Home Again

We did it! After a three year town run we finally made it back to Pennsic War.

I knew things were going to be different this year. Prior to the event my husband and I had taken over the running of our camp (Grimmsfield – N22) due to most of our usual campmates being unable to attend. I was struggling to fill volunteer shifts for Newcomers Point. I was also coordinating the schedule and retinue for TRM Atlantia again, as I had in 2019. All of this was, quite literally, keeping me up at night. Yet oddly enough – once we actually arrived – it didn’t feel like things had really changed. The details were a bit different but the atmosphere was the same. And everything that I had been stressing about prior to leaving, worked itself out by the end.

We arrived Friday, July 29th around noon. Set up went smoothly and camp was all put together in three days.

I was definitely nervous about how camp would run this year – if the layout would work, if we would have enough folks to help things run smoothly, if personalities would work well together, etc. So I was very happy that everything went really well in the end. While there are always a few minor hiccups at every event and even more so at a two week long event like Pennsic, there was nothing that went wrong that couldn’t be fixed or that we couldn’t work around.

After camp was all set up I opened Newcomers Point on the first Sunday.

Usually volunteer shifts at Newcomers are about 70-80% full prior to Pennsic. This year we only managed to fill about half of the shifts, which meant a lot more folks had to volunteer on site. Luckily I had a few individuals who really sacrificed a lot of their time and effort to sit at Point every day and fill the shifts that were empty. This made my job (and life) much easier.

Before leaving for Pennsic I had the idea to take a picture of what I was wearing each day – a diary or journal of garb or “outfits of the day” for the War. Of course there were several days when I forgot – despite my husband’s reminders – but I still ended up taking a lot more pictures than I usually do and that made me very happy. I exclusively wore 14th century and Roman this year, though of course all the days I forgot to take pictures were when I was wearing Roman!

I love Pennsic at night. And I managed to get a few photos using my new camera phone that I am really happy with how they turned out!

If I’ve learned one thing from my years of attending Pennsic it’s that each year is a different experience with a unique set of challenges.

Overall, it was a good year. Next year will be better!