Carolina Renaissance Festival

This past weekend was a lot of fun. We started Saturday with a D&D game. This is of course, always fun. The highlight was me, my cousin (GodsLilTippy on Etsy), and an artist friend of mine (Sempaiko on Etsy) getting distracted by Shimeji and ignoring at least 50% of the game (which involved our group screwing up a significant plot point and us nearly getting eaten by a pack of 10' crocodiles). Shimeji is a Japanese (I'm guessing--it's Asian and looks like something that'd come out of Japan, but I could be wrong here) program that causes a little chibi character to walk around the edges of your computer screen, or across the top of a browser window, if it's not maximized. They crawl, jump, occasionally do other things, and multiply. You can also click on them, drag them, or throw them. I should have gotten a screenshot of the hoard of Mustangs running around my desktop, but... I wasn't thinking, so I didn't. XD

That was Saturday; Sunday we left not as early as we should have to go to the Carolina Renaissance Festival just north of Charlotte, NC. This was a real treat for me since I'd never been before. I have been to a Ren Faire before, but it was about a decade ago, and it was a much smaller event. Because we left so late, it was after noon when we got there (it's about a 3.5 hour drive to get there from our house) and got caught in what I'm guessing was the after-church arrivals because we sat in traffic for nearly 1.5 hours just to get into the parking lot, and most everyone was trying to get into the Ren Faire. Aside from that delay though, the whole day there was a blast. Being the dork that I am, I, of course, forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures from the day. Failsauce.

The set-up at the Carolina Ren Faire is absolutely awesome, at least by my standards. =P It was fun just walking around and looking at all the great arts and crafts and people in costume. They had about a half a dozen stages with various performances going on, not including a bunch of random street performers scattered throughout the festival. The first presentation we watched was the last part of a "bird of prey" thing; Logan was especially fascinated by this. I think his favorite was the vulture. I learned that vultures can eat 100x what would be a lethal dose of salmonella poison for an adult and not only survive, but process it and poop out non-contaminated poo. They can do this with anthrax as well. I did not know this, and although it's kind of gross to think about, I thought that was a really neat fact.

After that we met up with GodsLilTippy (and her brother and mom). They were all in costume. I especially loved Josh's costume; I really want to get Shaun a hat like that. Next time I go, I definitely want to be in costume too. =D (Cosplay addict ftw.) They took us to see London Broil, a juggling comedy act. They were goofy, and I think they were Luke's favorite part of the festival. After watching London Broil, we went to watch the last joust of the day. This was Ty's favorite part. There were three knights participating: one with black and red colors, one with black and gold, and the last with blue and silver--guess which one was supposed to be the good guy. =P Yes, it was the bishie knight in blue and silver--he looked at least 10 years younger (probably more) than the two "evil" knights, had long flowy sandy blond hair, and a well-chiseled face. The evil knights were of course dark haired, scarred, and mean looking. It was cliche, but it was still fun. Our side of the bleachers got the Black/Red knight. Honestly I thought he was the best; he was crazy, while the other two just acted like peacocks. Ty really got into the match though, enthusiastically cheering our knight and loudly booing the other two.

After that we spent the rest of our time there exploring and checking out all the corners of the festival set-up. We're fairly broke at the moment, so we couldn't let the boys ride all the rides or play all the games they wanted to, but we did let them go through the maze, which they enjoyed. Ty and Logan found a couple of plastic golden coins that they got to keep. A street performer snagged all three boys and a couple of other kids, lined them up in order from tallest to shortest, then got them all to hold sticks and pass around a spinning plate. Ty and Luke, I think, enjoyed this. The poor guy performing had trouble getting Logan to cooperate; Logan didn't want to keep holding his stick up vertically. XD Those are the highlights from the day; we left exhausted, but happy.