GNEW XXVI Recap
Jul. 21st, 2012 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felis_lupusIt's been almost a week, the truck and trailer are unloaded (but boxes of stuff are still all over the basement, and I am now mostly caught up on sleep. Should really have taken Monday off like I usually do, but the one extra day of vacation somewhere will be worth it, I think.
GNEW was AWESOME. And HOT. But awesome.kurlon and I arrived onsite around 8 on Wednesday, got the tent set up (we have a DOOR! I finished the door to the tent about a week before war, and it works so well... few tweaks still, but we could enter and exit the bell wedge like civilized humans.), and watched some Firefly with Max & Mickel in the Taj. Lovely cool evening... We had a semi-relaxing Thursday, since the truck with all the setup gear on it didn't get to site till noon, and we elected to get things done later in the day after the real high heat had passed. So Mickel and I and several strong manly helpers got tables and chairs in the A&S area, Max and I set up the damn snow fence pieces along the road so people won't wander onto the archery range, set up a few pavilions... and tents...
Silly part of Thursday night - Poor Boden... We had been sitting around a nice fire since about 8:00. He arrived around 10:00, started setting up a borrowed cabin tent (LL Bean, nylon) just down the hill in his usual spot, but around 10:30 had wandered up the hill to our encampment and said that he was giving up, going down the road with a friend to have a drink and some dinner (in that order), and that he'd deal with the tent in the morning... We said 'OK', watched him leave, waited a 30 count, and then Max,kurlon, Roland, and I jumped on assembling the tent. Up in 15 minutes. Not so easy to do yourself though (he did in fact refuse offers of help...). We went back up to camp, expecting he'd be back... not before we all crashed, though. In the morning, we got the rest of the story... He did come back, sometime shortly after we'd all gone to bed, to find a TENT! In the very spot where he'd laid his out... he assumed that someone was a jerk and went and set up right over his spot, and rather than "knock" on the the tent door and wake somebody up, or barge in and find some unpleasant surprises, went and spent the night in the A&S tents... silly man... When he came back to camp in the morning, he realized that it was indeed the tent he had borrowed (had never seen it before, didn't know what it looked like all set up), and quickly figured out who the tent fairies were... Our thank you gift, along with the very silly story, was a pound of bacon. Noms.
Friday we set up the rest of our camp, as the rest of the Haus arrived. Delicious bacon for breakfast. :) This was the beginning of OMG HOT, though. We got most of the camp set up by 1, I had Gate shift from 2 to 6, then Mickel's dance class from 6 to 7:30 (which nobody showed up for, so we watched some of the kids put on a bit from Hamlet), quick dinner of beef stew that had been burbling on the firepit all day, and back to the barn for dancing! It was a pretty good turnout, especially since we were competing with Baconpalooza... So much bacon... Friday was a nice evening around the fire, post-dance. I think Max and I closed it down around midnight, when we finally got it to a manageable bed of coals.
We had wonderful neighbors; Pedro and Anita, whom I met last year, and the rest of the Haus met at Panteria, camped just outside our front gate, and came visiting all weekend, which was quite lovely. We've voted them "best neighbors ever". Mickel and I are going to do a scroll. :)
Saturday dawned hot. And got hotter. And more humid. Set up the barn and the A&S tents for display and classes, gave Mickel the A&S Box o' Fun and my blessing, and then was off to the fencing field. HOT. No shade, till we found an extra pavilion somewhere and set it up... I did pickups, died very quickly in the mock champions tourney, did some 5-man melee stuff, and then realized I'd gone one 5-man melee too long, and collapsed into a little puddle of goo on the woodline... done fencing. Cold shower and brief nap helped me feel human again, but whoooooo...... not recommended. I haven't done that in a long time. We skipped the woods battles entirely, mostly because the woods themselves were treacherous (lots of falls, covered in viney stuff=broken ankles), and the air in the woods was apparently still and stifling. Blech. Not that I'd have made it there anyway...
Court was quite nice, if a bit long. Mickel got a surprise! (and long overdue) Terpsichore (EK award for dance). And we now have 2 Knights in Malagentia, after a long, long wait. Syr Marcus, who came in second at Spring Crown, was called to vigil. Gobsmacked, he was. I still haven't seen the finished scroll. I did the gold, was mostly happy with it... Also, we had ice cream sandwiches because our dry ice was still good.
Saturday night was relaxing. Dinner was late, because court was long, but delicious.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dreda and Lucien and Mylisant came visiting and we had pre-dinner cocktails of Pimm's Cups. I need to find this magnificent Pimm's No. 1 locally and make my own. Absolutely delightful. We did a very non-period but wonderful Mongolian Grill to go along with the usual feasty stuff. Had fire, had visitors (Wyatt actually found us this year), wandered around visiting a bit, stayed up way too late listening to Jean and Aneleda be silly over in Thanet... I cannot wait for Pennsic.
Packout Sunday wasn't too bad, but again, HOT. Ugh. Closing ceremonies was quick, IDD and allies took heavy fighting, Malagentia and allies took everything else. Managed to pack away dry canvas, despite the potential for rain in the forecast. Everybody was being all grumpy and paranoid about rain all weekend. I really want to know where they were getting their weather info, because everywhere I looked said "SUN. Lots of it." Bah. An afternoon shower on Saturday might have been nice... ;)
Overall, a fantastic weekend. I have just enough time to recover and collect all my personal camping gear and try to get it organized before my next Big Adventure.
Pictures here:
GNEW was AWESOME. And HOT. But awesome.
kurlon and I arrived onsite around 8 on Wednesday, got the tent set up (we have a DOOR! I finished the door to the tent about a week before war, and it works so well... few tweaks still, but we could enter and exit the bell wedge like civilized humans.), and watched some Firefly with Max & Mickel in the Taj. Lovely cool evening... We had a semi-relaxing Thursday, since the truck with all the setup gear on it didn't get to site till noon, and we elected to get things done later in the day after the real high heat had passed. So Mickel and I and several strong manly helpers got tables and chairs in the A&S area, Max and I set up the damn snow fence pieces along the road so people won't wander onto the archery range, set up a few pavilions... and tents...Silly part of Thursday night - Poor Boden... We had been sitting around a nice fire since about 8:00. He arrived around 10:00, started setting up a borrowed cabin tent (LL Bean, nylon) just down the hill in his usual spot, but around 10:30 had wandered up the hill to our encampment and said that he was giving up, going down the road with a friend to have a drink and some dinner (in that order), and that he'd deal with the tent in the morning... We said 'OK', watched him leave, waited a 30 count, and then Max,
kurlon, Roland, and I jumped on assembling the tent. Up in 15 minutes. Not so easy to do yourself though (he did in fact refuse offers of help...). We went back up to camp, expecting he'd be back... not before we all crashed, though. In the morning, we got the rest of the story... He did come back, sometime shortly after we'd all gone to bed, to find a TENT! In the very spot where he'd laid his out... he assumed that someone was a jerk and went and set up right over his spot, and rather than "knock" on the the tent door and wake somebody up, or barge in and find some unpleasant surprises, went and spent the night in the A&S tents... silly man... When he came back to camp in the morning, he realized that it was indeed the tent he had borrowed (had never seen it before, didn't know what it looked like all set up), and quickly figured out who the tent fairies were... Our thank you gift, along with the very silly story, was a pound of bacon. Noms.Friday we set up the rest of our camp, as the rest of the Haus arrived. Delicious bacon for breakfast. :) This was the beginning of OMG HOT, though. We got most of the camp set up by 1, I had Gate shift from 2 to 6, then Mickel's dance class from 6 to 7:30 (which nobody showed up for, so we watched some of the kids put on a bit from Hamlet), quick dinner of beef stew that had been burbling on the firepit all day, and back to the barn for dancing! It was a pretty good turnout, especially since we were competing with Baconpalooza... So much bacon... Friday was a nice evening around the fire, post-dance. I think Max and I closed it down around midnight, when we finally got it to a manageable bed of coals.
We had wonderful neighbors; Pedro and Anita, whom I met last year, and the rest of the Haus met at Panteria, camped just outside our front gate, and came visiting all weekend, which was quite lovely. We've voted them "best neighbors ever". Mickel and I are going to do a scroll. :)
Saturday dawned hot. And got hotter. And more humid. Set up the barn and the A&S tents for display and classes, gave Mickel the A&S Box o' Fun and my blessing, and then was off to the fencing field. HOT. No shade, till we found an extra pavilion somewhere and set it up... I did pickups, died very quickly in the mock champions tourney, did some 5-man melee stuff, and then realized I'd gone one 5-man melee too long, and collapsed into a little puddle of goo on the woodline... done fencing. Cold shower and brief nap helped me feel human again, but whoooooo...... not recommended. I haven't done that in a long time. We skipped the woods battles entirely, mostly because the woods themselves were treacherous (lots of falls, covered in viney stuff=broken ankles), and the air in the woods was apparently still and stifling. Blech. Not that I'd have made it there anyway...
Court was quite nice, if a bit long. Mickel got a surprise! (and long overdue) Terpsichore (EK award for dance). And we now have 2 Knights in Malagentia, after a long, long wait. Syr Marcus, who came in second at Spring Crown, was called to vigil. Gobsmacked, he was. I still haven't seen the finished scroll. I did the gold, was mostly happy with it... Also, we had ice cream sandwiches because our dry ice was still good.
Saturday night was relaxing. Dinner was late, because court was long, but delicious.
dreda and Lucien and Mylisant came visiting and we had pre-dinner cocktails of Pimm's Cups. I need to find this magnificent Pimm's No. 1 locally and make my own. Absolutely delightful. We did a very non-period but wonderful Mongolian Grill to go along with the usual feasty stuff. Had fire, had visitors (Wyatt actually found us this year), wandered around visiting a bit, stayed up way too late listening to Jean and Aneleda be silly over in Thanet... I cannot wait for Pennsic.Packout Sunday wasn't too bad, but again, HOT. Ugh. Closing ceremonies was quick, IDD and allies took heavy fighting, Malagentia and allies took everything else. Managed to pack away dry canvas, despite the potential for rain in the forecast. Everybody was being all grumpy and paranoid about rain all weekend. I really want to know where they were getting their weather info, because everywhere I looked said "SUN. Lots of it." Bah. An afternoon shower on Saturday might have been nice... ;)
Overall, a fantastic weekend. I have just enough time to recover and collect all my personal camping gear and try to get it organized before my next Big Adventure.
Pictures here:
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