Pennsic was a blast. Its has been for the past three years. What was even better this year though is that we committed to the full two weeks, making it a weird (to some people) but proper holiday. And off course I didn't take one god-damned flippin' photograph.
We took a leisurely drive out on Sunday morning, leaving a little later than planned due to an unexpected migraine. A beautiful sunny day, hardly any traffic on the road, no road-work to get caught up in and the ability to lock up the truck-bed at service stations. We'll be doing it like this from now on. Eight hours later we arrive onsite to get mobbed by our seriously awesome camp-mates that we don't see nearly enough.
Peace Week was phenomenal. We spent a seriously lazy week finishing camp set-up, food shopping, and general laying around doing NOTHING. Well almost nothing, next year we may as well have a published A&S track in camp for all the cool things we were teaching each other. I can now spin fiber and have refined my lucet technique to the point where I don't have to look at what I'm doing any more. Our Pennsic camp is seriously awesome and filled with people that we don't get to see nearly enough. We're very diverse in our interests and when we get together all sorts of strange things end up happening or being planned. Needless to say, don't enter into the camp and then proceed to sit there and tell us that you'll NEVER do something.....
Then there was "Saturday Night at the Glen" .... Words really cannot describe how entertaining this was, but serious thanks must be given to our across-the-road neighbours and the assortment of people headed down to The Bog on that Saturday night. Imagine the scene, the road lined on both side by almost 40 people in camp chairs, heckling and cheering people to promenade past us with as much style and grace as possible. Then there was the singing of "Koom-by-ahh" whenever security headed our way in a delusional attempt to keep them from knowing what we were up too! Apparently we could be heard CLEAR across Pennsic. The one thing that surprised me the most was that it was the folks with pointy hats and bling that got into the merriment the most, whereas the "fringe" folks kinda kept their heads down for the most part and scuttled on by as quickly as they could.
I did however manage to get my four scrolls finished. They all arrived at Pennsic "mostly done" with just the odd few finishing touches needed on each of them. Off course, did I remember to take photographs of the finished scrolls? NO. I'm an idiot. I do know they all went out though, one Baronial Sapphire for Lady Osa Silverhair, two Kingdom (a Silver Crescent for Leonhard Schuwert and a Troubadour for Mhari Brewbane), and one backlog Court Baroncy for Sarra Elisabeth Graeham of Birnham. If ANYONE has or knows off photographs for these awards then I would love copies. Pretty please.
Towards the end of Peace Week I trundled myself off down to the fencing field for some pick-ups, where I discovered I was getting sick, getting my arse handed to me in the process. Turned out to be a headed cold which knocked me out for a few days with the associated sinus congestion sticking around for the rest of War. In fact I still have the remnants of it. I rested for the most part, willingly doped myself up on DayQuill, but got to the point where I needed to do "something" so headed back down to the lists to help Marshal and inspect others as they were arriving. Was a little weird being in that situation because I would rather have been fencing but I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
War Week was a mixed bag. The head cold was lingering and so I didn't have as much energy as I would have liked, my fencing activities suffered because of it. I didn't get nearly as much pick-up action as I would have liked as I was pretty much conserving myself for the War Points and in case I was needed on the Champions Team (I was an alternate). However, I did have fun in the Tortuga melee, the Ansteorian Tourney and the Cadet Tourney where I got to the "sweet sixteen" out of 72 fighters, and of course it was my practice buddy Alfonso who knocked me out.
I had planned on being in the Atlantia 5-Man Melee tourney also but for various reason sat out, which worked out well as I ended up teaching a new fencer. We had a blast discussing various things and sparring a bunch. I hope he manages to find a convenient practice as he took to it really well and would be an awesome asset to the community.
I've been writing this post for a week now. There is LOTS more and as I remember aspects I will post, but for right now this post is getting too long!
Showing posts with label Camping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Camping. Show all posts
Friday, August 19, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
War of the Roses 2011
What a blast!
Unfortunately we only seemed to get about half the turnout we usually get due to the threat of inclement weather. Sorry for those of you that stayed away though because, for the most part, it stayed dry and sunny. We had a couple of overnight storms that made the ground soft but the days were beautiful.
We packed up the truck Friday morning, taking practically everything SCA related with us. Primary we wanted to see how things fit with the new cap on the truck but we were also being lazy and couldn't be bothered to unpack the stuff we didn't need. We meandered over to the site about lunchtime and began to set up camp in the lovely afternoon sunshine. I spent the evening working the gate, helping to check people into the site.
Friday night there was a pretty significant storm that blew through with high winds and torrential rain, but it left the all the campers pretty unscathed except for a couple of isolated incidents. The only unfortunate thing is that it made the ground wet again, after it had spent all week drying out. It wasn't too bad though, a little soft and a few mud puddles on low ground but more that okay for the various activities.
Fencing on Saturday was a little weird for me. I woke up feeling REALLY groggy and out of it, more so than my usual morning grumpiness, and it never really left. I had a low-grade headache pretty much all day and I felt dehydrated even though I know for certain that I wasn't since I was drinking LOTS (water and Gatorade) and pee'ing regularly. Salt was also being replenished. Not really sure what was wrong but I had a solid day of fencing nonetheless with some great bouts, even making it into the final of the first tourney against Wyatt. The second tourney was the dagger one, at which I'm not great, but it was still fun, and we had the pleasure of His Majesty joining us for a while. Unfortunately his loaner dagger "broke" so I gave him mine to use and pulled myself from the tourney, which actually turned into a plus since I got some much needed MiT experience. Lastly was the Blood Money tourney which relies on NOT killing your opponent, and even though I was terrible I had some great bouts! All in all, a GREAT day fencing.
Sunday started with the Baronial Champions for both Heavy and Fencing. Don Thomas put on a great fencing tourney, starting with a bear-pit that allowed everyone a chance to fight and have some phenomenal bouts. My goal was to go out, have fun and enjoy fencing regardless of the out-come. That mind-set worked really well for me and my fencing felt very solid and its starting to feel like I "fit in my skin". I didn't make it in to the final rounds but was very pleased with my fighting nonetheless.
The Tournament of Roses was an interesting couple of hours, primarily because there wasn't nearly as many people competing as there usually is. By the mid-way point we seemed to have lost even more fighters that had wandered off to do other things. My goal was just to stay healthy and go the full two hours which I accomplished. I don't view this tourney as anything more than an opportunity to fight a BUNCH of people in a set time-frame. I'm not about to kill myself from heat exhaustion or dehydration trying to win it. Instead, I just want to have fun with it and fight.
As far as the Heavy fighting went, the hubby says he had a couple of great days fighting, even winning his Tournament of Roses which was quite funny considering he made the winners prize! I now have a small wooden chest with a rose carved in the top, I'll post pictures at some point.
Sunday night in camp was pretty cool also. A lot of campers had already packed up and gone home so the site was quieter. We got a cooking fire going so we could make coals and preceded to make stewed rabbit with red wine and Herbs de Provence - DELICIOUS! It was a great evening.
Other than that, there was LOTS of catching up with friends and talking with people we've not seen in a long time. To be honest it's nice to be back outside after such a cold, bleak winter.
Unfortunately we only seemed to get about half the turnout we usually get due to the threat of inclement weather. Sorry for those of you that stayed away though because, for the most part, it stayed dry and sunny. We had a couple of overnight storms that made the ground soft but the days were beautiful.
We packed up the truck Friday morning, taking practically everything SCA related with us. Primary we wanted to see how things fit with the new cap on the truck but we were also being lazy and couldn't be bothered to unpack the stuff we didn't need. We meandered over to the site about lunchtime and began to set up camp in the lovely afternoon sunshine. I spent the evening working the gate, helping to check people into the site.
Friday night there was a pretty significant storm that blew through with high winds and torrential rain, but it left the all the campers pretty unscathed except for a couple of isolated incidents. The only unfortunate thing is that it made the ground wet again, after it had spent all week drying out. It wasn't too bad though, a little soft and a few mud puddles on low ground but more that okay for the various activities.
Fencing on Saturday was a little weird for me. I woke up feeling REALLY groggy and out of it, more so than my usual morning grumpiness, and it never really left. I had a low-grade headache pretty much all day and I felt dehydrated even though I know for certain that I wasn't since I was drinking LOTS (water and Gatorade) and pee'ing regularly. Salt was also being replenished. Not really sure what was wrong but I had a solid day of fencing nonetheless with some great bouts, even making it into the final of the first tourney against Wyatt. The second tourney was the dagger one, at which I'm not great, but it was still fun, and we had the pleasure of His Majesty joining us for a while. Unfortunately his loaner dagger "broke" so I gave him mine to use and pulled myself from the tourney, which actually turned into a plus since I got some much needed MiT experience. Lastly was the Blood Money tourney which relies on NOT killing your opponent, and even though I was terrible I had some great bouts! All in all, a GREAT day fencing.
Sunday started with the Baronial Champions for both Heavy and Fencing. Don Thomas put on a great fencing tourney, starting with a bear-pit that allowed everyone a chance to fight and have some phenomenal bouts. My goal was to go out, have fun and enjoy fencing regardless of the out-come. That mind-set worked really well for me and my fencing felt very solid and its starting to feel like I "fit in my skin". I didn't make it in to the final rounds but was very pleased with my fighting nonetheless.
The Tournament of Roses was an interesting couple of hours, primarily because there wasn't nearly as many people competing as there usually is. By the mid-way point we seemed to have lost even more fighters that had wandered off to do other things. My goal was just to stay healthy and go the full two hours which I accomplished. I don't view this tourney as anything more than an opportunity to fight a BUNCH of people in a set time-frame. I'm not about to kill myself from heat exhaustion or dehydration trying to win it. Instead, I just want to have fun with it and fight.
As far as the Heavy fighting went, the hubby says he had a couple of great days fighting, even winning his Tournament of Roses which was quite funny considering he made the winners prize! I now have a small wooden chest with a rose carved in the top, I'll post pictures at some point.
Sunday night in camp was pretty cool also. A lot of campers had already packed up and gone home so the site was quieter. We got a cooking fire going so we could make coals and preceded to make stewed rabbit with red wine and Herbs de Provence - DELICIOUS! It was a great evening.
Other than that, there was LOTS of catching up with friends and talking with people we've not seen in a long time. To be honest it's nice to be back outside after such a cold, bleak winter.
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