Texas RenFest

When I was a teenager, my friends and I would go to the Texas Renaissance Festival each Fall.  We would all pile into someone's car, drive the 80 miles outside of Houston and spend the day walking thru the woods, pretending we were M'lady and debating if it was worth $8 for a flowered headpiece. It was weird and wild and fun. 

The RenFest is now in its 39th year.  This weekend, Husband and I went. 

It was ... odd.  We knew folks dressed up, and we expected that.  We knew some of the costumes were skimpy, we expected that. However, we saw more cleavage, both male and female, than either one of us expected.  The number of shirtless men was staggering, and 99% of those guys needed to put a shirt on.  Man-boobs, everywhere we looked.  I did appreciate the people who dressed up, but the number of women who thought a bikini top and a henna-painted abdomen was "being in costume" just about equalled the man-boobs group.  There was one Viking, wearing nothing but a horned Viking hat and an itty-bitty loin cloth -- I can't imagine his "costume" was authentic. We also saw one guy in leather, being led around by his girlfriend via a chain attached to his nose.  Umm -- BDSM in Medieval Europe?  

We thought getting there at 9:00 a.m., as the gates opened, might lessen the freak show / alcohol factor, and it might have -- but the things we saw at 9:00 a.m. were surprising enough.   

Once we stopped gawking at all the boobs, the chain mail body suits, the leather bondage outfits and the strategically painted henna body art, we decided to check out the grounds themselves. 

There were things to see and do that did NOT involve beer, leather or boobage-exposure so we sought those things out.  I was going to buy a flower wreath, but they were $15 and I was too cheap.  

We did go to the petting zoo, where I saw a baby llama

and the Momma-Llama (yeah, I had to do that LOL)

There were also camels and elephants

We saw jugglers, both swords and fire, 

And, of course, jousting

There were so many artisans -- we enjoyed the glass blower the most.

Then it started to rain.  And rain.  And rain.  (Note the muddy jousting field in that last photo).

When the rain stopped, we'd dash out, get Something-On-A-Stick, and run back under another shelter while eating our sausage / steak / turkey leg / banana.

It kept raining. That green?  Heavy, heavy rain.

We figured we had seen everything we wanted to (and much that we didn't want to!) and it was getting muddier and wetter, so we headed home.

Am I glad we went?  Yes.  Do I want to go back?  Probably not.  It was just a bit too ... free spirited ... for my taste.  It was fun, tho, and it was awfully nice getting to do something fun with my husband. We walked around, holding hands, giggling at the oddness and eating fair food.  We enjoyed the shows, the animals, the artisans -- and we even enjoyed the people watching.  

I'm glad we went, but I'm equally glad the weather didn't cooperate so that we could leave early without feeling like we were old-school fuddy-duddies.  We are old-school fuddy-duddies, but I don't want to FEEL like we are. :)

Now I've got two weeks to plan our next EOFO, which are going to have to be on Saturdays, as I've got a commitment every Friday at 1:45 pm to mentor a kindergartener.  But that's ok, it's the doing something with someone I love that's important, not the day of the week I do it.

The goal is to keep me from falling into a rut, and to stop us from getting bored -- and I think looking at boobage and leather-clad BDSM participants, while jugglers toss flaming swords at each other and knights joust in the mud all in front of llamas and camels and elephants ... WITH a ginormous turkey leg in hand -- that would count as "not boring"!