Pretty strange blog entry title, eh?

No... this is not about dictionary page guide words! 

This past weekend, our family and another family went on a short vacation.  We stayed in beach houses at Pacific Beach...  a military resort.  I think the houses used to be military housing.  But I am not sure. 

The little town of Pacific Beach has the beach and not much else so we all drove back and forth to Ocean Shores (about 20 minutes away) several times and on each occasion saw some very colorful characters!

The first thing we noticed was a group of three people walking on the FROZEN beach barefooted and in long gowns, protected only by woolen cloaks.  We wondered if these were some kind of Lord of the Rings enthusiatists or something.  All  around town we saw people in plumed hats, carrying swords and even men in tights.

One night, after getting dinner we drove past the convention center.  Outside we saw a maiden in peasant dress carrying a basket.  We could see into the corner room of the convention hall and saw thrones set up for a coronation...  and men, women and children in medieval costumes. 

One sign announced "Welcome SCA"...  hmm...  we wondered what SCA meant.

Then, my friend's husband saw another sign that he told us said, "Welcome Society for Creative Anarchism".

We wondered what in the world anarchy and medieval costumes have in common and discussed it at length...  in the end none the wiser.

In the neighboring beach house I saw a man walking his dog dressed in a green tunic and asked his little children what kind of event they were attending...  they said they were with the SCA (but did not know what it stood for) and that they were celebrating Twelfth Night....  I did not want to be too nosey so I did not question any further.  Besides, during this entire discussion I was busy trying to keep their VERY large French mastiff from getting...  ummmmm...  too friendly, with the local female dogs who had decided to take up residence on the porch of my cabin!!!  (But that is another story entirely!)

I was a bit surprised that military members (remember this Beach resort is a military facility) would be openly practicing anarchy, but to each his own????  (Not that I at all agree with anarchy...  I just figured maybe there was more I did not understand, as usual!)

Anyway,  it was not until TODAY that it hit me...  Bill must have misread the sign.  I'll  bet it actually said Society for Creative ANACHRONISM...  not ANARCHISM... 

So, I googled both.  Both exist, but the Society for Creative Anachronism did, in fact, have a Twelfth Night coronation this weekend at Chance-de-la-Mer in Ocean Shores hosted by the Shilo Inn right on the beach! 

That makes SO much more sense.

This certainly led to long discussions with my children as to the meaning of anarchism and anacronism and acronyms in general! 

All of this to say...  what an interesting weekend! 

I will post some beach pictures later.  It was VERY cold, but we had a lot of fun!

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