Tina the Intern here and here is the second part of my Civil War Re-enactment blog!

4. Time Machine

I am so glad we went on Sunday instead of Saturday. It was not raining and it was a lot less humid. And my friend with the broken camera was not as mad today. Morale was much higher than yesterday. The re-enactment was amazing! Here’s a glimpse of what we experienced.




Charlie's E>V card asked "What did you want to be when you grew up?" He wanted to be a baker and here is a baker from 1864.

Cow!


A young boy showing Charlie how to walk on stilts properly.
 

Charlie going through some evolution.

So the re-enactment was not a battle re-enactment, but more of a “day in the life” re-enactment. Setting up the fort like how it might be in 1864. Many of these re-enacters were volunteers. How cool is that? They are brave people to dress up in heavy clothing circa 1864 on the hottest, most humid summer day.

5. Things I learned

I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

I know that this was still nowhere near what it was like in 1864, but it was still fun to pretend and play. It’s nice to pretend and play once in a while. I used to do it every day as a kid and now I don’t remember the last time I pretended and played.

Now I have officially learned to not have any expectations when going on an adventure. I had this expectation that we would see tons of mantras all over the place and meet a ton of cool people. Well we didn’t see any cool mantras because Fort Snelling does not have any advertisements or print and we didn’t meet anyone because the volunteers kind of had to stay in character and everyone there were families who liked to stay to themselves. That’s not a bad thing at all, but it was disappointing at the time. I wonder if I didn’t have any expectations, would we have found a ton of mantras and met a bunch of people…? I’m kidding. But I did “fulfill” my wants from this trip: do something different, enjoy something I’m interested in, and enjoy the company of a friend.

AND Charlie had a great time! I was SO excited that he did. He might have had more fun than I did (is that possible?). I was still nervous about half way into the trip that he was bored and not having a good time. But half way into the trip I could tell that he was actually having a good time. Yay!

So it was not a battle re-enactment, so I cannot entirely cross “attend a civil war re-enactment” off my list. And that is fine with me because it is another excuse to go to another one!