I had seen so many online friends going to board gaming weekends, I wanted to try one of my own and I finally made it happen last weekend!

I’ve been playing online games on a weekly basis with a group of people, some for almost two years now and others for at least six months. I decided I wanted to do something special for my birthday, after two years of not being able to do much because of ~you know the reason~.

ANYWAY, we got an Airbnb cabin in the mountains of Virginia and met up with far more games than anyone could play in the 48 hours we were going to spend together.

It was a blast.

You might think that I have enough friends that come over for game nights, why would I need to bring in out-of-towners to play with. The thing is, these are all other board game nerds, already well versed in the mechanisms and language of the subculture. While when I host a game night at my house, the brunt of the teaching and picking games falls on me, with this group, everyone already had games in mind they want to play, the crunchier ones that our “normal” friends just are not ready for. When you plop down a box the size of the deluxe edition of Wonderland’s War for your friends at home, their faces fill with terror at the “25 minutes/player” note on the side, but with this group, those 2.5 hours flew by as we battled it out for control of that colorful world.

Over the course of Friday evening and all day Saturday, we played 16 games total:

• Point Salad
• In Vino Morte
• Mansplaining
• Ticket to Ride Europe
• Deep Sea Adventure
• Draftasaurus
• Azul
• Bandido
• Campy Creatures
• Wonderland’s War
• Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza
• Crokinole
• Rolling Realms
• Stupid Deaths
• Allow Me to Mansplain
• Catan

We were already talking about what “next time” would be like as we packed up our things late Saturday night – like next time let’s not pick the weekend the clocks are set forward for a gathering that is already going to throw off your internal clock LOL. But also longer weekend, better meal planning to maximize game time.

And next time, SOMEONE is going to be designated as the photographer. I was having so much fun playing games, I barely took any photos and I really wanted at least one group photo at the end but, alas, we were all very tired. The best photo I got was of our delicious dinner on Saturday night because these guys were so extra they COOKED a real meal and FRESH bread!

And yes, we did play Rolling Realms WHILE eating dinner because how else are you going to cram in all the games?!?!