Playing Pretend...us, that is

[Meneltarmacil]

Well, on several occasions when I have been alone in a field or a wood, I have taken a branch or whatever, pretended it was a sword, and proceeded to reenact battle scenes from Middle-earth.

Me too. I've done it so many times that I know which sticks are swords, axes, spears, etc. (found one that would make a great Last Alliance-ish elven sword)

I was just recently at camp, and I was in a very LotR frame of mind, and, during one camp game, I imagined that I was Frodo, searching for Mt. Doom, trying to stay away from all of the orcs trying to hunt me down. Then I tripped and like, killed my knee. Lots of cuts, bruises, and scrapes.

Interesting... I was just at camp last week. Where exactly did you go, One of the Nine? It's quite possible we may have been at the same place and missed each other completely...

I imagined myself in M-E a lot at camp:

On this big obstacle course through the woods on a very dark night I imagined I was Aragorn in the Paths of the Dead.

During one relay race (held in a dusty area like the Black Gate) I whispered "For Frodo" under my breath right before I started running.

After said relay race, we headed up to a mountainside for a cookout dinner, and I both imagined myself as and felt like Frodo crossing Mordor.

On what has to be the toughest rock climbing wall I've ever tried, I kept hearing the music from the scene of Frodo climbing Mount Doom in my head for obvious reasons, and as before, I felt a lot like Frodo in that scene. (I tried that particular wall right after climbing another one, which was right after mountain biking, so I was already low on energy much like Frodo.)