Potrero War

This past weekend, we went to Potrero War, a Medieval reenactment where you dress, talk and live in the Medieval/Renaissance era, held at Potrero Regional Park. You even go by a different name. Douglas used his own since it's period but used his middle name, Macquarie for his last name. He was Scottish and I was German. I went by Christine (pronounced Christina) Macquarie. When you first get there, you park your car in the lot and walk everyplace. It's not a huge park, so everything was pretty close. You wear a token around your neck the whole time, showing that you're there for the weekend (some choose to do a day pass.) We've been to war in May before and it's usually in the 90s, but this weekend it only got up to 59 degrees and was in the 30s at night (4 blankets, 2 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of pants, 2 shirts, gloves and a hat were not quite enough.) The forecast said it would be in the 70s. It was difficult to sleep in much past the sun, and I always woke up between 6:30 and 7:30. If anyone knows how much of a night owl I am, that's saying something. We also didn't have much access to soap and water. We were woken up by a bugle call a couple of the days (it would have been nice to have used somebody who could actually play the bugle decently) and one morning we got the weather report from somebody who went from camp to camp telling of the days activities. She said, "The weather still sucketh, but not quite as badeth." It was so funny! I brought my violin, but it was too cold to play. The whole weekend was very fun.

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On Thursday, we left in the morning and drove to Potrero, about a 75-minute drive. When we got there, we immediately started setting up tents in the campsite. We helped set up 3 tents (including ours) and it took close to 6 hours. We didn't do much else other than relax.

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On Friday, we walked to Merchants Row and met some friends and helped some of the merchants set up. Merchants Row feels like going to town, with all the bustling of a little village. They have tons of shops and a few "restaurants" where we would eat lunch. It started to rain, so we went back to camp and stayed in our tents for the majority of the day. We had a campfire built, so we sat around and talked before bed.

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Saturday was fighting day. In our camp there were 5 men and 1 woman who suited up in armor (including Douglas) and went to the battlefield while most everyone else watched the battles. There were about 200 fighters out on the field and they were separated evenly into 2 teams. In order to tell the teams apart, they would put a piece of colored tape on the helmets so they would know who to fight and who was on their side. It is very fun to watch. They count down from 10 and blow the horn and people would start running at each other and beating each other with sticks. There is no way to describe the sound of shields and swords and armor all hitting each other at once. It's exciting to watch and root for your men (or women.) They fight for several hours doing one battle after another and then go home and sleep. In the afternoon, I took a music ornamentation class (one of the many classes offered) and that evening, we had the big feast with our campsite (the Company of St. Martins.) We all brought period food to share and ate with period plates, bowls and utensils. We brought 4 pumpkin pies and they ate 3 of them, so we had one for breakfast the next day. Before bed, we sat around the campfire and sang songs.

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Sunday was mostly a relaxing day. We walked around Merchants Row for a bit and watched some of the battles. Sunday is a fighting day, but not as big as Saturday. None of our company fought on Sunday. We also went over to watch the hound coursing, but we got there just in time for it to end. There was a dog in our campsite who participated. Next time we'll make sure we get to watch it. We walked over to the campsite where our friends were camping and stayed there for a bit. In the evening, we sat around the campfire again and then played games in the main tent of the campsite.

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Monday was pack-up day. We started right when we got up and stuffed all our things into our tiny car. We took down 3 or 4 tents and it only took 5 hours. We drove home and stopped for lunch on the way. When we got home, we took showers and used soap and water! (Boy, the things you take for granted)

Monday afternoon, we went over to my family's house and had a Memorial Day potluck with several other families and played Apples to Apples. We laughed and laughed and had a great time.

So, that was our weekend. Overall, it was a blast.