Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Wanna Rendezvous...

This past weekend I attended my first Rendezvous event with Andy. Just in case you don't know what a Rendezvous is, it's like living before the year 1840. You can't bring or use anything that was invented after that year. The only exceptions were the beer we drank and contacts that Andy put in every morning. But, we did drink our beer out of tin cups, so were were legit. Larry and Andy have been attending these events for 2 decades and part of the events are the "Traders" who sell goods from that period. Larry specialized in guns and knives, and we ran the booth in his honor, so all of his stuff will go to people who truly enjoy it.

This is a picture of our home for 4 days. It's called a diamond fly. It's basically a piece of canvas in the shape of a diamond with a couple stakes and 2 poles. That copper lantern hanging on the front pole was our only source of light at night, with a beez wax candle. It rained a couple times during the night, and surprisingly we stayed bone dry.



Here's a view of the rest of the camp. This is basically 5% of the total population there, which made for a nice mix of people. The vehicles are only allowed during setup, after that, they lock the gates and you officially enter the time machine.



Here he is, the original mountain man. Decked out in brain tanned deerskin pants, 4 inch leather belt with beaver side pouch, period specific shirt, hand-made moccasins, and black powder rifle. What you can't see from the picture is the fact that I hadn't showered in 4 days.


It was a great weekend, and an awesome experience that I can't wait to do again. The only missing piece was Larry, but it felt like he was there the whole time in spirit. Given the fact that EVERYONE told stories about him the entire time we were there.