Scenes From A Ren Faire

Catching up on some backlog photos I need to post.  These were taken at the Renaissane Festival in Charlotte on Halloween 2015.

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.

Ye Olde Ren Faire

Today we took a trip to the local Renaissance Faire near Huntersville NC.

Around Halloween the local faire has trick-or-treating for the kids (and occasionally the adults...). Zeke loved it last year, so we made it a point to go again this year.  He spent the day carrying a shark bucket around, practicing his trick-or-treating, and his thank you's.  Once he got over the stunned "what the heck is this place?" reaction he did quite well.

We all went in (very) simple costumes. Zeke was dressed as Mr. Bruce Wayne, aka Batman.  Debbie went as a pumpkin.  Abigail dressed as a puppy in the morning, and a black cat when it got warmer.

I, of course, went as the Energizer bunny by installing pink bunny ears on my geocaching hat (I even went caching with that hat on, just to confuse the muggles).

We all had a blast at the faire, and Zeke loved trick-or-treating.  We all loved the costumes, and the jousting, and the music.  It was a good time had by all.

I'll leave you with some pics from the day, starting with one of the oddest costumes I saw:

Guiness:  Proof that God does exist, and he loves us.

Some sort of wood nymph/faery person.  She never spoke, but her acting was amazingly expressive.

And now to the joust! We liked the first joust so much we caught another one before we left for the day.

Celtish band - sounded heavy metal with bagpipes... I bought one of their albums.

Renaissance Festival

The parents-in-laws have been in town for the last few days.  On Saturday we went to the Renaissance Festival in Huntersville NC.   None of us had been to a Renaissance Festival before so we didn't really know what to expect.  It turns out is is like a state fair but with fewer carnies and much more fun.

The rest of this post will mainly be in pictures, but first I'll highlight a couple things that made this day extra special:

• It was Halloween weekend so all of the booths had candy to give to the kids.  Once Zeke clued into this delicious fact he spent a good amount of time walking into the booths and yelling "treat!" until he got some candy.  He ended up with quite the haul.
• I was wearing a geocaching shirt, and because of it I met several other geocachers, including the Blacksmith, and the dude that sold me my lunch.
• Any "meat on a stick" is tasty.

Now, on to the photos....

Turkey legs qualify as Meat On A Stick.

Zeke smelling the rose I bought for my wife.

The "hero" for the joust.

Minstrels