The Technopod Adventure in the Current Middle Ages Comes to an End…
The Estrella War is over and, though the end came early, it was a fun experience that taught me some useful things about my nomadic system.
Medieval re-enactors do battle in the Arizona desert at "Estrella War"
The battle fields at Estrella were filled with crowds of armored warriors who were, no doubt, thankful for the cloud cover which kept the temperature cool. One can imagine what it would be like to participate in this level of physical exertion wearing metal and heavy leather armor under wool and foam rubber in direct sun. This is perhaps why they choose to stage the event during February…
Medieval battles are more tolerable in cooler weather
The heavy weapons contingent at Estrella is the largest group and pretty much dominates the action at the event. Weekend warriors in the most literal sense, these are mostly people with office jobs, in what they refer to as their “mundane” life, who thrive on the thrill of battle and get quite worked up about it. Though most are men, there are quite a few women who don the armor and fight right along side trading blows with the best of them.
The battle action gets quite frenetic at times
All of this happy fighting action came to an abrupt end on Saturday when a very intense wind storm blew through the encampment scattering tents and knocking over more substantial structures. Most fighters left the field to attend to their camps and, though there was at least a day and a half left for the event, a good portion packed up and left to escape the impending rain storm. My compatriots and I were part of this group as most of our camp blew down in the furious dust storm. The Technopod survived with no problem however and for this I was thankful… Still, packing up when the wind is blowing everything around is definitely not fun…
We lost our dayshade which ended up in a twisted metal heap
So… it was off to visit my sister in Tucson for me! I managed to pack up and take off before the rain came and by the time I made it to my sisters house it had mostly stopped. All is well that ends well and now I’m on to the next part of my adventure…
You can see more photos from the SCA event in my “Recent Work” galleries here:
https://varis.com/RecentWorkGalleries/galleries/EstrellaWar2011/
