Crossroads 2009
This past weekend we attended another camping event - and took Jordan with us. This was the first time we'd taken a horse away overnight, and it was also a fair haul at 1.5 hours away to Byers, CO. So I had a number of things on my mind just for that aspect.
Well, I have to say Jordan was a perfect gentleman the entire trip. Loaded and hauled perfectly. Got out of the trailer, took a look around and said -- "Huh. Got any hay?" Cecelia, it turns out, brought some very nice hay, so I ended up not even breaking into the bale we'd brought. Next Trip, we said, remember to coordinate on bringing hay, because for 2 days no way did each of us need to bring a whole bale! Turns out the same thing applies to sandwich condiments...
Anyways, we didn't push ourselves terribly hard and arrived shortly after 11. It's a beautiful site! For being a fairgrounds it was considerably more inviting than the dry dust bowl I'd envisioned. A real advantage is that it has permanent horse facilities, so bringing the horses is much nicer here than other events. This is the main reason our guild wanted to target this event as one to attend this year.
Jordan, and further back, Kid, in their accommodations
Wagner and "Tiny"
Our campsite
What would have been a great portrait of Sir Kevin, Mistress Rossilin and little Teagan -- except for the elusive strawberry which saw it's chance to make it's escape just at the critical moment!
Saturday was a low key day - we did get the horses out for a little practice ride: got them accustomed to the arena and such.
After which Trakker and Meadhbh were to put on a Mounted Archery demonstration. However, a really nasty, black-sky thunderstorm blew by and made things pretty uncomfortable with wind and thankfully just a little rain. So the demo was put off until Sunday morning.
Trakker's persona is a Hun, and you can see he's done a lot of development for his persona, including recently acquiring horses in order to pick up mounted archery.
The demo began with some of the exercises used to train the archer to shoot while moving -- walking towards the target, and then away from it as well.
He then mounted up and did several passes along his set of 5 targets - demonstrating firing in front, to the side and to the rear of the motion of the horse.
Then he did some other weapons exercises -- Spearing a thrown metal ring
Shooting an arrow at a thrown target. Unfortunately the wind was blowing too hard to make the cardboard targets manageable, so they tried shooting arrows at the metal rings for the first time.
In the end it was a very impressive display of mounted combat, in the style of the tribes from the steppes. Below is a closeup of his equipment.
Beyond the equestrian attractions, there were also archery, heavy and light fighting going on. Somehow we just never manage to make time to go watch those things! But we did manage to hit Merchant's Alley. :-) We didn't purchase this helm - we were just picking it up for Mistress Rossilin who did buy it... but Dave (Faolan) was so kind as to model it.
Later on Sunday afternoon we held an equestrian tournament, preceeded by a parade through the campsite. But I don't have those pictures -- so I'll make that another post, coming soon.
Well, I have to say Jordan was a perfect gentleman the entire trip. Loaded and hauled perfectly. Got out of the trailer, took a look around and said -- "Huh. Got any hay?" Cecelia, it turns out, brought some very nice hay, so I ended up not even breaking into the bale we'd brought. Next Trip, we said, remember to coordinate on bringing hay, because for 2 days no way did each of us need to bring a whole bale! Turns out the same thing applies to sandwich condiments...
Anyways, we didn't push ourselves terribly hard and arrived shortly after 11. It's a beautiful site! For being a fairgrounds it was considerably more inviting than the dry dust bowl I'd envisioned. A real advantage is that it has permanent horse facilities, so bringing the horses is much nicer here than other events. This is the main reason our guild wanted to target this event as one to attend this year.
Jordan, and further back, Kid, in their accommodations
Wagner and "Tiny"
Our campsite
What would have been a great portrait of Sir Kevin, Mistress Rossilin and little Teagan -- except for the elusive strawberry which saw it's chance to make it's escape just at the critical moment!
Saturday was a low key day - we did get the horses out for a little practice ride: got them accustomed to the arena and such.
After which Trakker and Meadhbh were to put on a Mounted Archery demonstration. However, a really nasty, black-sky thunderstorm blew by and made things pretty uncomfortable with wind and thankfully just a little rain. So the demo was put off until Sunday morning.
Trakker's persona is a Hun, and you can see he's done a lot of development for his persona, including recently acquiring horses in order to pick up mounted archery.
The demo began with some of the exercises used to train the archer to shoot while moving -- walking towards the target, and then away from it as well.
He then mounted up and did several passes along his set of 5 targets - demonstrating firing in front, to the side and to the rear of the motion of the horse.
Then he did some other weapons exercises -- Spearing a thrown metal ring
Shooting an arrow at a thrown target. Unfortunately the wind was blowing too hard to make the cardboard targets manageable, so they tried shooting arrows at the metal rings for the first time.
In the end it was a very impressive display of mounted combat, in the style of the tribes from the steppes. Below is a closeup of his equipment.
Beyond the equestrian attractions, there were also archery, heavy and light fighting going on. Somehow we just never manage to make time to go watch those things! But we did manage to hit Merchant's Alley. :-) We didn't purchase this helm - we were just picking it up for Mistress Rossilin who did buy it... but Dave (Faolan) was so kind as to model it.
Later on Sunday afternoon we held an equestrian tournament, preceeded by a parade through the campsite. But I don't have those pictures -- so I'll make that another post, coming soon.
Labels: SCA
posted by Monica |
3:53 PM
3 Comments:
Wow. I was thinking of you all this weekend as we worked the entire time. I am so glad you had some good weather for the rides and such! Thanks for all your work and pictures! Leonora
This looks pretty cool. But I gotta ask, are those RayBans period specific?
Oh those are CLASSIC RayBans, I tell ya. They've been 'in' forever. ;-D
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