Day 62- We started our morning off a bit rough around the edges, seeing how we had just survived 3 days of amazing music and non stop dancing and energy. After we got The Ohana all situated for travel again, it was time to get Tom to the airport so he could fly back home. Normally it would have been sad to say good-bye to him, but if all of our plans went accordingly we would be seeing him in about 3 weeks at his home down in Florida. While we had been in Baltimore, one of our friends had seen we were in the city and recommended we make arrangements to meet up with her brother Will.
As we coordinated the details on what to do with Will, he came up with the idea to go on a ride on his boat out around Baltimore’s coast. Though we had to leave to take Tom to the airport, his boat was ironically in a slip in the same marina we had been parked right next to for the last 4 days! 😄
Soon as Tom was off on his journey, we were headed back to snag a free day parking spot at a local museum along the pier to meet up with Will. Will met us at the gates of the marina, and not even a couple of minutes later was showing us his sweet little boat tied up there, and a few more after that we were out on the water!
The shoreline of the city was gorgeous, and as we traveled along Will happily gave us a tour explaining various things to do in the area as well as much of the history of the city. A little ways in he let me take the helm for the cruise, and we admired the architecture of the shoreline as well as the massive ships that adorned the coast. Afterwards we did a little bit of a speed cruise around the area outside of the no wake zone, then headed inland to dock. After avoiding the random pattern of many sailboats zig-zagging around to keep with the wind, we made it to the slip. As I helped tie up, my sunglasses slipped out of my shirt pocket into the water; and as my hand plunged in after them my fingers just barely grazed their frame before they faded into the harbor depths. Looks like I would be on a new quest for shades.
Will walked back with us to the Museum of Industry where we were parked, and we got to give him a brief tour of The Ohana. Before we gave each other our Thanks and Good-Bye hugs, we made sure to get a picture together to commemorate the moment. Then he was off, and so were we as we cast off for Indianapolis.
Along the way was a lot of driving, but many pretty views as we passed through Maryland. At a rest stop I got kicked in the leg a few times by my first grasshopper encounter. That night we posted up at a little pull off on top of a small mountain, where we viewed a ton of fireflies flicking in and out of the darkness; even at heights as tall as the trees. Due to a lightning storm going on all around us and no good tree protection, we voted to continue on to a larger rest stop with more coverage.
On Day 63- When we woke up the next morning we were close to the border of Maryland, and continued on through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. After putting in a full day of driving we entered Indiana, where we found a rest stop to crash for the night.
Awakening on the 64th day of our travels, we realized we would be arriving into Indianapolis that day, and that we were running very low on drinking water. Crazily enough, everywhere that listed RV water refills online in the area had none, so we went from destination to destination questing for agua to no avail. About half a day in on this quest we decided to try a Yogi The Bear Jellystone Campground- and though the water came with a lot of sediment in it- it was good to drink. The park was a really pleasant experience after so many attempted misses in our day.
Next we were headed to downtown Indianapolis. Once we arrived in the city, we decided to go scope out our parking / camping spot for the next 5 days. After a bit of navigating the craziness of downtown we found the lot, but being a day early knew we would be back the next day. As we were about to leave, the parking lot attendant told us we could park a day early for $15 dollars, and we decided to snag our spot while the snagging was good.
Soon as were settled up, we went to introduce ourselves to our camping neighbors- who turned out to be super friendly and helpful Gencon event veterans.
Oh! Let’s get to that point of why we are here! We had traveled to Indianapolis for a 4 day event call Gencon. Gencon is the largest board gaming convention in the United States; and with us being huge tabletop geeks we had been dreaming about doing something like this for at least 10 years.
Now back to our regularly scheduled tale; our new veteran gaming friends proceeded to explain to us that it was a good thing we had landed a day early for the event. Being here would allow us to get all the proof of vaccination screening process out of the way as well as getting to sign up for events as early as possible. I hadn’t known this, but Gencon ran differently than other conventions I had been to. At other places you just wandered around and jumped in a line to do stuff. Here they gave you a catalog of all the events going on for the 4 days and you had to buy tickets and register for 90% of the things going on. So this allowed us to scratch our heads and peruse the huge catalog to decide what we might want to do for the next 4 days.
While there we got to meet up with a friend we hadn’t seen in a long time- Yoshi! We had met Yoshi years ago in Phoenix (a very long story). With his love of games, we had made it a mission for over a year now that he would get to go to a huge game convention. With mission accomplished here he was! He was here volunteering to demo games for a company at the event, so we got to do a small peruse of the expo hall being set up a day before the doors opened. It looked the next three days were going to very busy in this massive hall!
During our evening drifting along we got to meet one of the creators of one our favorite games ever: Christopher Badell who created Sentinels Of The Multiverse! We totally geeked out a bit, while trying to keep a calm demeanor on the surface while we chatted with him for while. After a pleasant farewell for the evening we felt we had gotten our bearings for the following days, so we headed back to The Ohana to excitedly try and get some sleep.
On Day 65 Gencon began! We started the day lost in the vastness of the convention hall, trying to find our way to the opening event show for the convention. There they announced upcoming events and we got to watch a show by Nur-D; a hip hop artist from Minneapolis that makes music for geeks, nerds, and real people who aren’t always heard.
Events galore were already all around, and the main Expo Hall hadn’t even opened yet! Check out this guy!
Shortly after the Expo Hall opened; this is where the booths were set up where people can see, demo, and buy the latest games on the board game market. It was so vast that we systematically decided to peruse the isles to be able to see everything. Along the way we met the creators of Meromorph Games- who made some of our favorites as well, which we scheduled a demo of their newest game for the next day. We discovered fun booths filled with great new games everywhere, stumbled along Cosplayers (dressed in costume event attendees) galore, and scoped out if we might want to make any game investments in the next few days. By the time it closed that night at 6 PM we hadn’t even made it half way through the Expo Hall! 😵
After exploring a lot of fun going on outside the Expo Hall, we went to an event we had signed up for. It was a comedy show where people played Dungeons & Dragons around a table with Jim Henson quality puppets and actors. Though it looked child friendly- the humor definitely wasn’t! 🤣
On Day 66 we were right back in the gaming fray! We continued our quest to try and see if we could see all The Expo Hall had to offer.
We participated in a scavenger hunt contest to try and get cards stamped by the whole staff of Orange Nebula games to try and win a beautiful and expensive game they were offering. We were the first ones to do it- but after the event we realized we hadn’t confirmed our email subscriptions to see if we had won the drawing afterwards. 😥 It was a great time meeting them all though, what a fun crew of enthusiastic people!
Laura won a world’s smallest bop-it in a roaming bop-it contest. There we found out that they would be doing an official tournament for prizes on Sunday, so we added that to our to-do list.
We went to donate blood this day too- but the booths were extremely backed up due to the volume of donators. Which is a great thing! But… it took way longer to get through than planned. We were there so long we ended up missing our scheduled demo with Meromorph games… 😔 When we were done donating we decided to go over and talk to them anyway- and we were able to jump in on the second half of a demo of their new game ATMA! Overall, everything worked out and we had a great time!
A few other things in the slide show below:
A giant balloon art dragon that they were continuously building throughout the event. People could donate and be enrolled to participate in slaying the dragon on the last day of Gencon.
The Catan Sheep Mobile was cruising around. Sheep is a resource in the game so it was a great roaming joke. When they pushed the horn it would “Baaaaa” instead of beep!
We attended “The Gamer’s” Live Show. Definitely great geek comedy made by long term nerd film fans The Gamers. You can find their stuff on Amazon Prime if you want to check it out. Overall they were hilarious!
A block party in the square with more music by Nur-D and his band!
A quest for a cheap and slightly affordable dinner that night led us to some very neat moments wandering downtown Indianapolis on foot.
After dinner we wandered back and checked out the used games sales and auction hall, we didn’t buy any but it was fun to see all the auctioning in action!
We did buy some games in the Expo Hall that day, deciding it was wise to do it before the companies ran out of copies at the event. That night we met up with Yoshi and tried a demo of one we had fallen in love with that day; Reality Shift. It turned out to be an extremely original, fast, and fun game we would be able to play with others quite easily. Finishing off the evening with a game with friends was the perfect way to end this huge day of exploring the board gaming industry.
Day 67 (Day 3 Of Gencon)- I was up bright and early to get down to the gaming hall. The last few days we hadn’t been able to get a demo of the Bigfoot game in because it had been so booked. The XYZ game crew had told us if we wanted an easy shot to play the game, we should show up first thing in the morning. Laura and I got to rock out a game of Bigfoot Roll N’ Smash, and I enjoyed it so much I signed up for their big tournament Sunday morning and pre-ordered their game for when it launched.
That afternoon we got to go do another fantasy we had wanted to make reality and go participate in The Letter’s Page Live! The Letter’s Page is a podcast where the creators make lore for the world of Sentinel Comics. So we got to spend an hour and a half laughing and quizzing along with the Greater Than Games staff about one of our favorite universes.
After the show we hurried outside to watch the Cosplay Parade, where everyone that had dressed up for the event was going to show their costumes off.
Feel free to enjoy the slide show and shout out how many characters you recognized- most points wins our awe and accolades! 😁
Once the parade was over we wandered around the convention some more, and that night attended a free dance party in the most elegant retired train station.
Laura loooved the arches and curved architecture of the train station- as you can tell…
The night ended abruptly shortly after though- when the fire alarm triggered and everyone had to evacuate the building. As we waited outside we realized it had happened exactly at midnight- and the event was supposed to go on until one o’clock. We guessed that the staff had wanted to shut the event down early, and were somewhat confirmed of our theory when they came out and said they couldn’t allow people in to dance anymore, but if people wanted to play games they could head back inside… 🤔
That’s an interesting safety policy! 🤣 Maybe they just couldn’t handle the Furry craziness anymore that night! 🤣🤣🤣
Regardless of why, we happily headed back to The Ohana for the evening. 😊
The Next Morning of Day 68 was the final day of Gencon! We hurried to the convention center so we could jump in our scheduled tournaments. I sat down at the Bigfoot tournament table, and as we waited for the organizers to begin I chatted with the other players; and was shocked to find all the other participants at the table had not played the game before. So… I taught them! Unfortunately it would be my ultimate downfall in the tournament though- because instead of putting my full thinking cap into playing the game myself, I was too busy answering other people’s questions during my turn and made a really bad move my first play. Still though- we had a great time and that is what the hobby is all about.
And… I had got to meet the owner and creator of Bigfoot, and got him to sign a Bigfoot hat. I had partially entered the contest for the signed hat anyway, and wanted to give it to Laura’s brother Jordan as a gift because he is such a gear head. So success!
Unfortunately Laura’s Bop-it contest also didn’t work out. When she found the event- their contest Bop-it machine had malfunctioned and they had to cancel it. Bummer!
We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon wandering the event, checking out a few more games and watching the destruction of the great GenCon balloon dragon.
Satisfied we had enjoyed everything we could to the fullest, we drifted back on to The Ohana as the event came to an end. We set things up to get back on the road and began our long trek South towards Georgia. Thanks For Everything Gencon!
Geoff Murphy 9/6/2022