Rendezvous

Rendezvous was just lovely... Puck went up on Thursday to set up. He spent the night and had to work Friday night so came home... I left home and drove up on Friday after school. He said he saw me just about a mile from home on the interstate. I didn't even start looking for him until I hit Madison so I never saw him.

Traffic was a little heavy, but I made good time. Got up to the site at about 5:00... Was quite relieved that the gate was still down so I could drive up to the site rather than hiking the hill. I have been having real problems with my kneww (probably arthritis, but not positive) I am wearing a brace which helps, but stairs are murder.

Anyhow I drove up and found our spot pretty quick ... later I found out there were 62 lodges total this year, the biggest turnout ever. I was delighted to find that Puck had been able to set up next to our friends from Indianapolis. They did not make it last year and I missed them. They are very serious 1700's era reeinactors and fun to hang out with. Puck had asked them to keep an eye on our fire and another friend (the guy who got me into this whole thing) also was watching out for me.. I had a nice big log glowing and a big pile of firewood to work with.

I was missing Maddie, but it was lovely to be away from freaking technology. Often I don't bother with period clothing the first day, but after I put the car away in the lot and hiked back up to camp I changed right away and went to visit Mary Kay and Andy... We talked and laughed all night... Friend Paul came in and set up camp next to us and then the four of us visited for a while.

There was a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and so they renewed their vows in a sweet ceremony... afterwards the hammered dulcimer player, upright bass player and guitarist started some music... I ran back and snagged the banjo and found a spot next to the two lovely spoon players... We played until our fingers fairly froze off and the night was black.... The stars were unbelievable every night and the coyotes howled in the distance... It was pretty magical.

After the music we went back to Andy and Mary Kays and drank a little wine, talked and laughed until we went to bed... It was freaking cold that night.. just about freezing and I sorely missed my husband in that feather bed. We just have a big hunk of foam and put a feather bed on top of that. Then about 5 wool blankets... I was in my long winter underwear and long sleeved chemise. I think I even left my socks on...

In the morning I waited as long as I could before I had to get up and pee. The bathrooms are at the bottom of the hill and that means about 4 flights of stairs down and back up... not so great for a bad knee. I took it very slow both ways and always waited till the last minute to hike down for the whole weekend.


I had gotten the fire going before my nature call because that is the most important thing to get done. I sat carefully feeding it and waiting for my coffee to boil thinking longingly of Mr. Coffee, but boy that cup of coffee made after you have created a fire to get it tastes better than anything. I made myself some bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast, washed up and had lots more coffee :)

I declined participation in the tomahawk competition. Just not up to it... I was perfectly content to sit and read and watch the camp movements. Several people stopped to visit and ask how Maddie was... I just sat and talked every now and then.. Mary Kay brought over a wonderful Reisling (sp) and we polished that off and talked about movies and plays.

People brought out their trade goods and I perused those... I found a small rodent jawbone and funky tooth to send to Maddie. I also got four large hanks of orange seed beads... beautiful color. Was sort of hoping to play banjo again, but visited instead. Pretty soon I had to get my beets cooking for the camp potluck that night. Everybody brings something and the camp provides a main course... this year it was meat balls.

At four there was a dedication for one of our members who had passed away over the course of the year... actually we also lost Mary.. She had to be close to 80 something and was a terrific woman. She died a month ago. They dedicated a great bench to Coop and we toasted him with chocolate chip cookies... People told wonderful stories of his pranks and travels. He was a great craftsman and almost everyone in camp had something he had made.

One of our members (Jack) told of a chair that he had bought from Coop, but he felt it was a little too feminine looking (perhaps the fabric) Coop took it back and later returned it to him...He told him "now you have a man's chair" Jack opened up the chair and sat in it. Coop told him to look underneath and Jack found a lovely set of buckskin balls freely swinging beneath. We all had a good laugh

Afterward all the men fullfilled a last request. About 20 guys primed up their muzzleloaders and Coop's son walked down the row and poured a measure of Coop's ashes into each gun. They fired him off all together in a grand volley. It was quite moving... Even when Bluelight's gun would not go off and Mary Kay commented that now he would have to bury the gun. Several of the guys got together and finally got the gun to fire... one last prank from Coop.

The camp supper was fabulous as always... you have never seen so much cast iron in one spot.

Puck finally made it back about 8:00... It was good to see him. He got into his buckskins and slipped back into the 1840's. We visited around the fire with Andy and Mary Kay and Paul until most of us got sleepy. Puck went off and partied for a few more hours :)

Next day at the camp meeting they presented the awards and held the raffle. They also revealed the tipis and the comments of the judges. Maddie's came in 2nd which is pretty much what we expected. The really fancy detailed one came in first. The native american judges really liked Maddie's colors and design choices. Lots of people liked hers best so that was nice.

After camp we packed up and headed for home... a very refreshing weekend...

School has been challenging this week The Read 180 program was not recording voices like it was supposed to and I couldn't get any of the techs to look into the problem. I even called the scholastic tech to get some advice. Finally I spend a day hunting around myself after I noticed a small micorphone at the bottom of my screen.... that didn't work, but on my desktop was another new icon that after some investigation proved to be the solution. The problem was it students did not have that icon on their logins so I had to go under mine and changes some settings... It seemed to fix the problem though so I had my little Yippee moment. The whole program was stalled because of the recording problems so that really unclogged the damn.


We have several students who should probably be removed from the program, but they are getting second third and fourth chances. I am just frustrated when their bad behavior keeps other students from learning

well that gets me up to date