Renaissance Festival: 2013 Edition

Yesterday we took the family to the Charlotte Renaissance Festival for some trick or treating fun, and general shenanigans.

Especially the shenanigans.

We've been to the fest the last couple of years, so I'll spare you the details of the festival itself, and just cut to the pictures, except for this story:

Zeke carries a shark bucket to carry his halloween candy in.  Picture a grey bucket with a gaping shark mouth as the opening, and you'll get the general idea. Many folks commented on his bucket - it seemed to be a hit.

As we were walking around through the crowd, the bucket got jostled, and stuck on something.  When we looked closer we found that the leg of a passerby got stuck perfectly in the open mouth of the shark. Apparently Zeke's candy is safe and sound, and under the protection of an attack shark (I'll have to remember this before I raid his candy).

Later on in the day as we were walking out of the park one of the performers was walking past us.  She turned and looked at Zeke and exclaimed "You're the boy with the shark bucket!  I've heard about you!"  Apparently Zeke is now Renaissance Festival famous.

We all dressed up for the occaision.  My wife, +Debbie DeBaeremaeker went as Little Red Riding Hood, Zeke was a butterfly, and Abigail was a princess.

The festival is full of bards, mistrels, and other musical acts.  This group was singing sea shanties.

Apparently the Ren Fest is not an accurate recreation of days of yore, but is a fusion of many points across history.  It leads to some interesting scenes, like this one.

This happy little scavenger was part of a bird handling presentation.  Other birds were falcons, and owls, neither of which I managed to get good shots of, so you get this jaunty fellow.

Apparently vultures are nothing to fear as their beaks are often not sharp enough to break through skin, and their talons are neither sharp, nor strong enough to carry much more than a feather.

For me the day was most notable for hats.  I went as The Cat In The Hat(-ish), but I tried on several other top hats.  The steam punk looking at on the right came home with me.