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On the Road Again

© Megan McConnell

Let's face it - Re-enactors will go almost any distance to attend an event.

We will leave straight from work, travel overnight, pitch a tent and live in conditions that would otherwise horrify us all to play our particular game for 2 days.

Of course, the event is only the end of our planning and preparations. Typically, we start planning months ahead for our trip - not the route, but what we will be doing on the weekend. The trip planning, and the actual packing are usually done in the couple of days before we leave.

No - the big challenge is to fit in everything we want to do in the limited time we have available to us. I have known re-enactors to get by on 1 or 2 hours sleep just so that they could do all they wanted to.

However, my absolute favorite thing is the packing stage. The amount of stuff that re-enactors take to an event is staggering - often at least 80 kilograms per person! This often includes clothing, tent, chair, cooking equipment, armour (if you need it) and arms (if you need them), bedding, and innumerable last minute items that you just can't do without.

Then comes the packing - I know that I am always astonished at what I can actually fit in my car (my best friend calls it "doing a TARDIS"). When you finally get the last bit in, the trunk lid closed (or strapped down), then you just have to work out how to drive when you can't see out of the back window - and often how to fit in 5 people into a car that is already full up with their luggage.

However, re-enactors manage - we always manage. And the trip becomes a frantic last minute dash to the site, with numerous stops at various fast food outlets along the way.

Re-enactors ease out of the overpacked car, dash to restrooms and to eat and drink - whilst the driver puts more gas in the car (it being so overloaded that it is only getting 3 or 4 miles to the gallon).

Of course, my absolute favorite travelling story involves a re-enactor who got left behind by the full convoy of people he was travelling with. Everybody thought that he was in another vehicle!

There are invariably arguments about who has to pay what, and when it has to be paid, and why it is more than they anticipated - but it does not dimish the pleasure the re-enactors take in their trip to the event - or their anticipation of the fun of the event.

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