Over the Mountains and Back

I've returned from the Crown tournament last weekend, held just south of Yakima, WA.  I headed out on Friday after meeting up with Kelly and the two littles at school during the field day for grades 1-3.  Four (or five?) schools get together and compete in running, relay races, soccer kick, sack races, and more.  It's a lot of fun!  The older kids (grades 4 to 8) help wrangle the younger ones, sell refreshments (hot dogs, soft drinks and sugar), and generally have a half-day of school running around outside with their friends.  The weather cooperated, which was a big relief, and Ben got through his events without incident.

Kelly was able to get away from work early enough to catch most of the events, but by the time I got there, they were all over.  I arrived late because I couldn't find my keys, which turned out to be one of those "there's a hole in the bucket" stories.  I had been packing the car that morning and had set my keys down on a chair in the garage.  I also set down some things I was going to load into the car...without realizing it, I put them on top of the keys.  So when I needed to unlock the car to begin loading, I couldn't find them.  Gahh!  It took more than an hour of tearing the house apart to realize that they might be in the garage, move the pile of stuff (soft things--nothing heavy to crush the keys), and uncover them.  I just about screamed.

After a quick visit at the school, hugs and kisses to the two littles and Kelly (Emma was still at her school), I got in the car and headed down the road.  Over several rivers, through the woods and over the passes--stopping at a view of the valley over Ellensburg to pick up a Geocache--I arrived at my destination!  I pulled up to my camp site with the Baron and Baroness of Aquaterra and several other friends, and began to assemble the 12' yurt.  I had help for the first ten minutes or so, but their services were needed elsewhere, so I set to work assembling it myself.  I was quite sure it could be done solo, and in about two hours, the chore was complete.

That night, however, I discovered muscle pains I never knew I could have...my arms were killing me! All that lifting and adjusting and shifting....ooof!  I hurt from my shoulders to my palms.  Sleep was difficult that night, mostly due to the arm discomfort.  I was too tired to think, "Maybe I should get some Tylenol..." but I did take some the next morning.  I also have determined that I need to invest in a foam pad for the cot--it's just too firm.  Neighbors Lord Nigel and Lady Emma recommended the kind they sell at REI.  She says that it's more comfortable than their bed at home and she sleeps like a baby.

On Saturday, I wandered over to the Arts & Sciences pavilion where I signed up for the sock knitting contest.  They didn't provide anything for the contest except for the directions, so you had to bring your own Cascade 220 and needles.  They recommended size 5-7, which seemed enormous.  I brought size 4, and wondered if Cascade 220 would be too bulky to wear.  But I thought it would be fun to participate anyway, and maybe I could wear them for my sleeping socks at events.  The nights get really cold in An Tir where the temperature can be in the 80s during the day and drop to 40 at night.  The sign up for the sock contest started at 9:00 but the knitting didn't start until noon, so I spend some time winding the yarn into a ball and visiting with some artisans at the 11:00 Artisan Geek-Out.  There was a woman turning sheepskins into vellum.  There was another making chain mail armor (which is a modern misnomer--back in the day, it was called "chain armor" or "mail armor", not "chain-mail"; it's like saying "chicken bird" or "beef hamburger"...or "tuna fish".)  Another gal was weaving velvet (sooooooo soft!), and yet another had large painted game boards.

After about 30 minutes hanging out there, I wandered off and found the Comune dei Pavone camp, where a lot of the artsy people are camped, and talked with HL Isabel (well, she squeaked and whispered--lost her voice from a laryngitis), who said that she had wrangled a couple of judges to help me finish my Journeyman rank for Costumer's Guild.  We compared schedules and decided that between 3:00 and 3:30 we could start.

In front of their camp, Ariel had set up the very small yurt she built for her little brother many years ago.  They called it the Squirt.  It's made with one of those round baby gates from a million years ago!  Now that her sons are reaching teenagerhood, they're too big to camp in it anymore, so it's for sale.  I thought briefly about getting it for Ben...

At noon, I watched some of the procession--the parade of fighters and their households who introduce themselves to their Majesties and request permission to be part of the tournament--as I cast on the first few stitches of my sock.  This part of the event would go on for a couple hours.  There were nearly 100 men and women signed into the lists to fight for crown.  That's the biggest I can recall ever seeing.  Usually it's around 60.  All too soon, and long before the line had significantly dwindled down, I had to go to the Ithra staff meeting.

The meeting for Ithra ran two hours and was largely productive.  I have a short list of things I need to do today--posting the old handbook online, for example--and I got a chance to meet a few people who are the upcoming movers-and-shakers in Ithra.  There was the Regent (I think we're only going to have one) and myself who were the only fully-licensed Chancellors, and Sarra, who was unable to make it to the event.  We all agreed that we need to train up a bunch of Chancellors, and right quick.  Baroness Stephania took notes, so hopefully those will be available on the Yahoo list soon.

Once the meeting ended, I headed back to camp to get the Journeyman stuff, and made my way back across the field to Comune dei Pavone present it to the Costumer's Guild judges, Mistress Isolde, Mistress Godytha and HL Isabel.  As I may have mentioned before, I didn't remember what things I had presented in the past for Junior and Senior ranks, and the records of what I had presented did not survive the database (although I received the gems for achieving it, the data was missing) so I started from scratch.  I had organized all the documentation in the binder, laid out the pieces as we went through them, and I presented my works.  They asked questions and challenged me on my choices ("Is this linen or cotton?  Why did you chose this fabric?"), and brought up some very interesting perspectives on a couple items.  They seemed to really enjoy the Bog Coat article I wrote...Isolde described it as a garment that is "peri-oid"; it has the correct silhouette, but not the right construction.  Mistress Ariel popped in and out during the presentation, and afterwards offered her congratulations.

I was able to catch the final couple of rounds of the Crown tournament where Count Ieuan ("Ian") was in the finals with Squire Leith.  Sir Octomasades was the third contender, but he lost to Leith, and Ieuan won best 2 of 3 against Leith.  Count Ieuan was king once before in January of last year, when he and his wife had a tiny baby.  Now their daughter is a toddler, and Her Royal Highness is expecting another baby.  Ieuan is pictured above wearing yellow, riding on the shoulders of the knights.  His wife is to his left, also in yellow.  Leith is riding on the shoulders ahead of him, wearing blue and black.  Carrying the final two fighters around on the shoulders after the tournament is a tradition in An Tir...I don't know about elsewhere in the SCA.  Generally speaking, when an "unbelted" fighter gets to the final rounds, knighthood is imminent...this happened once before that I recall when Duke Darius got Silver Rose at a May Crown tourney back in 1990 and was offered knighthood that day.  Leith, however, was not offered it that day...or the next--I have heard rumors why this might have been the case, and I hope that given his skill and time since accusations were laid, the knights' council will revisit the issue.  I've known Leith for a long time; he's a great musician and artist (he's a Laurel), but I don't know much about the fighting aspect.  It's not my battle however, so I will withhold further opinion.

Later that night, I went to visit with the Comune dei Pavone but they were just sitting down to dinner and waiting for the Royals to come join them.  It seemed I was not welcome to stay--the only person who shared pleasantries with me was a lady I'd never seen before, so I excused myself and wandered off.  Most of the group were busy in the kitchen, but I was not invited to stay and be social--I had already eaten--and clearly they were not ready for drop-in company.

The evening was spent with Tessa and her campmates while I knitted on the sock.  Later, I wandered around with Lianor and we ran into Duncan--a horse guy--and we had a great time chatting with him and his adult daughter.  Duncan offered to let me ride his horses, and we made some preliminary plans to make that happen.  Eventually I shuffled off to bed at around 2 a.m., when I checked my phone--and yes, Facebook--and discovered that HL Raffaella had been offered the Pelicanate.  Pelican?  Not Laurel?  Foodie, artisan, costumer's guild officer, organizer of the A&S Geek-Outs...  What the--?

I woke up in the morning with the camp behind me cooking bacon.  My entire tent smelled like bacon, and I think their kitchen was just two feet from my head.  I was starting to get a little nauseated.  I probably have bacon spatter on my canvas.  I got up, got a cuppa tea, and began knitting again.  Here's what I had done a couple hours before turn in.  I actually got the heel nearly complete, too, but sadly, the contest was not mine to win.  Due to my time spent in the meeting and presenting for Journeyman rank, I lost a lot of hours of knitting time.  Another competitor spent all night knitting and got BOTH socks done.  I came in third with another knitter getting up to the toe of the sock...just a few inches longer than mine.  In the end, I discovered that I put the heel on the wrong side of the sock, and it may be too small to fit me anyway.  I'm going to have to frog it all out and start again, but it was a fun experiment.

At about noon, I started packing up and was completely done by 3 pm--car packed, ready to hit the road.  Their Excellencies of Aquaterra had gone in to pack up the Baronial pavilion on the eric, and my Shittimwoode neighbors (not the Bacon-neighbors) were almost done with their camp and were going to assist at the eric, and I was headed that direction as well.  However, on my way, I saw that Tessa had a spare tire on her car.  Her right front tire was bald and pitted and had a bulge on one side...oh, it was a bad-lookin' tire...and her left front tire looked almost as bad.  I offered to follow her into town to make sure the other tire didn't blow out on the way.  We made it into town without incident, and while they were fixing the tires, we did a little Geocaching together!  The first was called Muggle Central--right on a busy street at a landmark feature--and the second was behind some newly-built barbed wire fencing.  We gave that one a miss.  We followed up with a couple more in Yakima and had dinner there at Bob's, then met up with a very tired Lianor and we caravaned home.  I arrived home at about 9:30 and Ben was still awake enough to need a big hug.