Honey War - First Camping Trip

Honey War was the first SCA event that we were able to go to since Padon was born and we were super excited to go. Our desk top computer died leaving us without access to the internet and we hadn't been able to check our groups forum to see if anyone else was going but in either case we knew we were going.
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Walter was amazing and packed up, all by himself, our beast of a vehicle, a 76' GMC Jimmy, with a plethora of car camping paraphernalia (SCAers are serious car campers and often come with a full car and trailer worth of items for one weekend) and came and picked me up after work for our 3-4 hour trip to the camp ground where the event was being held. The truck was so full you could barely see that there was a baby mixed in with the items.

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I-5, however, was under construction and in such a way that it promised to make our trip home miserable so we decided to try out the alternative route I had mapped online at work. It worked great until we reached the north side of Mount Rainer National Forest and drove by a sign that said the connecting hwy, HWY 123, was closed. We drove by the sign so fast, however, that it was more like a "hummmm.....did that sign say 123 was closed? Well if that's the case there has got to be another sign between here and there that will confirm it..." There was, 1/2 mile before we needed to take the highway. It was a bit of a shocker because the only way then to get to the camp ground was to drive two hours out of our way to drive around to the camp ground. This was a great test to Padon's strenghts as a roadtripper. Walter had left our house at 3pm, picked me up at 4:45, we had then fed Padon, and intended to be at the camp ground about 7:30. We didn't roll into camp until 11:00pm. Padon was awesome. When we would slow down to roll through a small country town you could hear him start to smack his pacifier with telltale signs that he was on the road to a hungry melt down and then we would be out of town picking up speed and our bad shocks and loose steering wheel would lull Padon back to sleep. We did have to make one last stop, in Naches, to feed him, but I couldn't get over how awesome he was for the trip.

When we rolled into the camp ground, in Randle, we were pleasently surprised to see, through the fog that there was a camp with flaming torches and that half of our household had made it to the event. They were super exicited to see us and even more so because we had brought the baby. They helped us unpack and set up our canvas pavilion and soon we were sitting around the fire chatting. It was colder than I had hoped it would be but we bundled Padon up in two layers of clothes, including socks on his hands and feet, and then wrapped him in two fat and fluffy receiving blankets with a hat on his head. We went to bed on our air matress with Walter in his mummy bag and Padon and me in mine. It couldn't have worked out any better.



The next morning everyone got ready for battle. The site for Honey War was 300 acres and they had opened up a large part of the camping field for people to come and camp. They had opened up way more space then there were campers, however, and so everyone was really really spread out. It was kind of a bummer because usually everyone is in relatively close proximity and it inspires people to come around, chat, and hang out. Everyone seemed secluded and it made the feel of the event a little ackward. Not ackward enough not to mock battle to their hearts content in various senarios, however, and by 11:00am everyone was suited and ready to have their armour inspected by the marshalls for saftey.

A good time was had and everyone came back satisfied, albeit frustrated with the knights for giving the fighters flack about having archers in the mix of fighters (awe things that bug SCA people).

Padon and I hung out in camp which was really wonderful because I could sit in the sun and/ or shade and knit and soak in the realxing vibes that being away from the modern ("Mundane" to an SCAer) world brings. Walter and I had bought a little baby tent for Padon to keep him out of the sun in the event we wanted to go outside and work on our yard and this tent worked great on the camping trip too.



He was so funny because as the wind blew through our camp it made his tent wiggle around and he got endless enjoyment out of watching it sway over his head. He just smiled and smiled until he fell asleep.
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On Sunday I slept in. Well I tried to in between playing pacifier catcher and soother, but it was nice not to be getting up at the crack of dawn.



I had forgotten how many of us had a long trip to go to get home and everyone started packing up early so we could all go have lunch together and make our way home. It felt really "period" with Padon strapped to my front in the Maya sling clutched on as I helped Walter break down and fold our tent. He slept through the whole thing.

Roadie was amazing the whole weekend as well. Usually she whines a lot because she is used to being off leash in an acre running and running. Also the inability to control the coming and goings of the group makes her herding mind go batty and sometimes the incessant whining makes you want to go crazy. But this weekend she lounged around with our friends dog, Chaos, and was really really well behaved. I don't know if this was because she had to lay in the wheel well, where my feet were, for what must have felt like an eternity for her, on the way down to the camp ground , but we made sure she got a lot of special and wonderfully doggy scrumptious treats to let her know how super grateful we were that she was so mellow and well behaved.

We get to do this all over again (without the 8 hour trip) the weekend after next for Warren War (nope, not named after us) and we are really looking forward to it. It was so easy this time we hope that it be this way everytime.