deep river

This past weekend was one of my favorite events of the year:

The Deep River Ancient Muster!

     For those of you who may not know, I spent pretty much every Friday night and most weekends involved in a fife and drum corps from the time I was eight to when I turned eighteen.  It was such a cool experience, and I made some of my closest friends through it.  While I haven't been overly involved in fife and drum since graduating out, Deep River is not to be missed.  It's basically a huge gathering of fife and drum corps that lasts from Friday until Sunday, in Deep River, Connecticut.  My mom and I camped out with hundreds of other corps members from at least fifty different groups.  Friday was spent setting up and hanging out at the campsite, then Saturday was a parade and mainstand performances.

Parade-side knitting, naturally.

(I was working on my Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica scarf all weekend, and I'm about halfway done!  Yay!)

My knitting attracted these two kiddles, who then stuck around for most of the parade.  Not surprising, really-- for some reason, children have always flocked to me.  I'm like Mother Goose, but 22 and a brunette.  And sans goose.

I thought this Celtic/steampunk look was pretty cool.  I always admire a man who can rock a scarf.

My mom's fife and drum corps!  Yay Mom!

The Ancient Mariners, who are known for being a little...hmm... raucus, shall we say.

They always put on a wild show and their musical ability is second to none.

I love that while they dress semi-uniformly, each member adds distinctive touches.

The littlest mariner

Oh, and Santa was there.  I guess we know what he does during the other eleven months of the year.

I loved the stud detailing on these snare drums, it gives a totally different look from the usual paint or decals.

This trio of kids cracked me up, especially the little guy on the right.  He's just doin' his own thing.

Heehee.

Saturday night was full of good food (hello, steamed clams at 10 pm) and lots of music, then we headed home on Sunday morning.

It was one of the best weekends I've had in ages.  I even made some lovely new friends (Hi Dawn!  Hi Steph!  Hi Carol! Hi Justine!).  I'm looking forward to next year already!

♥