I am about to sail away up the river to Sacramento with a crew of female Sea Scouts. They will be gone two weeks; I can only take one, and will drive back to the Bay Area from Sacramento. This will take a little over an hour, but it will take us a week to sail there.

I also do various sorts of living history, notably Renaissance Faires, and have also just joined the Confederate artillery. Some of the fun tourist questions that reenactors get include:

"Why were all the Civil War battles fought in national parks?"

"Did they hide behind the monuments to fight? How come there aren't any bullet holes in them?"

"Is that a real (gun, horse, baby)?"

I attended a reenactment a couple of weeks ago, where I was pleased to note an increase in women in the ranks. My favorite moment was after the battle, when everyone was packing up. A guy in shorts and a tee shirt was looking at an artillery caisson, and said, "What goes in here, honey?" His wife, in uniform, replied, "That's where we keep the ammunition."