War of the Phoenix,  The Kingdom of Atenveldt

Since about a year ago, we were told about War by our friends and we already kind of knew about the SCA, better known as the Society of Creative Anachronism. From their about page: War of the Phoenix is hosted by The Kingdom of Atenveldt, the Arizona chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA).

So we decided to get tickets to it. During Kelli’s birthday, we had an idea that she went and I happened to bring it up; all of a sudden we were surrounded by her friends who were very excited about it and are regulars to it. Some having gone for near 30 years or so. There is a lot of overlap in our group friends and honestly, it was really cool.

We pulled up in our RV to the site and after a little interaction found our parking spot and within minutes of arriving, changing into period wear, and stepping out, we were invited to party at a tent and while walking by, given some alcohol based drinks and a nice mug to drink them out of!

We even met a dog that looked kind of like Darla, and the place had a lot of dogs which were friendly!

We found friends, got some tours of the whole place, ran into many of our other friends and made new ones. Before we knew it, we had dinner, it was amazing! Food that Jaime made on the grill at our RV.

We saw the coolest sunset and how we were far enough away from the city and sheltered by a mountain that it was just a pink glow against the city. And when it got dark, we could see so many stars! Not like 30 years ago, but more than we can typically see in Phoenix proper.

The market was pretty cool and had food vendors as well as many crafts that were period appropriate. I ended up getting a cool hat!

Jaime and Allysen went and did some cool crafting, making viking wire weave.

We went camp to camp checking out parties and at each one, everyone was welcoming and the drinks were flowing! I wandered into one camp, ran into Kelli and joined the drum circle.

When we got done, we made a fire and sat around it for a second, but then wandered off to more parties.

It got cold later and after we got too tired and maybe drank a little too much, we went back to our RV to sleep.

It was like that for two days, the third day ended up being a pretty lazy day of packing up and moving out, saying bye to whomever was still hanging around. That was pretty fun and I’m sure it won’t be our only time doing it.