Congratulations!!

[Ponine]

I thought this would be the sort version of how the Open was... it still ended up being long... oops.
I started this MA thinking.. wow, I have this team member, who I have no idea how helpful he’ll be, and have never done this kind of thing with. Panther, being my ‘One that Got Away “ from THAT thread. We’re pals, but this was a new venue for us.
And the boyfriend of my long time team mate,Cordae, whom I had never met, and he had never been to D-land before. Plus, I was thinking… okay, if I stay in the Open I have a fighting chance at placing. (Yeah, if I don’t make stupid mistakes. Which we did) I also had, for once, kept reminding myself of a compliment paid to me once by a fellow MA’er. That I had the potential to do well, if I just found the right team.

Panther and I did decide just past the halfway point that smokers slow you down. There were two other teams with smokers, but it was their whole team. They stood as a group inside the smoking section and worked. We split up and let them go in, while we stayed out, hoping against all hope that if we were seen as a two-some that the official who spotted us would note that the other two were inside the smoking section, and we were just outside of it.

I think this was an easier event. We spent a great deal of time on the Vowel Trouble puzzle, knew the answer HAD to be in Toontown, and just walked around and around the building.. then we thought.. hmm the firework building did blow up… maybe it’s stuck to another building. (Anyone know where that answer was before the game ‘broke’?) But in so doing we were able to find the Audubon window, so we felt better. It was still frustrating to find out that puzzle was eliminated.
We had the standard evil paragraph, those are always given right to me, I now have a strategy for those.. and thank goodness.
We died on the Star Tours one because no one proofed the answer and Panther ‘over-read’ the question. He saw “What flight is under decontamination after arriving from Endor” so he went with the flight that was under the flight that was decontaminating. Not thinking that if you are decontaminating, you are under decontamination. Yeah well… first timer mistake.

Home Sweet Home..the signs about Home on the Range, I just KNEW that one. Poor LibraryVixen had to deal with me taking pics of every sign when she was down in the fall!

The postcard trade thing… first let me say… I got my packet and did the Packet check.. the sheet said you should have TWO postcards, I only had one, so I went BACK to get my second postcard. It was a typo. BUT.. I had already rushed away once away from my team, and had to run back, I was po’d and thinking, I’m seconds behind already! So, to the FotM, I heard you, I really did. I wasn’t trying to ignore you. I just cant gather, walk, and respond all at once. I need to develop a hand signal so that you know I’m just in concentrating intesly. I owe you BIG for trading with us , and I’m glad we could help each other. I just need to learn not to obsess. No hard feelings!

Tarzan’s Tree house… okay, so we had myself, who cant do that many stairs with my knee, and Storm, who’s deathly afraid of heights, so we got permission to split up, though I had ASKED ahead of time if there was a physical limitation for open!! Anyway.. we had to split.. Panther and Cordae walked up Tarzan’s so they could get to the last book to get the last word, and we waited at the exit. Now… I was annoyed, because as we waited, I saw a team go in the exit, get the answer, and come back out. Now.. what the heck? Alas, that team did get ahead of us because of that. And quite frankly it annoyed me. But .. I let it go.
For some reason Boxed in Frontierland stumped us for a while…

But really.. all in all.. I think it might have been easier. But it still kicked my tush, and I still have sore legs. And she was right.. I have finally found my team, and my niche. Watch out, we’re taking no prisoners next time around.