Renaissance Festival Opening Day August 18, 2012

 

What a glorious day at the MInnesota Renaissance Festival! Thanks to a gift from my sister  of a season pass (for two) we spent a lovely day strolling around in the 1500s. The weather was relatively cool and clear without a single touch of rain. Even though I have my precious new Felix Needleworthy brocade dress, I want to wear it under proper circumstances and I did not have the accoutrements for a proper debut, so I decided to dress in middle/working class style and wear my bodice with a long skirt. Due to my sister's generosity I will have multiple occasions to dress for the festival, so I will try to find some sewing time to make a kittle, some sleeves and a head dress for my beautiful costume.



After all my earlier traveling I was a bit tired, so it seemed like a good idea to start off with a seat at a show. We ambled over to the big Schooner and got a chance to catch Puke and Snot's first performance. They did a version of their Magaga routine about Spanish doormats and bull-fighting.



The new Snot 's not the old Snot, but he has settled into his role as an older less naive buffoon and I think the routines work very well. The chemistry is still there. We had our mandatory turkey leg and made reservations for the Feast of Fantasy for when my Mom and Sister come to visit and then decided to go off and spend decadently at the Puzzle Ring shop. (I must remember to get a photo next time as the people are quite humorous and nice and we have visited them regularly for several years. I still wear the rings that I bought from them in prior years, the puzzle ring I don't dare to take off my finger lest I have to spend an hour on the website trying to laboriously reconstruct it and then a Celtic style garnet ring and this year I could not resist adding to the collection.

(Gosh, middle-aged hands look awful in close-up!)

The booth owner Sean is an excellent salesman and has rapier sharp wit both in terms of humor and technologically it turns out. He is a crafter of Astrolabes as well as a metal smith. We learned some fascinating things about the properties of rare metals and got to feel the difference in density between platinum, white gold and palladium.

After food and iced tea we decided to  visit our friend Marla at Lost Art Leather. I've blogged about her before. She does beautiful one of a kind leather and cloth creations, including those famous patchwork Renaissance tights.

 

She s so much fun as you can tell by this animated conversation. It turns out that she's originally from Lufkin, so there's a Texas emigré connection.
 
 

You can see some of Marla's designs in the background there. I highly recommend you check out her booth when you go to the Fair. She's across from the jousting (on the entrance (pavillion) side). There's a bunch of food there and the best place to get coffee or tea is just past her shop.)

Then we went to watch one of our favorite jugglers, Tuey Wilson. We've been watching Tuey for some 20 years now. (He's been juggling for more than 30 years and is now 50 years old and still does tightrope walking and acrobatic juggling.) I love that he answers questions about his act and craft before the performance and that he has such a great sense of humor.  His 12 year old daughter was helping him this year, but as teenagers are wont to be, she did not look too happy about being associated with him.

 

I absolutely love the picture of her above. She is a stunningly pretty girl and her discontent speaks volumes. I think maybe it's that, I don't want people to think I'm connected to such a geeky parent syndrome. If she only knew how many kids would love to be associated with a parent that does such cool things!

Here are some of the cool things that her dad does!

And how about this!

And how about this?

Geeky? Well maybe, but still totally cool!


And yes, Marla made those tights!!

We also went to see the Danger Committee - a knife throwing, juggling, yo-yoing act that has really funny schtick. The show we saw this time around was the Ninja show. Since there was a pet theme this weekend Reynaldo (the ax throwing part of the team) brought his pet Ninja.

This ax throwing routine was pretty impressive.

 

Reynaldo pinned the balloon without bursting it.

 Pet weekend was fun. There was a whole wing dedicated to rescue groups and pet supplies. Do you think this was a part of pet weekend?



There was a basset hound rescue group and it seemed like half the dogs at the festival were bassets. Some came in costumes.

 This isn't exactly period authentic, but it is cute.

We also saw this at the pet part of the fair. I bet they are expensive to feed.


Then there are things that I saw and photographed along the way. I always enjoy the dancers although we rarely sit down and actually watch them do an entire dance.



Some of the Terpsichore costumes are absolutely fabulous.

And of course there is always free live music accompanying them. I wish I had gotten a better shot of this creature blowing bubbles. Seeing her was a cheap thrill.

I feel like I wander around the fair with my mouth open in awe - just drinking in the sights.  This little lady was watching one of the shows with us.

The gentleman in green we see every year - he asks and answers riddles.



And I just liked the colors of this image.



Before we knew it, it was time to pack up and leave. We had had a great time at the Fair, and were happily exhausted and ready to head for home. (And we get to go back as much as we want! Huzzah!)