Left to Right (Me, Bill, Andrew, Matt, Matt, Mike)
I left Friday morning around 8:30am. Tuesday they told me they reserved me an economy car, but of course when I got there they didn't have it. The dude tried to offer me a free upgrade to a truck which I imagine is the opposite of an economy car. I settled for a Chevy HHR which is the equivalent of a PT Cruiser. The cool thing was that it was brand new. It had 5 miles on it. The gas mileage was sufficient.
9 1/2 hours later I was in Baltimore. The timing was nice because I got there not long after my brother. The event was the 2006 Baltimore Bowman Traditional Classic. It was basically a gathering of people interested in bowmaking, bowhunting and archery. There were lots of vendors selling things. There were archery ranges all over the place. They had a few different shooting events.
Bill had a tent representing his organization Ancestral Knowledge. We spent a good portion of our time in the tent practicing skills. In the picture below you can see me working on a bow and Matt and Andrew in the background flintknapping. Of the hundreds of people there we were pretty much the only guys who made our own natural bows so lots of people stopped by to see our work.
One of the cooler things during the weekend was a horseback archery demo put on by a couple of guys. They demonstrated how they did drive-bys in the olden days. One of the coolest skills was shooting a moving target. They galloped by a guy who rolled a target about the size of a large pizza. I have a hard enough time hitting a stationary target, but these guys were moving and the targets were moving. In the picture below, the archer shot the target once before he passed and then again after.
The most fun during the weekend was shooting the 3d courses. Each one was a trail through the woods. Along the trail there were different 3d foam targets of all kinds of different animals. It was always interesting because each shot was unique. Different distance, animal, angle, stance, etc. To make it competitive we had teams and kept score. The diversity of animals was pretty amazing. All the standards were there like deer, bears, turkeys but there were also exotics like a mountain lion, panther and even a lion.
I wish I could say I hit either of these targets, but I didn't. They were a little out of my range.
Here is my brother Andrew sighting in on a deer.
I left Sunday around 12:30pm and made it back late. It ended up being worth the drive. This morning I was happy to give the rental car back with about 1250 miles on it. Maybe they'll reconsider their unlimited miles weekend special.
7 comments:
What? No picture or reference to Jim? He was half the weekend!
Yeah, I thought we'd be walking in to a primitive skills jamboree. My associates thought I'd be kicking it with a bunch of tight wearing reniassance fair nerds. It turned out to be a refreshing mix... well I wouldn't call it much of a mix... of young and old white fellows with country written all over them.
The unwritten culture that developed was great. You see a guy, give him a gentle, barely perceptable nod, then look at his bow and gear to see what he's got going on.
I felt pretty cool shooting a bow that I made. There were a lot of folks who were impressed with the craftmanship. That praise was important, because nobody was impressed with any shots that I took.
It was a great event and heaps of fun. I'm already looking forward to the weekend before memorial day 2007
Looks like good times yall. Keep the spirit of making your own bows alive. I am jealous as usual.
They should of put people in arrow proof suits and you could have played real life Halo. Except with arrows, and bows, and no Master Chief.
I almost put up a picture of Jim. Maybe I'll add that tonight. He was the man.
One guy asked me if I made my bow and when I said yes he said I was his hero. You can't buy that respect with fiberglass.
I wish I had a picture of the posse of Mennonites that rolled up in there. It was all about suspenders, straw hats and bullcuts with those guys.
Bleach, there was much talk of a 3d zombie course. My brother wanted a level where you were riding around sticking out the sunroof of a car.
I insist you add the jim in robinhood had pic, although I'm sure that can't capture everything he had to offer.
Now I'm really upset that we didn't troublemake those two bear targets into a "Full Mount" pose. We were caught unprepared.
Had we known before noon on sunday that the prank even existed, we could have done it under the cover of darkness.
so you guys must have worked alot of shafts huh?
seriously, that looks like fun. I get to hear the full story 2-night!
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