Can you say "BEST. WAR. EVER!" ?
I knew you could ;-)
This was seriously the best West/AnTir War I have ever been to. There are many reasons for this but the biggest is the people that I got to spend time with. Camp Awesome, which had some of my favorite people ever in it, and allowed me to spend quality time with them as well as great people I haven't had a chance to hang with much before. I met tons of new people, which is always fun for me. And I got to see my AnTir friends who I miss greatly and do NOT get to see enough.
We got to site on Tues night and set up our tent just before dark and pretty much went to sleep. Wed AM we got up and set up the rest of Camp Awesome, with the Procrastination Station as the entry point. Then the rest of the day was spent marking out camp sites and making signs, getting things ready for site opening on Thurs. There was certainly some procrastination in there as well, oh, and beer. Definitely beer. The dogs also had a great time playing at the crick and we discovered Kale is much more of a water dog than Brigid. Speaking of the dogs - they did super well this weekend. Better than ever in fact. And though Kale and Bella did get into it on Wed (I feel so bad, I want them to be friends and poor Bella always ends up with the injuries), the rest of the weekend he was mostly calm and pretty much ignored her and many other dogs even when they were right near our tent. yay progress!
Thursday was GO GO GO for all of us on staff. Artus, Castus, and myself took all of the SCA signs we had made and drove out to the roads to put them up, then went into town for a supply and lunch run. We got back to site just as it was opening and then helped Brion and Olin finish lay out the parking areas. The rest of the day was pretty much spent wandering site to see who needed help where and how. The weirdest moment was when Ysabella came over the radio looking for Else, and the message was "I need you guys to redirect traffic to the other 2 gates because the main gate is a mud pit. The water buffaloes EXPLODED" and I believe my reply was "...uh, what?!?" Anyhoo, we re-directed traffic until the mud dissipated and worked with Lyle and his crew to get the water sorted out and then spent a bunch of time at gate greeting people and such. Also attended Ali's life celebration and it was really great to hear such great stories and memories from her close friends. The AnTir "mist" started at that point and so we went back to camp to make sure everything was closed up and then I spent a bunch of time in the Danelaw sunshade (rainshade?) talking with people, making new friends and becoming cynagua ;-)
Friday was spent mostly at the station greeting people and helping all the new arrivals get sorted. There was good quality visiting time and I spent a lot of time finishing up some projects as well. There was a bonding crick bath with Geilis that was super fun, and I also got to watch Artus ride a horse, which he really enjoys but doesn't get to do often enough. The CAID tournament happened in front of West Royal, which was nice for me as it was kind of my extended front porch so I got to watch the fighting from the station. Many of the rest of our camp rolled in that day too so we spent a lot of time directing people and helping tents go up etc. The V trio was in attendance as well and spent some time at the Danelaw and then went to Etain's vigil, although much of our group went to bed before our turn, at which point I became Hagan ;-) Went to bed after the vigil as I had to be up early Sat to teach...
So sat morning my class was at 9am and it was full, which was nice and its always fun to meet new people and talk about A&S. After my class I went back to camp and sat in the station with the dogs and worked on projects. I went to the fighting field briefly (escorted a local reporter) and had a nice visit to the crick with Adina, Celestial and Lumina. Then there was Duchess Carol's tournament which was really cool to see 3 generations of Bellatrix hold the field. I had spent a lot of the day with Niobe and kids in our sunshade, it was nice to meet them and I always enjoy having kids around so that was cool. Sat night was grand court and we were getting ready to watch when a call came on the radio that a 10 year old hadn't been seen for a couple of hours so the entire staff went out and searched the site until he was found(yay!) - after that it was back to camp for some vodka and I turned off the radio and entered Pelican't mode for the WK party. The party was great, there were tons of people and it was kinda cool to have our camp right across the way because it became one big party area with a ditch in the middle. People would come to our camp and we would take them across the way to watch the dancing etc. It was lots of fun. We had a conga line to the bar at one point, led by our Queen and snaking through the party, it was very cool. I stayed at the party very late but I finally got too cold and had to go to bed, leaving 3 WK partiers and about 6 AT partiers to finish it out, which I am sure they did grandly!
Sunday was the day where I had absolutely zero time commitments so I stayed in the station with the radio in case something was needed and I worked on projects and socialized etc. Fiach helped me finish an important project and around sundown I got to give it to the recipient. So, there is a war cloak that is given at the war every year to the fighter on the non-hosting side who displays awesome feats on the fighting field. Last year I decided it would be really cool if there was a similar award for the party field, so I made a party haversack and decorated it with a lion drinking from a horn, and the phrase "Glittering Glory Tree" (from Fiach) to describe the person who was awesome at the party and deserved the honor. And that person was Jenae, who partied with me a bunch on Sat night and was still there rocking the party when I went to bed. She is just a ball of fun and brought joy to so many at the party, it was great. Artus also decided that the recipient of the bag shall be known as the Party Tsar :) I am hoping this will become a new unofficial tradition to be shared between the kingdoms. After the bag was presented the DBLF got together and established the AnTir chapter of the DBLF, with Inga as the charter member! Look out AnTir, muahahahaha >:)
Then we pretty much partied at camp awesome and the Danelaw for the rest of the night. Many insta-raves occurred and stories were told for hours. We went to bed pretty late and then got up Monday morning and packed up and drove home. We hit zero traffic in the normal locations, so that was quite nice for us.
Best war ever, I had a great week. Thanks to everyone who helped make it so!
This was seriously the best West/AnTir War I have ever been to. There are many reasons for this but the biggest is the people that I got to spend time with. Camp Awesome, which had some of my favorite people ever in it, and allowed me to spend quality time with them as well as great people I haven't had a chance to hang with much before. I met tons of new people, which is always fun for me. And I got to see my AnTir friends who I miss greatly and do NOT get to see enough.
We got to site on Tues night and set up our tent just before dark and pretty much went to sleep. Wed AM we got up and set up the rest of Camp Awesome, with the Procrastination Station as the entry point. Then the rest of the day was spent marking out camp sites and making signs, getting things ready for site opening on Thurs. There was certainly some procrastination in there as well, oh, and beer. Definitely beer. The dogs also had a great time playing at the crick and we discovered Kale is much more of a water dog than Brigid. Speaking of the dogs - they did super well this weekend. Better than ever in fact. And though Kale and Bella did get into it on Wed (I feel so bad, I want them to be friends and poor Bella always ends up with the injuries), the rest of the weekend he was mostly calm and pretty much ignored her and many other dogs even when they were right near our tent. yay progress!
Thursday was GO GO GO for all of us on staff. Artus, Castus, and myself took all of the SCA signs we had made and drove out to the roads to put them up, then went into town for a supply and lunch run. We got back to site just as it was opening and then helped Brion and Olin finish lay out the parking areas. The rest of the day was pretty much spent wandering site to see who needed help where and how. The weirdest moment was when Ysabella came over the radio looking for Else, and the message was "I need you guys to redirect traffic to the other 2 gates because the main gate is a mud pit. The water buffaloes EXPLODED" and I believe my reply was "...uh, what?!?" Anyhoo, we re-directed traffic until the mud dissipated and worked with Lyle and his crew to get the water sorted out and then spent a bunch of time at gate greeting people and such. Also attended Ali's life celebration and it was really great to hear such great stories and memories from her close friends. The AnTir "mist" started at that point and so we went back to camp to make sure everything was closed up and then I spent a bunch of time in the Danelaw sunshade (rainshade?) talking with people, making new friends and becoming cynagua ;-)
Friday was spent mostly at the station greeting people and helping all the new arrivals get sorted. There was good quality visiting time and I spent a lot of time finishing up some projects as well. There was a bonding crick bath with Geilis that was super fun, and I also got to watch Artus ride a horse, which he really enjoys but doesn't get to do often enough. The CAID tournament happened in front of West Royal, which was nice for me as it was kind of my extended front porch so I got to watch the fighting from the station. Many of the rest of our camp rolled in that day too so we spent a lot of time directing people and helping tents go up etc. The V trio was in attendance as well and spent some time at the Danelaw and then went to Etain's vigil, although much of our group went to bed before our turn, at which point I became Hagan ;-) Went to bed after the vigil as I had to be up early Sat to teach...
So sat morning my class was at 9am and it was full, which was nice and its always fun to meet new people and talk about A&S. After my class I went back to camp and sat in the station with the dogs and worked on projects. I went to the fighting field briefly (escorted a local reporter) and had a nice visit to the crick with Adina, Celestial and Lumina. Then there was Duchess Carol's tournament which was really cool to see 3 generations of Bellatrix hold the field. I had spent a lot of the day with Niobe and kids in our sunshade, it was nice to meet them and I always enjoy having kids around so that was cool. Sat night was grand court and we were getting ready to watch when a call came on the radio that a 10 year old hadn't been seen for a couple of hours so the entire staff went out and searched the site until he was found(yay!) - after that it was back to camp for some vodka and I turned off the radio and entered Pelican't mode for the WK party. The party was great, there were tons of people and it was kinda cool to have our camp right across the way because it became one big party area with a ditch in the middle. People would come to our camp and we would take them across the way to watch the dancing etc. It was lots of fun. We had a conga line to the bar at one point, led by our Queen and snaking through the party, it was very cool. I stayed at the party very late but I finally got too cold and had to go to bed, leaving 3 WK partiers and about 6 AT partiers to finish it out, which I am sure they did grandly!
Sunday was the day where I had absolutely zero time commitments so I stayed in the station with the radio in case something was needed and I worked on projects and socialized etc. Fiach helped me finish an important project and around sundown I got to give it to the recipient. So, there is a war cloak that is given at the war every year to the fighter on the non-hosting side who displays awesome feats on the fighting field. Last year I decided it would be really cool if there was a similar award for the party field, so I made a party haversack and decorated it with a lion drinking from a horn, and the phrase "Glittering Glory Tree" (from Fiach) to describe the person who was awesome at the party and deserved the honor. And that person was Jenae, who partied with me a bunch on Sat night and was still there rocking the party when I went to bed. She is just a ball of fun and brought joy to so many at the party, it was great. Artus also decided that the recipient of the bag shall be known as the Party Tsar :) I am hoping this will become a new unofficial tradition to be shared between the kingdoms. After the bag was presented the DBLF got together and established the AnTir chapter of the DBLF, with Inga as the charter member! Look out AnTir, muahahahaha >:)
Then we pretty much partied at camp awesome and the Danelaw for the rest of the night. Many insta-raves occurred and stories were told for hours. We went to bed pretty late and then got up Monday morning and packed up and drove home. We hit zero traffic in the normal locations, so that was quite nice for us.
Best war ever, I had a great week. Thanks to everyone who helped make it so!