Yahtzee - Riding the Void Rally

Yahtzee - not just a game with dice!

The Void always take a different flavor from year to year and 2014 certainly was no exception to that tradition.  From music themes to  weather, the Rallymasters always find something new and entertaining.  The theme this year was Yahtzee.

The concept is simple.  Fill out a Yahtzee scorecard by riding to various bonus locations.  It is much easier in concept than in execution.  Straights must be gained in order without interruption.  Full house, 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, Yahtzee all have places on the scorecard you must attempt to fill.  

All bonuses had a value of 1 through 6.  The challenge was to get to the right bonus in order to fill your scorecard and of course in the correct sequence.  If you failed to get a planned bonus, that could simply throw your scorecard into total disarray. 

The start this year was Macon, GA.  Cora, my 20 year old daughter, was riding this one - her first long rally.  To say she was excited would have been an understatement!  We departed on Thursday the 9th of October after she finished up a lab test in biology.  After a late start, we rode non-stop to Macon to meet up with riding companion, David Clark, and the other riders for dinner and rest before taking off the following morning at 9 AM.  

9:00 AM rolled around and we got our start receipts and made the necessary text to the RM with our starting information.  Our first stop was going to be northeast of Athens to fill a straight.  

First stop was a historical marker for the Center of the World.  Note that in order to fill a straight, it often required some backtracking to get the bonuses in order.  Our first cluster was no exception. 

Then in Royston for a historical marker honoring Ty Cobb - the baseball legend. 

Next was a bit of a challenge.  At the Georgia Guidestones, we had to get a photo of  a granite slab making sure certain parts were readable.  The sun was bright on the white granite and getting a photo that included Cora and the correct wording was difficult. We decided on this one. 

The next few bonuses fell right into order.  A child reading monument, historical marker of the Abbeville Opera House, some good old moonshine, a judge on the state capital ground in Columbia, SC, big fire hydrants and giant chains.  We did a good bit of backtracking and circling to get things in the right order.  

We headed across South Carolina getting bonuses at historical markers, Lonesome Pedro, to the town hall in Raynham where there was supposed to be a totem pole in front of the town hall.  

The totem pole was supposed to be beside the flagpole.  As you can see, it is no longer there.  We made a call to the Rallymaster to confirm, snapped our photo and were back on the road headed into North Carolina.  

Our first stop in NC was to spend a total of 9 minutes in The Void.  Simply, a break for a minimum of 9 minutes proven by receipts starting and stopping the break.  David has plotted a gas station for our stop, but I missed the turn and we ended up stopping in a rather questionable area.  The first station's receipts were off by a huge amount so we headed to another to get a start receipt close to the actual time.  These worked and we spent about 10 minutes snacking and walking around a bit.  

Then we headed along the North Carolina coast through Surf City and Topsail Beach for a series of 6's!  It was dark and thankfully very little traffic on a beach road.  We got sharks, alligators, more sharks, and a tribute to a Gold medalist fireman. 

We stopped for a cool statue of a policeman coming out of a wall in Clayton, NC and then into Raleigh for a photo of PNC arena.  

Now it is time for our mandatory rest break.  We grabbed a receipt to start our rest break and headed to the motel.  It's around 1:00 AM and w e would only be there for 4 hours or so.  After getting into our room, the folks in the room next room next door must have decided it was time for a serenade since the woman starting singing very loudly and poorly.  Luckily, she calmed down by the time we got in the bed. 

After a quick sleep, we got our ending receipt and headed out in the dark for a photo of a water tower.  The words Zebulon has to be readable in the photo as well as the rally flag.  I snapped lots of pictures before we got something that we thought would work.  Lots of pictures would come back to haunt us at scoring!

The sun came up as we headed for a picture of a sign at Parker's Ferry.  The ferry is an old cable operated ferry manned by a little old man who may have been the first operator.  As we approached, the dreaded Pavement Ends sign popped up and the GPS said 1.8 miles to the ferry.  We had little choice but to continue on the hard packed gravel road.  We found our sign and snapped the picture.  

As I started to back up, I noticed the ferry had started coming across the river since the operator had seen us and figured we wanted a ride.  At this point David had the brilliant idea to ride the ferry.  Why I didn't protest this absolutely stellar idea escapes me still.  

The approach to the ferry was pretty steep, wet, and muddy.  I made it on to the very slick steel deck sliding to a stop only a foot or so from the pilot house.  David spun his way onto the ferry and across we went.  The steel deck has long since had all the non-skid surface worn away.  I asked the old man about how much gravel road there was ahead.  He pondered for a little while and said about as much as coming in.  He must not have drive out the way we went.  Instead of 1.8 miles we had about 3 miles of gravel before finally returning to the pavement.  AND now we had about 30 additional miles to ride to get back on track.  Oh well!  We did ride the ferry. 

We headed north towards Virginia grabbing some cool bonuses along the way.  We somehow were still on schedule.  

We found a Ruritan monument, a totem pole on the Virginia/North Carolina line, into the Great Dismal Swamp, arailroad museum and an old tank outside a VFW hall 

As we crossed Virginia, we also found the historical marker for Prince Edward State Park for Negros, a cool horse decorated for Halloween with a headless horseman rider, and a big cow.  

It's cold and wet and we have one more bonus to go before the finish line.  

The last bonus is in Fredericksburg National Battlefield Park.  The instructions were a bit vague telling us to walk into the cemetery from the Visitor Center and take a picture of a particular sign.  We wandered a bit before getting some directions from the nice lady in the gift shop. 

Now we have to get to the finish, fill out all our paperwork, and have it turned in before 4PM.  We had pre-filled our Yahtzee scorecard in hopes that we would not have to drop any bonuses.  Good planning, even with a ferry ride, works like a charm.  We hit every planned bonus and had some time to spare.  We checked and double checked paperwork before sealing our envelope for scoring.  

The rules state that you can have no more than 3 photos of each bonus.  What I failed to do was remove some of the extra photos from the Georgia Guidestones and the Zebulon water tower.  This cost us a tie for 3rd place with David!  With the penalty for extra photos, we finished 4th.  After cleaning up, we went to the bar and I collected on some free beer David owed for the ferry ride extravaganza.  

Cora was an absolute trooper!  I was very proud of her as we rode some 1250 miles during the rally on not a lot of sleep.  She was a very efficient co-rider keeping track of times and mileage for our bonuses.  Early in the morning of the 2nd day, she had a little trouble staying awake and banged the back of my helmet pretty regularly after taking some sinus medicine that probably made her really sleepy. She perked up after about 3 hours and all was well. 

The banquet was a success as usual with Scott the Rallymaster telling some entertaining tales of mishaps during the rally.  Food was excellent and we were more than ready for some sleep.  

Sunday was a 750 mile ride home in the cold rain.  It rained pretty steady from north of Roanoke to south of Chattanooga with one intense blinding rain just outside of Knoxville.  We stayed warm and dry and made it home in the early evening without incident.  

Next up is The Big Tex Rally.  I would have 2 days to clean up and head to Texas with Barbara.