the tour bus.
|
The ATC team was waiting at the border of
Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany for Benelux. From there they would be
traveling through the ATC countries of Germany and France before taking
a detour into Switzerland and then on to the Alpine area of Italy
before handing off to the EAAA residency. ATC was fitted out with a
luxurious tour bus that was pulling a horse trailer filled with ATC's
best horses. No one dared ask where these pricey vehicles came from.
Everyone in ATC had read Hannibal's lurid tales from the last Equinics
and knew that stranger things than this had occurred on the Equinics
Flame Trail in the past!
Finally, the Benelux representatives arrived
in fine style in a helicopter. They delivered the Flame and a rumpled
Yochem over to Delta Tiger, who did a damned good impression of looking
calm and unflustered at receiving the erstwhile Dutchman who was
dressed in Hari Krishna orange and seemed not his usual self. Winter
shook her head at the sad state of affairs the sim had come to with the
head of YOSS dressed in cheap sheets from Wal-Mart and looking not at
all like Ben Franklin as he usually did.
Alphonso, who was not only excellent at
arranging travel but was a whiz around a sack of flour and an oven,
shooed the residents onto the waiting tour bus which promptly took off
down the road toward Germany. Since he was also excellent at packing
and unpacking, Alphonso took charge of poor Yochem. He herded him into
the back of the tour bus and began rummaging through everyone's bags in
an attempt to get Yochem looking more like his usual self and out of
the orange sheets. Foxon decided to give Alphonso a hand since his task
appeared monumental. He took the Flame with him and fitted it into a
specially made holder where it's smoke was sucked out of a vent.
Meanwhile, Exploder was sitting up front by the driver pestering him
with questions about Germany.
"Where's Dachau? I want to see the death camps
and the ovens. I've studied all about the Holocaust! I've waited my
whole life to see Germany!" she bubbled enthusiastically while the
driver looked pained. StLCards, who had a knack for research, did the
driver a favor and engaged the 16 year old Exploder in a conversation
about the Holocaust.
MrLucky and Delta sat at a table pouring over the map Alphonso had made
of their trip along with a neatly typed itinerary. Eddieboo, Hawkz,
Okdavid, and Blacksoxuk were investigating the cupboards and
refrigerator in the well stocked bus. Winter was quietly typing on a
laptop, making notes for the diaries. Eventually, Alphonso and Foxon
brought Yochem out and he did indeed look much more like his usual
self, searching his pockets for the "funny ciagrettes" the Benelux
residents had been nattering on about during their brief Flame handoff.
"Well, we'll
be arriving soon in the village of Rudesheim," Delta told everyone.
"The residents of the town are welcoming us with a late winter version
of Oktoberfest and afterward we'll be staying in a quaint lodge
overlooking the famous Rhine River."
"Mmmmmm, beer,"
StLCards murmured in his best Homer Simpson voice. Alphonso and MrLucky
nodded their agreement with that sentiment.
Rudesheim Christmas Market
|
When they arrived in Rudesheim the town was
already in full party mode. The residents stepped off the bus into a
full blown German biergarten complete with crazy polka like music. Even
the bus driver got swept into a wild dance and showered with beer.
After a tour around the beirgarten with the Equinics Flame held high,
the ATC residents put the Flame away and let the oom pah pah music take
them away. Exploder found herself sitting with a full plate of sausages
and saurkraut next to Foxon who was quietly trying to unwrap himself
from one buxom German maid after another. "I'd give you some food but
your hands are too busy to eat it," she told him practically as he
divested himself of another blonde goddess who seemed determined to sit
on his lap.
|
|
While Exploder ate her fill of sausages and
saurkraut, MrLucky found himself an untapped keg of the city's finest.
With some assistance from Alphonso and StLCards the keg made it's way,
unnoticed, onto the tour bus. Delta and Winter ended up at a strudel
stand where a giantess with blonde braids shoved plates of delicate
apple pastry enveloped in a mound of whipped cream into their hands.
Dragnil managed not only to avoid all the beer, the saurkraut, the
strudel, and the buxom girls but also the wild dancing. He sat at a
table with a plate of ordinary looking fare, eating calmly and watching
the wild party swirl around him. Yochem sat quietly beside him, puffing
on the "funny cigarettes" and poking at a dish of cabbage with his
fork. Dragnil made sure the Dutchman never left his sight.
|
MrLucky makes
off with a keg!
|
Foxon's Admirers
|
A few hours later when the polka music stopped
everyone made their way to the tour bus which lurched clumsily down the
streets of the town toward the river and their lodgings for the night.
The Lodge was large and quaint, built stolidly of dark wood and round
river stones. There was a stable in the rear and the bus parked there
so the ATC residents could settle the horses for the night. After they
were fed, the residents bid each other good night and stumbled off to
their rooms.
Day Two: Vive La France!
After a groggy morning for all, the residents
found themselves back on the bus and barreling down the narrow road
toward France. The thought of their arrival in Lyon had perked up
Yochem considerably and he'd taken over the laptop and was tap tapping
his way through some kind of program as he drank orange juice and
recovered from his Benelux exploits. Delta and Eddieboo were engaged in
a discussion of air hockey while Okdavid jumped around with headphones
on, playing air guitar and in general looking like Steven Tyler of
Arrowsmith. Alphonso was whipping up waffles in the kitchen area while
Exploder sat nearby, her eyes greedily fixed upon ... breakfast
sausages! MrLucky was regaling Winter with his tales of German beer
intoxication which had worked out quite well for him once he'd hooked
up with Foxon. Since an intoxicated MrLucky was often touchy feely, all
the buxom German girls Foxon got rid of found a happy companion in
MrLucky. He would no doubt have some lurid Equinics tales of his own to
tell once he arrived back in Ohio.
The road to Lyon was a long one and eventually
was a thirsty one too as MrLucky showed off his stolen keg of German
beer. After that it was a day on the road complete with drinking songs
(don't ever let a giggly Delta start 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall!),
tall tales about sports (try to understand baseball stories told in a
Scottish burr by a tipsy Blacksoxuk while MrLucky expounds on his golf
game), more whining by Exploder about the Holocaust sites and the lack
of cellphones on the bus, Winter and Okdavid babbling non-stop about
Les Onaka and the Quarters on TVG ("I swear to you David, my
mother-in-law lives within spitting distance of Los Alamitos! You can
smell the horsecrap from her porch!"), Hawkz and Dragnil in a heated
discussion of New Zealand and South African sires, and Eddieboo and
StLCards getting friendlier with each drink ("No DUDE! I'M your best
ATC pal EVER!") All this went on while Alphonso and Yochem sent IMs
back to the other ATC residents explaining the craziness on the bus and
Foxon tried acting the cool Englishman, rather like Mr Steed (no
offense to Avenger!) but without the bowler hat.
Les Onaka
|
Mr. John Steed
|
They crossed over into France seamlessly
(Yochem had looked frightened for a moment and everyone recalled his
trip with Benelux) and the bus rolled on down the road toward
Lyon. Upon their arrival in the city everyone was ready to leave
the luxury of the tour bus for some terra firma beneath their feet. One
whiff of France however, almost sent them back into the bus.
"Why does everyone smell of BO, rotten cheese,
and cigars?" Exploder asked her mom. Winter rolled her eyes while the
always knowledgeable StLCards explained that the French didn't smoke
cigars as Exploder knew them. They smoked these little brown cigarettes
that smelled like cigars.
"They are killing themselves and others with those cigarettes," Yochem
complained. "They smoke in every building, every place imaginable!"
"No laws against it here like in California and other states," Delta
agreed. "It's nasty."
"Maybe France isn't the place to linger," Foxon suggested. "I've been
dying to get to Switzerland anyway."
Delta shook her head. "We still need to attend
the dinner they are having for us and shake hands with that guy dressed
as Pere Noel." France was decked out in it's Christmas finery which
just seemed alien to the ATC residents.
Pere Noel
|
With that, the residency members took out the
Equinics Flame and
paraded it around while showing off their travel cranky thoroughbreds.
After the Flame was carefully put back on the tour bus, they sat
through a long boring dinner, where toasts were given in broken English
and a few of the Frenchmen were heard to mutter some anti-American
remarks that got Eddie's ire up. Yochem calmed him with a mildy
socialist diatribe that Eddie actually found intriguing even while it
shocked the Frenchmen sitting nearest them. After the boring dinner
they found themselves shuffled off to a Hilton hotel where the
residents heaved a sigh of relief as soon as the Christmas tree in the
lobby was spotted. Eddie and Delta even found an air hockey table in
the bar and quickly set about trying to prove who really was the idiot
savant of air hockey!
The others sat around in the bar where the
French and American staff never seemed to notice that Exploder was
underage. "Well, this has been interesting but it's not like going to
Disney World," sighed Alphonso, who's from Connecticut. "THAT would
have been an awesome trip!"
"No, no," disagreed Blacksoxuk in his Scottish burr.
"Chicago...my kind of town!" Everyone looked at him incredulously and
he shrugged with a grin.
The International members of the group, Hawkz from New Zealand, Yochem
from the Netherlands, Dragnil from South Africa, and Foxon from England
all laughed but did agree with the resident from Aberdeen, Scotland
that some places in the United States were dream places to visit. "I'm
happy to see anything of the world beyond home," Dragnil admitted.
"It's all very interesting. Even the the Pere Noel guy."
"Not as much as it would have been going to
Antarctica on a cruise!" replied Okdavid the Oklahoman.
"Yah. At ten thousand bucks a trip!" laughed StLCards. "Although, that
would be one way to get out of the midwest!"
"Well, I am very happy we are going to Switzerland tomorrow," Foxon
stated. "It was masterful of Alphonso to make this a quick trip through
Germany and France giving us more time in the beautiful Alps!"
"Hey, we're the Alpine Turf Club! We're meant to party in the Alps!"
Alphonso laughed and everyone joined in because that was the truest
statement anyone had made thus far.
Day Three through Five: The Neutral Party Zone
The trip into tiny neutral Switzerland was a
joyous one for the ATC team. They stopped in Grenoble where MrLucky and
Winter had their picture taken on the very ice that Peggy Fleming won
her Olympic medal on. No one else remembered who Peggy Fleming was.
Mont Blanc up close was a sight that elicited many oohs and aahs from
the residency members. The altitude didn't seem to bother anyone but
Yochem who was chewing gum furiously and muttering about being a
lowlander. Other than that and a tendency to shudder at anything
orange, he seemed totally recovered from his adventures with the Hari
Krishna.
Peggy Fleming - Grenoble 1968
|
Mont Blanc from the tour bus
|
When the bus arrived at Colors' alpine retreat
everyone was ready for
some food and fun. Eddie and Blacksoxuk were yelling just to hear the
echoes. Alphonso was talking pastry with Colors. Okdavid was making
Heidi jokes. Exploder told Foxon that it sure smelled better in
Switzerland. After meeting Colors' husband and son the group walked
down the road into the village where they found the local tavern and
ordered food and drink.
Exploder, with yet another plate of sausages,
thought the whole place looked like a movie set and seemed very far
removed from her experience of snow at Mammoth. Delta agreed and
StLCards told everyone some of the history of the area. Then
Eddie asked one of the waitresses about skiing. The next thing the
group knew they all had appointments at the local ski lodge for the
next day. And thus the two day party began...
During the ski lodge outing Alphonso staked out the main room of the
lodge and proceeded to eat, drink, and be merry with locals and
tourists alike. His feet never saw a ski. Delta and Exploder hit the
bunny slopes where the instructor was exceedingly good looking. "I'm
married," Delta told Exploder who replied in a typical teenage deadpan,
"He's just eye candy. Nothing wrong with some eye candy."
Lodge Party!
|
Skiing!
|
Foxon turned out to be the King of the Slopes,
outskiing Eddie, Okdavid, MrLucky, Hawkz, Blacksoxuk, and Dragnil.
MrLucky wasn't too lucky as he took a header into a tree and had to be
rescued by a lovely female member of the ski patrol who helped him back
to the lodge and made sure he got a nice bandage on his head.
Afterward, she told him when she got off work and he made sure he was
still in the lodge at that hour, looking appropriately like he needed
more assistance to lift his drink and adjust his bandage.
Winter, unlike her name, was a bit out of her element. The snow was
slippery and made her bad knee ache. She and Yochem weren't too
terribly interested in the party zone feel of the lodge either.
Instead, they found a little cafe where they hung out, surfed the net
on the laptop, and got to know the owners of the cafe. Once they'd
established a rapport, they discovered the Swiss couple had been to
Mexico once on vacation and had fallen in love with the culture and
food.
The Ski Patrol Rescues MrLucky
|
Swiss Cafe before Cantina transformation
|
From then on, Winter and Yochem began
transforming the quaint Swiss cafe into a Mexican cantina! Yochem got
on the laptop and 24 hours later FedEx delivered a huge box. Out came
inflatable palm trees, sombreros, a supply of tortillas and other
foods, tequila, and margarita mix. By the time the others came looking
for them, Winter was decked out like an El Torito waitress, serving up
margaritas to the locals while Yochem, in a sombrero, was serving tacos
and enchiladas and yelling "Arriba!" By the end of their third night in
Switzerland, the entire ATC team were doing drunken Mexican Hat dances
in an Alpine cafe decorated in plastic palm trees and Corona banners.
Day Six: No Room At the Innsbruck
The day they were to leave Switzerland for
Italy began with the ominous arrival of a telegram for Delta. "I've
never gotten a telegram in my life," whispered Eddie as everyone
gathered around Delta. "It can't be good. It's never good in the
movies."
"Don't be so negative mate," Hawkz warned. "It may be nothing."
"A telegram on Christmas Eve? It's A Wonderful Life," Winter said. "Now
all we need is Clarence, little ZuZu and a bell ringing."
Delta shook her head. "It's not good news but it's not bad news either.
There's been a change of plans and we're to meet EAAA in Northern Italy
in the Alps at Stertzing."
"Woo Hooo!" MrLucky cheered. "Another Olympic trip is in order then!
We're off to Innsbruck! It's easy to get from Innsbruck through the
Brenner Pass to Stertzing."
Everyone stared at MrLucky in disbelief and Alphonso shrugged. "He
wanted to look at all the maps so I let him," he muttered defensively.
"How was I to know he was scouting out Olympic sites?"
"Be careful on your trip," Colors warned. "This time of year is the
worst part of winter in the Alps. The weather changes rapidly."
"I suppose there is nothing wrong with us heading into Austria to see
Innsbruck," Delta said cautiously. "The Equinics is the equine version
of the Olympics after all. If the weather begins to change we can take
shelter immediately. There are hundreds of little alpine villages on
that map."
With that, the group began packing up the tour bus and saying their
goodbyes to Colors who still looked worried. Yochem calmed her by
asking her to call Knightmare to let him know the change of plans.
Meanwhile, MrLucky and Eddieboo were enthusiastically chattering about
the sidetrip into Austria. "Geez, we'll be there on Christmas Eve!"
Eddie enthused. "It's supposed to be beautiful there year round. How
much better will it be on Christmas Eve?"
They honked and waved as they drove away from Colors' home in
Switzerland and soon they were on a frozen Alpine road headed into
Austria. Not too long after they crossed the border into Austria they
discovered that the trip was not without it's hazards. Their driver,
who was not too familiar with the way into Austria, got lost in the
switchbacks and at one point they were confronted with a road block - a
pass that was not passable except during summer months. That meant a
trip back down the way they had come and some pouring over the maps by
Alphonso, Yochem, and the driver before they found their way around the
blocked road.
Snowy Austrian Road
|
View from Innsbruck at Dusk
|
The detour and the slow going on the frozen
roads took up most of the
day and it was obvious the group was not going to make it to Innsbruck
before darkness set in. MrLucky tamped down his impatience as snow
began to fall. It fell thicker and thicker the closer they got to
Innsbruck and eventually the roads cleared out until there was no one
driving in the storm but the ATC group. Foxon began to look really
concerned. "I think we'll have to stay in Innsbruck tonight," he said.
"There is no way we'll get through the Brenner Pass in this mess."
"But it's Christmas Eve," Winter frowned. "Won't everything be booked
up?"
The group looked at each other in stunned silence. "We'll just have to
try every place we come to," Delta said firmly, refusing to give in to
the panic she sensed was about to overtake the group.
And so, they stopped at every hotel, hostel, and inn along the way. It
took hours and by ten p.m. the tour bus stopped near the famous bridge.
"We'll have to go on," Delta admitted worriedly. "There's nowhere to
stay."
"No room at Innsbruck...on Christmas Eve!" grumbled MrLucky, who
conveniently forgot that the sidetrip was his idea. "Now all we need is
a donkey and a pregnant woman!"
Exploder rolled her eyes. "Oy," she mumbled disgruntedly. "At least he
didn't say we needed an ass."
"Look," Eddie said trying to lighten the mood. "The snow is letting up
some. Maybe it will be ok driving through the Brenner Pass."
Everyone rushed to look out the windows. Old world Innsbruck was
covered in glittering white snow. There was a tall tree with lights on
it near the tour bus and the bridge over the River Inn looked ethereal
in the dark. "It's so beautiful here," Dragnil murmured and
everyone nodded.
Old Town Innsbruck
|
Christmas Tree in Innsbruck
|
The driver broke the mood however by babbling
about fuel and within a
few minutes the bus was back on the road and headed for the Brenner
Pass into Italy. It was a scary trip in the pitch black night with the
snow falling thickly and the bus inching it's way up the Alps. Then
with a lurch the bus stopped. In the silence that followed the snow
could be heard hitting the top and sides of the metal and fiberglass
bus.
Delta and Foxon conferred with the driver after the first few moments
of stunned silence and their grave faces told a story that no one
wanted to hear. "The bus is out of gas," Foxon stated and
everyone gasped.
"So we sit here until we're found, which is not a good thing for the
horses," Delta sighed. "Or we walk or ride the rest of the way to
Stertzing which we estimate is about another 10 miles down the road."
There wasn't much discussion because no one wanted their horse to
freeze to death in the Alps. Mostly everyone tried to find as much
clothing as possible to put on in an effort to stay warm. The driver,
who elected to stay with the bus, gave everyone a vest that was
reflective and would help them be seen by any vehicles on the road. Not
that there were any.
The horses were as unhappy with the situation as the ATC residents
were. Luckily none acted skittish but it was obvious they were all out
of their element in the bad weather. Delta, astride Vegas, led the way
with the Equinics Flame in hand to light the way. One by one the
residents fell into a line with Foxon taking up the rear. Winter rode
Asilomar alongside Blacksoxuk on The Ghost. "This is kinda weird,
don't you think?" she asked the Scotsman who nodded.
Okdavid and Hawkz
|
Foxon and Dragnil
|
"No room at Innsbruck," he said then chuckled.
"Now we're on horseback
- not donkeys mind you unless you count that South African bred of
Dragnil's!"
"I heard that," Dragnil retorted from aboard Announced.
"It is a bit like the original Nativity story," Okdavid said
thoughtfully. "Perhaps we should do as those weary travelers did and
find us a nice warm barn to stay in until daybreak."
"That's not a bad idea at all," Alphonso piped up. "It's got to be a
lot safer for all of us if we do that. It's pretty dark out here."
They all agreed and began looking for buildings in the snowy gloom.
They had been riding for at least 45 minutes when Delta gave a shout
and pointed to a wavering light in the distance. The horses were
already tired of walking in the snow and everyone was frozen to the
bone. Delta's shout perked them all up and they trotted as best they
could in the slippery snow toward the lights and eventually came upon a
little house with a large barn behind it. The house was lit up but when
Delta knocked on the door no one answered. The door wasn't locked and
Foxon looked in but no one was there. "Perhaps they too got caught in
the bad weather but stayed where they were," he murmured. Yochem nodded
his agreement.
In the barn were a couple of cows and a half dozen empty stalls. It was
happily quite warm in the large building. "I don't feel right
staying in the house," Delta frowned. "But maybe we could borrow
some bedding and leave them a note and some Euros." The decision made,
she, Alphonso, and Winter went up to the house after blankets while the
others settled the horses.
By the time everyone was nestled in warm hay and blankets, Exploder
noticed the time. "Hey! It's after midnight! It's Christmas!"
There was a chorus of Merry Christmases from everyone and Hawkz asked,
"Are we in Austria or Italy?"
No one knew. "It doesn't matter," StLCards murmured. "As long as we're
not too late to the Flame handoff tomorrow everything will be
A-OK!" After a round of off-key "Silent Night" which even the grumpy
MrLucky sang, they all fell into exhausted sleep.
It was an uncomfortable night in the straw for the ATC residents and as
dawn was breaking in the Alps they were back in the saddle and headed
back toward the main road. No sooner had they reached it than a snowy
cloud came barreling toward them, materializing as a big black Hummer
followed by...their tour bus!
Sunrise in the Alps
|
Leaving the snowy barn
|
"YAY!" Exploder cheered as the Hummer slid to
a stop and the door
opened revealing...Knightmare! Big Momma, Dilaika, and Devine all got
out of the Hummer too.
"I thought you'd need rescuing," Knightmare chuckled, shaking hands all
around. "Found the bus and got it all gassed up again but you all were
gone!"
Delta related their Nativity adventures to Knightmare and company while
the horses were loaded in the trailer and everyone rushed onto the bus
to warm up and clean up. Then it was on to Stertzing! The remaining ATC
residents, Nawbo, Robscoobi, Rusfust, and Teamtexas were waiting there
with the EAAA residency. Delta rode into the tiny Tyrolian village
astride Vegas and holding the Equinics Flame. The ensuing festivities
gave all the residents a chance to tell their Alpine Christmas story to
anyone who would listen.
In the end though, it was Exploder who got the last word. "Well, I'm
done," she sighed. "I'm full of Christmas dinner, Nativity adventures,
and Equinics Flame Trails! And even though there were no ghosts of
Christmas past, present, or future, unless you count Blacksoxuk's
horse, I can still say this with a straight face - GOD BLESS US EVERY
ONE!"
|
