Our evening streetwalk in Saratoga Springs was easy to write about because it went so well. We got dropped off by the shuttle bus, walked down the wide street on one side, and back up the other. We got back just in time to catch the last shuttle to our parking lot. And the whole thing was really, really fun.

The Troy Stroll was different. The ambivalent impression began when we tried to figure out ahead of time where to park. The Troy Victorian Stroll website has a page labeled “Directions and Parking,” but it doesn’t actually list anywhere to park. It just lists the streets that are closed for the event and provides a rideshare drop off location.

Parking in Troy is a nightmare on a good day. We found parking on a nearby college campus where the Chaplain used to work, but it wasn’t clear if we were allowed to park there. We left our vehicle behind praying we wouldn’t get a ticket. And we didn’t. But it didn’t feel good parking downtown not knowing if our car would be there when we got back or if there would be a slip of paper fluttering under the wiper. City parking tickets are expensive.

We walked the short distance to where the Victorian Stroll was happening. We could see that streets were blocked off, but it wasn’t clear where we should enter, or where to walk. Once we got there, we couldn’t tell if we had even seen everything there was to see after we’d walked around a bit, due to the lack of a clear flow of pedestrian traffic.

There was a central area where some entertainment was taking place from time to time, but otherwise it was crowded and confusing. From what I could tell, the area spidered out from the central square, and I never figured out if we strolled all the closed-off streets or not.

The Saratoga stroll was at night, which somehow felt safer. People asked before taking our photos. In the harsh cold and daylight of Troy, people had their cell phones out and were openly filming us. For every person who filmed us without consent, another person asked before taking a photo, and we quickly got fed up with posing. It just felt gross. Some guy followed us down a side street taking photos like the paparazzi, never saying a word to us about who he was or who he was taking pictures for.

We didn’t have any cash, which limited our options with the vendors, and even though our bank had a branch within the closed-off section of town, the branch was closed and there wasn’t even an ATM available. That was poor planning on our part, and we learned our lesson for next time.

Saratoga Springs is a richer community. They had a more spacious layout for their stroll, and the money and sponsorship to do a shuttle to the event to alleviate the problem of parking. But Troy could have done a few things to make their event more user-friendly, including creating some kind of traffic flow for the strolling masses, and providing clear and useful parking directions. And perhaps, like Comic Cons are doing these days, acknowledging that costuming is NOT consent, and if you want to take someone’s photo, you need to ask.

The second stroll was great for taking photos – the historic homes and storefronts in Troy were truly picturesque and the daylight timing of the stroll was more conducive to photography. But lost in the milling crowd, we only got one photo and spent the rest of the time freezing and trying to figure out which direction to walk and if there were any places that accepted credit cards.

I saw a couple of costumers at the Troy event that I would have liked to exchange information with but couldn’t or didn’t because my brain was exploding from the stimulation of being in out in costume with my entire family. Sarah Robbiano, and the lovely lady in the pale blue Late Victorian ensemble, if you come across this post, please email me on my contact page. I would love to chat with you about costuming and hear more about how you made your lovely ensembles.

We also had a kid who was having major problems that day – he really needed to use the bathroom and was terrified of the port-a-johns. The baby had a bad cold and had droopy, glazed eyes and a streaming nose all day. Another decided whining was the best way to get her way. That is no one’s fault. With six kids, this stuff happens.

With the Troy event, the grease was missing from the wheels. It was cold. We were miserable. After an extended hunt for a place that would take credit cards, we stood huddled by a filthy table eating our messy street food.

Wandering around the event as the complaining steadily increased, we walked most of the way back to the car when we realized our poor kid absolutely needed to find a bathroom that wasn’t a port-a-john before getting in the car, which involved the Chaplain hiking back to the Stroll with a suffering child while the rest of us sat in the car and thawed.

A lot of things went wrong, and on top of that, we felt violated by all the rude people taking photos. So, not a great experience. Partly Troy’s fault, partly our own.

I discovered another event in Altamont this weekend, and I have mixed feelings about it. Do I want to drag my family out again and chance that we will have another bad experience and everyone will start to hate costuming? Do we give it a try and use cash to incentivize the kids to have a good time? Do we skip it and give ourselves a break?

I spent so much time and effort on the costumes that there is a pressure to get my money’s worth from the experience. The stuff that I prepared for this year probably won’t work for next year with the kids growing the way they do. Costuming, like everything else in life, turns out to be a mixed bag.

Homeschool is awesome: As part of our costuming adventure, we found an article about the history of photography. In the 1860’s, the time period for our costumes, people sitting for portraits had to be still for 20 seconds. I had two of the kids sit and be serious while I counted out 20 seconds for them so they could see just how excruciating that is. Everyone was giggling before I finished counting. When it came time for a serious photo of our own, we just couldn’t manage it. God bless all the families who sat for portraits in the 1800’s and suffered so we could enjoy their beautiful faces today. Can you imagine? “Harold, stop twitching! We paid good money for this portrait and you’re not going to ruin it with your antics!”