Pennsic, Peace Week, Wednesday. There are dirt, gravel, and grass paths everywhere, and although they have a water truck come through a few times a day to put enough water down to lay the dust for a while, after walking anywhere, you just get covered in dust. Since I sweat heavily (no petite 'glistening' for me), this means that I get a very entertainingly heavy layer of dirt on my feet. Shot a couple of 'before and after' pictures to illustrate the point. Hopefully it just provides another layer of sun-filtering protection. I try to put on a lot of sunblock first thing in the morning, but I don't always reapply to my feet because sunblock plus dust = gooey mud. So far I've manage to avoid getting burnt anywhere except the tip of my nose, which gets mopped frequently during the day because of the afore-mentioned highly efficient and enthusiastic personal cooling system. I'm managing to stay cool, though, through sweating, hydration, wearing a hood to shade my head (lightly sunburned the top of my head on day one, smartened up immediately). Also moistening the hood because evaporative cooling is handy. The phrase 'go soak your head' is actually a kind and helpful statement around here. And, of course, TECHNOLOGY. Bless the phase cooling packs that I bought. I sewed a little backpack sleeve that perfectly fits one, and every time I swing back through camp, I toss the warmed one into the cooler and pull out a new frozen one. As long as I keep some ice and a lot of cold melt water in the cooler, they refreeze in about 15 minutes and keep me fairly comfortable for 2-3 hours, which is plenty long enough for most of the classes. Worth every dime. Decorated my refillable mug with a braided strap yesterday, because everyone at Pennsic has an identical mug, and it makes it easier to keep track of. Also, since the mugs are black this year, the light colored leather is much more pleasant to pick up. Also... pretty! It took a while to find a good braiding tutorial online, because my google searches tend heavily toward videos, and (first world problems) I only have 1 gig left on my data plan for the month. But it was easy, and a few other people in camp have asked if I'll decorate their mugs, too. Started stitching a leather bag for a bottle so I can carry more water or iced tea around with me, might finish it tonight. Classes started yesterday, and I took one on how to construct the... umm... some sort of trousers... thorsbjerg, I believe. Came back and told Jeanie (Gewn) about it, and she said 'oh, the pants of unsewability.' They do have a really interesting assembly process, but the instructor very helpfully had a set of precut fabric that was all edged with velcro, which was a fabulous way to demonstrate the order to stitch them together. I shared that tidbit with Jeanie, and she immediately announced she was going to have to share it with several of her friends who also teach classes, because it's all well and good to explain how to fold and stitch things, but actually SEEING makes all the difference. Will type more later, have to leave for another class (an exploration and comparison of Viking hoods). Sunset last night was fascinating, apparently there was a really TALL cloud just over the horizon that was blocking the sunset, so there was a really cool pattern of sunset/not sunset colors on the clouds. Oh, and lunch was prosciutto wrapped carrots, because why not.
