The PLA made our annual trek south to Florida again this year, and everything combined to make a great weekend for all who attended. Some years have been cold, or had rain, but this year we had very little of either. The sutlers were there in abundance, and the camp was no more bogus than usual! The PLA had a very minimal camp this year, with several members sleeping in either a dog tent, several shebangs, and under the stars. In fact, we probably had the only dog tent in the entire Artillery camp.

Saturday's Battle could have gone better as we had a line of infantry deploy in front of our gun after our third round, and they stayed there for the rest of the battle. At one point they left and we were hopeful of firing again, but a line of cavalry immediately took their place directly in front of us, so we were limited to a total of five rounds for the entire day. Saturdays' battle at Olustee has never been the high point, and this year was no exception.

Sunday's battle, however, went better. We expressed our dismay from Saturday to the commanders, and a better job was done of keeping a firing lane open. (It also helped that we redeployed our gun to a new location with a large clump of brush in front of it to prevent infantry from massing there!) We were able to fire considerably more rounds, and even had a chance to maneuver the gun somewhat.