Stepping back in time

 Yesterday, we went up to the northern part of the state to a place called Wooloroc Ranch and Wildlife Preserve.

They were hosting an annual event that was a "trappers and traders encampment."  I have wanted to go to this for several years, and finally managed to do it!

I had assumed this was to be a living history event, representing the annual Rendezvous that early French settlers on the frontier held to trade furs and goods, and to find wives and husbands, etc.  Native American peoples participated in these peaceful rendezvous as well, for trade, mostly.

I used to coordinate an event like this for my living history group, back in the day, and had wanted to go check this one out, because it looked to be on a much larger scale.

The camp was really big, with canvas tents, cook fires, and things set out to represent living history, but... the disappointing part for me was that NO ONE was actually doing any living history demonstrations.

No leather workers, no flint knappers, no black smiths, no weavers, no cooks.... There were set ups for all of these things in the camps, but NO ONE was doing any of the things.  It was really weird. 

I don't know where all of these people were, because the vast majority of the camps were empty, and the ones where there were people, the people were costumed well, but just sitting there.

We spent a couple of hours wandering, and no one ever did anything, OTHER than one woman with a spinning wheel who was using her wheel to twine yarn.

There was also a small cluster of campers off to one side shooting off period guns.... but that was all.

Be that as it may, it was lovely to wander from camp to camp, and to see how everyone had set things up to be as historically accurate as possible.  Mostly.  

There's one picture of the event on Facebook that shows a really cool camp, but in the camp cooking area, there are plastic wrapped paper napkins, some other brightly colored plastic packaging, a roll of paper towels, and a canister of Quaker Oats, right next to a jar that could have been used to "disguise" the modern, recognizable oat canister that obviously came from a modern grocery store... Sigh....

The merchant/traders tents were fun to go through, and I was able to find things to purchase that I was looking for.  

I needed a leather needle, some sinew, and a shovel for my fire pit.  Also sort of wanted to look for deer skin, and beeswax candles.  I found everything, except the one piece of deer skin that was to my specifications had a big hole in the middle, so I did not buy it.

Now, maybe I will finish the leather pouch project I started two years ago, HAHA!

The other issues we had yesterday had to do with the app on my phone that is for navigating.  It's called WAZE, and we had not changed the settings since we were driving around in New Mexico.

Oops.

SO, that meant that it took us on a VERY circuitous, but scenic, route.  It was a beautiful drive, but it took us FOUR HOURS to get to our destination.

By the time we were about to arrive, we were really hungry, and Dave was irritable, so we decided to go to the cafe at the museum first.

When we got there, however, we found a line of cars and trucks going down the highway outside of the gate.  

Apparently, there was ALSO a HUGE antique car show at the same place!  I had seen NOTHING about the car show on the website or face book page of the venue. 

Yet, thousands of people were going to the car show.  

We finally got in, then had to park about a half mile away from the cafe.  

Then, we had to stand in line for about 45 minutes to order lunch.  We decided on hot dogs, because we figured that was the easiest and fastest thing for them to prepare, but we still had to wait an hour... 

There was no where to sit, until a friendly older (than us) couple invited us to share their table.

This whole process was extremely irritating for Dave, and he had a minor anxiety attack in the crowded cafe.

By the time we finished eating, it was 2:00, and we had left the house at 8:30.

He started to feel better after we ate, and were walking back to the car, past parts of the antique car show, which was REALLY cool.  

I had wished that we could clone ourselves to enjoy both events.....but since it was already so late, and I had wanted to go to the living history event (and not the car show that we didn't even know about), we headed down to the encampment, which was a couple of miles back toward the entrance of the venue.

Where, as you know, we discovered that there WAS NO actual living history taking place, but it was still nice.

The quiet of the camp helped Dave to relax, with the occasional sound of someone playing a Native American flute, and it was a gorgeous day, after a cold front came through and dropped temperatures on Friday.  

We saw a herd of bison, and a couple of water buffalo, and some female elk, along the way, through the wildlife part of the ranch.

The drive home did Dave in, though.... it has been a MUCH longer day than anticipated, with unexpected crowds (Dave suffers from agoraphobia), and we were both exhausted when we got home.

I had a frozen pizza on hand, which was baked post haste, and we ate in front of the TV, watching a really bad B movie from the 1980s.

In other news, my final treatment at Genesis Care went just fine, and I got to say goodbye to almost everyone who is going to work elsewhere.

I have my "new patient" appointment for the new place set up, but was told that my next TREATMENT may be weeks away. 

It's only cancer, right?  Whatever. 

Today, it's another gorgeous day.  Dave is going to Costco, and I will finish my usual weekend chores. 

Hoping that some yard work will get done, too, as it's been weeks now since any mowing was done.

Have a good week!