For weeks and weeks, we’ve been saying that we were going to go see the annual re-enactment of the so-called “Battle Of Lexington” on the Lexington Battle Green. Charlotte is waaaaay into the Revolutionary War and Paul Revere in particular, and we are always looking for related places and events to go to, but the battle re-enactment has always eluded us. That’s primarily because it’s so freaking early in the morning. In their desire to be faithful to the events of the day, the re-enactment is always scheduled to begin around 6:00 a.m.
Which means, of course, that you have to get up earlier than that in order to get out the door and reach Lexington Center for the appointed hour. Unfortunately, none of us are early birds. We figured setting the alarm clock for 5:00 a.m. would be sufficient. HAH! Though the three of us, especially my wife the slugabed, deserve a huge amount of credit for actually getting up with the alarm and being out the door by 5:30, we were so far off in our estimation of how to see this event that dopeslaps are in order all the way around. It’s only 15-20 minutes from our house to downtown Lexington, but that means we arrived around 5:50 for an event that starts at 6:00 and only lasts about 10 minutes. The crowd was already big enough that we had no chance of seeing anything, and a quick reconnaissance drive around Lexington confirmed our suspicions that there would be no parking close enough to let us walk back over in time, either.
Barely awake and now disappointed with our failure, there was not much else to do at 6:00 except drive to the nearest IHOP and have breakfast. Now that we know better, we promised one another that next year we’ll get up at 4:00 a.m., which might give us a better shot. Adam at Universal Hub, who lives all the way down in Roslindale, managed to get his tuchus to Lexington and snap some pictures (including the one at the top of this post). He also recommends bringing a ladder to get up above the crowd if you’re more than a few rows deep in the pack if you want to see anything. That sounds wise.
