I had been trying to find a live action role playing (LARP) reenactment. I had never done any LARP stuff before, but I like comic books, video games, bad movies, sci-fi and They Might Be Giants, so why not get this last bit of geekdom on the checklist? LARPers usually reenact medieval times. Most of them own multiple swords and entire chain mail ensembles.
The June 8 weekend was a different recreation: a Palestinian village circa 1936. There were a series of 1936 events: Spain, Cuba, Safari. These were meticulously planned weekends, so everyone had an assigned character. My character was a middle-aged Jewish immigrant named Gerhardt Schmidt, who didn't quite fit into the village. I was imaging how to play this character the whole day, but a last minute substitution made me an angry Palestinian teenager named Bakor al-Aziz. I'm 26 and take six weeks to grow a goatee, so I think I'd work better as a teenager than as a father of 30-year-olds. Plus, my family's Irish, so mustering up hatred of the British colonial policy wouldn't be too much of a stretch.
I got several emails about how to dress in period (kaffiyehs would be given out), but nothing clearly stating where this was being held. One of them did mention that the optional Friday party would be at the Blue Mountain Lodge in Hamburg, PA.
Mapquest turned BLUE MOUNTAIN LODGE into BELMONT AVE. The lodge could be on Belmont Ave, or Belmont was alphabetically close to Blue Mountain, and I'd be directionless once I hit Hamburg. I have ridiculously good luck with directions. I've driven to towns with little knowledge of how to reach an auditorium or a house, and always find them without incident. I've been on several caving trips where, despite it being four A.M., someone finds a local who knows where the camp site is. I didn't anticipate a problem.
Hamburg was a two hour drive, right off of I-78. I was expecting a three building town, but Hamburg was a large place. Many square blocks of downtown, complete with clothing, food and automotive stores whose existence meant there wasn't a Wal-Mart nearby. There were restaurants, supermarkets, even a movie theater. Hamburg was a full on hamlet.
Belmont Ave was an empty street. I wasn't surprised by this. I'd have to sniff around for the LARPers. I hadn't passed any "Welcome Palestinians" signs, but I doubt those signs are common even in the West Bank.
A cinder block American Legion bar was half a block from Belmont Ave. The locked door was buzzed open as soon as I pulled on the handle. A half dozen very friendly people were inside, who had no idea what I could be looking for. Describing the weekend to them was hard to do, because a patriotic bar isn't the best place to announce "I'm an angry Palestinian." I was pretty sure the location was the Blue Mountain Lodge, but my directions just had BELMONT AVE printed. 'Blue Mountain Lodge' sounded so much like a housing development that it didn't stick in my head. No one in the bar had heard of 'Blue Mountain Lodge.'
An older patron suggested the Blue Mountain Academy, a camp a few miles away. That would definitely have the facilities the weekend needed. Ten minutes of argument ensued about the best way to reach the Academy, and the winner got to write them down for me. The directions took me one exit further down I-78, and right to the Academy.
Blue Mountain Academy was a huge Seventh Day Adventist school and Bible camp. To the left was the flat one level school, with the entire front lawn roped off for festival parking. To the right was a tent city, the sturdy type with wooden floors that are left up all year. We were staying in a 'non-climate controlled bunkhouse,' and those tents fit the bill.
There was not a single person or car at the school or camp. It was after 9:00, and Friday night festivities should have already started. The set up people should have been here for hours already. Was everyone late? Or was the Friday party at a bar, and they were coming back here afterwards?
During a fruitless circle of the school parking lot, I saw two SUVs pull into the camp. Bingo, that's the welcoming party. They were the only two sources of light in the dark camp, so I could follow their taillights to the meeting place.
The roads through the camp were gravel and just wide enough for one car to pass. The driving got bumpier, more grass-choked, and the tents disappeared. Trees began threatening my side mirrors. The taillights in front of me look like they were on a Motocross track. They were putting their four-wheel drive to the test. I was following in a Toyota Camry with an undercarriage trying to win a limbo contest. Wherever these people were going, I wouldn't be able to follow.
It was better to make an ugly U-turn now than hope for a clearing and get jammed at the next hump. At the first area that could fit my car sideways, I gave it a shot. Back and forth, back and forth, five or ten degrees at a time. My front bumper was by a deadfall, and my back by some rocks. At the 90-degree mark, my tires began spinning uselessly. Rocks had wedged my back right wheel. Two minutes of panic followed, imagining the SUV night drivers finding me wedged in their road and reenacting Appalachia circa 1936. None of the rocks weighed more than fifty pounds, though, so I chucked them out of the way. That freed up the car, and I completed the U-turn. The only evidence was a small dent in my tailpipe, and a heart rate that still hasn't gone back down.
I had been putting off dinner until I found the LARP site, and could drag a couple people off to split a pizza. It was 10:45, though, so all the local restaurants were closed. In addition to no food, this meant no more locals to tap for directions (and no late show of Spider-Man at the movie theater). The only place open was the Wendy's off the highway. I've been trying to avoid fast food (read Fast Food Nation and you'll despise the fast food industry, too). It was late, though, and I deserved a big fat cheeseburger. As much as fast food destroys the world, I can't say it doesn't taste good. I limited myself to the Double (only half a pound of meat: the Triple has three quarters, and comes with a pacemaker).
I looked over my two printouts at Wendy's: the Belmont Ave. directions, and a seven-page document on the Palestinian characters. The character descriptions had offhand mentions of the grounds, including several houses, a pond, swimming pool, shooting range, and a view of Blue Mountain. If it wasn't Blue Mountain Academy, I could find it just by nature of its size. Not too many places around here have ponds, pools AND shooting ranges.
I drove back to the Academy, and saw fireworks shooting out of the woods behind the school. If those weren't LARPers, I'd strap a bomb to my chest. I followed the green explosions to a house in the middle of nowhere, off a long unlit driveway. I could make out three or four people on the front porch. "That's the last one," I heard from the driveway, and then several minutes of murky conversation, notable for never mentioning Palestine.
There were only two cars parked. Nope, not the place. Just bored country folks on a Friday night. I got back in my car, but a convertible burst out the driveway. A full carload of people stared at a stranger idling outside their house, with nothing for a half mile in all directions. They stared, then drove on. I prayed to Mecca in thanks of them being out of rockets.
The Tilden police station (the Academy was in the next town over from Hamburg) was between a restaurant and a diner, both of which were closed. The police probably wouldn't be thrilled to be used as an information booth, but they'd probably know more than the Wendy's counter girl. Venetian blinds were pulled over the station's window, and the door had a doorbell and screen. I rang the doorbell, to be polite. Nothing. I rang it again. Nothing. I opened the screen and tried the door. Locked. I looked through the blinds. Lights were on, but the place was empty. I could see $50 sacks of coins piled by the window. Attention coin thieves: visit Tilden.
Midnight hit, and I got tired. I had been driving the hell out of a square mile area for three and a half hours, and I wasn't getting any closer. I hadn't seen a motel anywhere. I had, however, driven through the tent camp three or four times by now, looking for lights. The tents had mattresses inside, and I had a sleeping bag.
I parked the car as far away from the main gravel road as I could, and snuck my sleeping bag into a tent. I listened for a camp official to burst in and yell at me for trespassing. Or for those SUVs, curious about the car trying to spy on them. Or the fireworks guys, also curious about the car trying to spy on them. Great: half the state was gunning for me. At least this would help me get into the mindset of a Palestinian.
No one came, so I got into the bag. I went to sleep around 12:30, wondering at what point trespassing becomes vagrancy.
I woke up refreshed, and not believing how much light 5:30 had. I felt utterly rested, and was ready to find this damned Palestinian village. Saturday morning was going to be spent at a local restaurant, with the cast waiting until their characters were to come in play. If I found it, I could still do 100% of the story.
The Tilden police station was still closed, but the restaurant next to it was open. There was one guy inside, in a wheelchair and also in his underwear. He had no idea what I could be looking for, but he said a Blue Mountain Cafe a few miles down the highway. I thanked him and floored it to the caf�, feeling a little guilty about asking a patronless restaurant manager how to get to another restaurant.
I had been to the Blue Mountain Cafe last year, returning from a caving trip. I was hoping this coincidence would help my odds finding the reenactment, but of course it didn't. There were no kaffiyehs in sight, no cars plastered with medieval bumper stickers, no foam weaponry in anyone's backseat. This wasn't the meeting place.
I went back to the Hamburg downtown area. I passed Blue Mountain Jeep, a Blue Mountain natural products store, and the Blue Mountain Campground. Hamburg is at the base of Blue Mountain. I don't know how Jamaican coffee plantations fit into it.
Maybe the Internet could help me. The character printout had the web address on it, and from that I could click around the site and find the page with directions. Libraries always had Internet access. I bought a cup of coffee at a convenience store, and asked where the library was. Just a few blocks away, the clerk said. I was there in a minute. It was closed now (8:50 A.M.), but would open at 9:00. Except for June, July and August, during which it was closed all Saturday. Nuts.
The library shared a parking lot with the Hamburg police station. Like with Tilden, every door of it was locked. Attention murderers: Hamburg and Tilden will give you a two-day head start.
The busiest place in town was the Hamburg Diner. Every booth was packed with people getting Saturday breakfast. I started asking around. I was hoping for a big local group conversation, and that's what I got. Plenty of locals looked over the descriptions, and they were all stumped. Shooting range and a pool, around here? I was 99% positive that the Blue Mountain Lodge just didn't exist. The only advice they could give me was to check with the state troopers.
The state trooper office was by the Wendy's. It was open; they must not have gotten the memo saying Pennsylvania law enforcement had the summer off. A small office was visible through a thick sheet of bulletproof glass. I passed my directions through to the woman on dispatch, and got yet another shake of the head. I hinted around at seeing there was Internet access in the office. She said there was.
I wasn't allowed inside, but she'd be able to go online for me. I stared through the glass as she scoured the web page for anything that looked like directions or an address. She clicked on every page of it, and still couldn't find anything. Dead end.
A trooper who was younger than me wrote out directions to one scout camp he knew of, a few exits to the east. I could stop by there on my way home, although it was a long shot. There wasn't anyplace else he could think of that fit my description, "unless they meant Hawk Mountain."
Hawk Mountain it was, then. It was a few miles to the west, but I had seen signs for the Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation. I followed them until I passed road construction and the signs abruptly disappeared. Damn: that felt like a good lead.
I passed a hunting and fishing store, and swung the car in the parking lot. They'd sure as hell know where the local shooting ranges were. Nope. The guy at the counter had no clue. The Hawk Mountain Sanctuary had a shooting range, he said, but they weren't shooting any birds just now. Next stop: bird sanctuary. I followed the signs, which were all still up.
The Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is 2400 acres of wilderness reserved for conserving birds of prey. The Visitor's Center was on top of the mountain. Like everyone else in Pennsylvania, the woman at Hawk Mountain had no idea what I could be looking for. The sanctuary had some facilities for groups (partial luxury: air conditioned outhouses), but nothing that weekend. She not only suggested the Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation, however, she gave me pre-printed directions to get there from the parking lot.
I was back on track. The directions took me past the hunting store again, and through some of the construction that had obscured the signs. A few miles further down the road, I passed by a meeting hall: Blue Mountain Hall. It looked abandoned, but I'd place a bet right then that there were plenty of cars last night. I passed a real estate sign: Corrado Realty. One of the guys putting this together was named Corrado. I got to the scout parking lot, and right by it was another hundred of those permanent tents.
I heard voices. People laughing. Allah be praised, this was it! I followed the voices through a patch of trees to the shore of a big pond. Pond! Everything I was looking for was falling into place. I ran along a path, toward the small group of people in front of me. I was honestly not expecting to ever find these people. Who were all wearing jeans. And t-shirts. And no kaffiyehs.
What I found was a half dozen middle aged women giggling at a rope exercise. Two guys seemed to be guiding them through it. I had found a team-building retreat. Crap on a pita.
That was my last lead at Hawk Mountain, so I headed home, around noon. I saw a sign for "Ali Camp," nearby but that was just a boxing camp, with 0% Middle Eastern recreaters. The trooper-recommended scout camp on the way home was also a dud.
I checked my email when I reached home at 2:00. The whole thing was indeed taking place at the Blue Mountain Lodge, which was indeed in Hamburg. I was only a few blocks away from the location on numerous locations. No one in the entire town had heard of it, despite the diner being a stone's throw away.
The Palestinian weekend survived without me. From what I heard, an unusually good time was had by all. Drat. I'm going to try for another weekend in August set in Ophir, the biblical El Dorado. If I can't find Palestine with written directions, good luck for me finding a place no one's been able to identify for 5000 years.
I've half-assed directions many times in the past. Up until my Hamburg trip, my Irish luck always held. But Ireland's full of people with Irish luck, and their chances for a peaceful independent country are about as good as Palestine's. I really hope there's Palestinians in Ophir, because I've got enough grist to play Arafat now. The toddler will never learn to not touch the stove until he gets his fingers burned. I burnt my fingers big time, as well as a whole tank of gas.