8th
Annual
The Art of
CommuNYcation & Fireside Chat 2010
(last updated August
2, 2010)
NOTE: If you plan on printing info from this
page, the yellow will NOT show up well on your paper! Either print in
grayscale, or cut and paste the text into a Word document where you can change
the font color to whatever you like! J
General
Info: We’re
continuing our trek across the northernmost parts of Western New York State.
For our day event, The Art of CommuNYcation 2010,
we’re going to be at Four Mile Creek State
Park, just north of
Directions: Four Mile Creek is right
off Lake Ontario where the Robert Moses Parkway ends and Lake Road (Route 18)
begins its trek west. If you’re coming from the Thruway, take the Buffalo exit,
then head west on I-290 to I-190 heading toward Niagara Falls. Take I-190
through Grand Island, Niagara Falls and just about as far as you can go without
leaving the country. At this point, start following the directions that would
lead you to Old Fort Niagara, which means following Route 104 north to the
Robert Moses Parkway. Once you get to Fort Niagara’s exit, keep going PAST it
to the right following the parkway to the next exit, which should have a sign
for Route 18 F and Four Mile Creek. Take the exit and turn left at the stop
sign to the the park entrance. When you
enter the park, the pavilion is straight back and the campsites for the 200
loop are to the right. This is a NY state park, so there is a $6 day fee to
enter (unless you have a Empire Passport).
If you’re coming
from Rochester or points closer to Lake Ontario in New York State, you’ll have
quite the scenic route just taking Route 18 all the way along the lake to the
park. You’ll just hit it from the opposite direction, but the view is worth it.
Route 104 will also get you CLOSE to there, but you’ll need to get off on Route
93 when the fork in the road comes, then take Route 18 North to the park. If
you take 104 all the way, you’ll go WAY out of your way.
Event
Schedule: We
always try to maximize your boxing time, so the schedule is simple:
Saturday,
10:30 a.m.: Event begins. Come
stamp into the event book, get the event stamps, exchange with other boxers and
get some food. You can do this at ANY time between 10:30 and 4:30, but the food
DOES run out and people will be in and out all day! IF YOU HAVE NEVER
BEEN TO A GATHERING, BE SURE TO COME AT THIS TIME SO WE CAN HAVE TIME TO MEET
YOU AND HELP YOU GET ORIENTED! Also, feel free to check at AQ for tips on attending a
gathering to help you out.
11:00-4:30pm:
Boxing all over the park. You
can also use this time to exchange at the pavilion or just talk to other folks
in the area
4:30pm: Group photo. Be sure to come back in time to get
everyone in the shot so we’ve got something to share on the boards!
4:45pm:
Raffle & Award time! Pay
a $1 per ticket or $5 for an arm’s length and get a shot at winning some great boxing supplies or win a stamping award for
the day!
5:00pm:
Day event ends; clean up & head to dinner. Join up with the local folks for dinner at
one of the nearby restaurants (TBA) or head home/to your hotel/to the
campgrounds to relax.
9:30pm:
Night boxing event. We
will start as soon as the sun goes down that night, so be back at Lakeside around
this time. Should the Highlander or I be stuck at the restaurant, it may start
a little later! Details on where to start will be given after the raffle.
Sunday,
all day: Box on your own. Come
back to get what boxes you missed!
Food: Like all gatherings, our
bounty will be potluck, so bring your favorite dish and let us know what it is
(so we don’t have too little or too much of anything!). We'll provide hotdogs
and soda if you bring the side dishes!
Accommodations: Your first choice for
lodging that weekend should be camping at Four Mile Creek, since you’ll get to
do the extra evening events that the day visitors won’t be a part of. Our
personal site is #280, so try to get in to a site anywhere in the 200 Loop to
be near the action (and call SOON…the sites are already booking up!). If
outdoor living’s just not where it’s at for you, the nearby towns of Youngstown,
Lewiston and a few others have little hotels and B & B’s. If you don’t mind
staying just a little further away (or want a bigger hotel), you have the
entire Buffalo/Niagara region at your disposal this year (which includes accommodations
in Canada, for those with passports or enhanced licenses), which means TONS of
boxes in the surrounding suburbs.
Boxes: Currently, there are no
boxes at ALL in Four Mile itself, mostly because the paths are pretty open.
Even the series we’ll be doing is just outside the park area, not directly in
it. Clues for the boxes will be posted on our gathering clues
page on Wednesday the 18th,
so no peeking until then. We’ll also have a booklet of the event clues to give
out at the pavilion, but only until we run out, so don’t come too late. Our box
theme is communication, so let us know if you’d like to donate a box based on any
of the ways people get their point across to each other! More
importantly, though, let us know if you want to donate raffle items! Any boxing
supplies or fun items you can send to add to our list would really help make
the whole thing worthwhile. Proceeds for this raffle will go toward the cost of
the pavilion, the grill food and...well, other raffle items! :-).
Getting
Around & Other Boxes: Check the event page at Atlas Quest. The list you’ll get is
MORE than enough for one weekend! However, if you’re a severe boxer (or, The
Phoenix!), the city to search is Youngstown, NY. The Highlander and I do a Hallowed Grounds tour yearly in
different counties and last year’s was
Niagara County (in fact, the east leg
of the tour runs into a cemetery that’s right next to Four Mile Creek). You can
also check for boxes in Niagara County on LBNA (
Questions?: Let us know (the
Sprite & the Highlander) if WE can be of more help. This is the seventh
WNY gathering we’ve planned and we always strive for a relaxing weekend amongst
friends, old and new. We’ll have our Cootie Catcher on the table for those
wanting to get rid of cooties and traveling events stamps are always welcome!
If you know of anyone else that's interested, please feel free to pass this
info along and have them sign up on Atlas Quest!
Hope to see you there!
The
(trying to carve what constant talking looks like) Sprite & the (wishing
she was just CARVING it instead of DOING it) Highlander
Click here to return to the Sprite and
the Highlander's home page or go back to the event page.
Looking for past year’s events? Click here to
access our main gathering
page!
E-mail us at spriteandhighlander@yahoo.com so we can keep you informed of updates to this page
and the event.
