... I've decided to totally ignore it for awhile and post some pictures of the Michigan Renaissance Festival that my family and I went to this weekend.



Now, I have to admit that as nerdy as I can be, I somehow have bypassed the whole Renaissance Festival thing. I'm not sure how this happened because I used to do a lot of community theatre, which let's face it, is probably what half of these people do in their spare time. I've only been to three of these in my life, and I have to admit that I'm totally fascinated by them. I kind of wonder if all of these people know each other, and if there are cliques of people or some kind of social structure to these things. If any of you know, please tell me because I'm really rather curious about how the whole Ren Faire world works.

Anyway, pictures.

For some reason at this Ren Faire foxtails were all the rage. I dunno what the hell was up with that, but they were everywhere. Can someone enlighten about what that's about?


And another:


Even small children got wrapped up in the tail fetish.


What I always find hilarious about Ren Faires is how liberal "Renaissance" gets interpreted. For instance, pickle carts were apparently very big in the Renaissance (there were no less than five at this festival).



So was quasi-goth clothing (I don't think this lady's ever heard of the concept "age appropriate attire"):


Fairy wings:


Armor for WoW Nerds hot chicks. My husband and I just about peed our pants when this dude touched the mannequin's boob. What happens at the Ren Faire, stays at the Ren Faire, unless assholes like us take your picture and post it on a blog.:


Giant anime sized swords (held at suggestive angles):


Pirates (wearing more age inappropriate attire):


Groups of emo teenagers wearing tin foil:


And cell phones:


There was the requisite greasy turkey leg that had to be bought (for six bucks!). Sadly, the idea of the turkey leg was much tastier than the reality of it. On the other hand, it was fun to watch my Republican preppie friend Don eat one. That was totally worth six bucks.


Since we didn't have our dogs there to feed it to, we did the next logical thing and fed it to my son.


There were also a bunch of cool rides. Unfortunately those were also ridiculously overpriced as well.


The jousting was really dissapointing. Last year we went to a different festival and they had full contact jousting with a rail and everything where the jousters actually got up to almost full speed and hit each other with their lances. These guys were totally lame and barely touched each other before falling off their horse. At least they looked cool.


We did see some really cool costumes (heh, none of which probably qualify as Renaissance too).

My favorites were these viking guys. I'm trying convince my husband that he needs to dress up as a Viking next year. I don't think this will be a hard sell.


I dunno wtf this guy was supposed to be, but I thought the bones on his hat were entertaining.


Finally some older ladies with some style. I thought the headdress and the necklace were very cool:


This was cool too. I have to give her credit, I would have had a hell of a time navigating a big crowd in skirts that large, but she was working it.


And the require spawn pictures. Ivy taking all the madness in:


Erik cheesing it up for the cameras: