Opening weekend 2014 thoughts

[*Teach*]

Wow. That is almost always my first thought after a weekend at Sherwood.
I'm not even going to try naming everyone we had a chance to visit with.
Friday night- Made it in from the frozen south to arrive at the frozen north camp of Phoenix Risen at about 9:30ish. Being able to leave our camp set up for the season made that much nicer than any other camp/faire. Thanks again Sherwood for allowing that for the clans and FoF. I was expecting it to be brutal temperature wise but it really didn't feel that bad with no wind and no moisture to speak of by that time. We stayed in camp visiting with the clan until time for the midnight toast. I haven't missed a toast yet and this year it was as awesome a time as it always is. A perfect way to start a season each year. After tucking my Lovely Lady in for the night I went on a quiet walkabout with Macintyre. Quiet because of the cold driving many to bed early but we did make new friends in several camps.
Saturday- Brrrr. Yeah, the cold happened but it honestly was not as bad as I had expected. We made it in and of course stopped for our traditional first sip of the day at the Jerusalem pub. Walking out from there and seeing the expansion to the castle was awesome. All of the new additions to faire were great. Wandering down the hill we stopped in at the new pub of course. I foresee a more focused pub crawl in the near future. After stopping and visiting with people about every 10 feet we finally made our goal of the front gate to pick up our FoF goodies. We were very happy to see the new mugs for this season and picked up one of the the small ones (our mug collection is getting large and smaller ones have become much sought after for us). After checking in with Grumpy to make sure all was good with the Summer Camp table (more on that later) we wandered more down the hill (stopped for a mug refill of course) and visited all of the front row booths. All. My Lovely Lady loves to shop especially when its handcrafted items and Sherwood has a LOT of handcrafted items. We finally made it to one of my favorite locations and I got my first Ogre Toe of the season. I love those little balls of heart trauma. Bacon, wrapped in sausage, wrapped in bacon. Few things can compare to that goodness. About this time was when I realized we missed the gathering. About this time an amazing thing happened. The SUN CAME OUT!! So. with warm belly and warmth from the Sun we continued our trek along the side of faire stopping in all (Seriously, ALL) of the shops until we reached what became our final(ish) destination of the day at the Three Stags Pub. My Lovely Lady had her lunch from the (name I can't recall) place that has the hummus and shawarma (how is that spelled anyways?). From there we spent the afternoon sitting and visiting and reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. And drinking a few of course. As the Sun finally decided to stop it's peeking through the clouds we decided to make our way back to camp. We worked our way up the back side trekking through the mulch that is thankfully getting much better to walk on stopping for my Lovely Lady to have a snack of veggies before continuing the long hike up the hill. At the top We decided to splurge a bit and I got (yet another) new sporran to go with the new kilt I got last weekend. It's a nice one that has a flask and room for a couple of Guinness in the pouch from Rev's armor over near the castle. if you haven't been to their shop before, go. They do some nice work there. 
Saturday night- After leaving Rev's we stopped for a rest and a drink at Jerusalem and then headed back to camp. Sitting and visiting with my clan fairmily in camp is one of my favorite parts of faire. We had a nice crowd with lots of guests stopping by including one of the rare few people who can challenge me in rum drinking. Yes KP I am talking about you. After dinner there was a minor catastrophe in my mug of rummy goodness being knocked off the table and so a second bottle of rum had to be opened. (always bring a spare bottle or two). Apparently opening a bottle of rum summons a KP. So we drank it. The poor Kraken never stood a chance against us. After a good night of sitting and visiting with KP and the clan people started going to bed and the bottle ran dry so Me, KP, Mac and one of KP's minions decided to invade Valhalla in search of more drinks. We were very successful in that goal. Around 3? I think we decided to call it a night and staggered back to our respective camps. It was a good day/night
Sunday- Finally crawled out of bed about 9ish to be greeted with breakfast in camp. Perfect timing on my part I think lol. Took our time breaking down what needed to be done and packing up. Again, I love that camp can be left up for the season. Finally wandered into faire about noonish. Stopped in for a drink at Jerusalem again. Today the drink focus was on diet rum (aka water). I needed some serious rehydration after the night. I didn't have a hangover really but I never I call Sunday our aimless wandering day. Pretty much that is exactly what we did. Wandered about visiting and shopping in places we hadn't stopped at the first day. We finally called it a day about 3ish to head back and load the truck before making the sad, sleepy drive back into Mundania.
Yeah... this was a long post. Thanks for reading to this point.
Sherwood is an awesome place and deserves far more words than my sleep deprived brain can type today
Best quote of the day for me on Sunday by the way-

*"In all fairness, it was a lot of rum"*

[maeven]

It was great to see you again on Saturday! Too bad we didn't have more time to catch up! Even so, good times

[KiltedPrivateer]

Teach - That truly was a great night.  Thanks for sharing your rum, the next bottle is on me.  I'd put up my own recount, but it would basically just look like copy of yours (o:

Looking forward to more time in the forest with my very good friends.  It was a great opening weekend which is a perfect start to a perfect season.