This Saturday past, we traveled to the shores of Lake Ontario for the Sterling Renaissance Festival, which we have attended most years over the last decade or so. We missed it last year, owing to our vacation in Cape May, NJ, but this year we were back in form, so off we went! I love Renaissance Festivals in general, ever since I attended the Minnesota Faire back in college. I find them enormously entertaining, and I especially love buying things directly from the people who made them. You can’t beat that, and I never quibble price for something that was not only not mass-produced in China, but might well have just been made a day or two before.
Some photos from our day at the Festival, starting with the icky one right off the bat. We were sitting down for a water break when The Wife and The Daughter both freaked out, simultaneously. Seems this little guy was hanging out on my shoulder. The Wife knocked him down, and I then used a twig to move him to safety under the bench. This is quite the close-up, by the way; he’s really only about an inch long.
One of my favorite things about the Festival each year is seeing older couples, in period dress, still very much dating each other. This makes me happy.
Maybe new this year — or possibly last, as we weren’t there — was this Faerie, who spent her day roaming and interacting.
One vendor whose wares we never stopped to appreciate before is the one that makes bronze sculptures for yard display. We haven’t had a yard, so what was the point. Well, this year we have a yard, so we looked. The items there are stunning and wonderful, but also way out of our price range. And this spouting dragon, towering above everyone, didn’t even have a price tag that I could see.
This next item, however, did have a price tag. It’s a pirate ship where all the details are made of glass, right down to the water on which it sails.
Ten thousand dollars will let you bring that home!
No, this is not George RR Martin. At least, I don’t think it’s George RR Martin. I didn’t ask him.
And, as always, Her Highness the Queen!
Hopefully we have so good a time next year!
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If ever I meet you, it might be at the Faire. We've never been, but The Wife has suggested it more than once.
Ren Faires seem to be one of the things (certain) Cool Kids love to mock. But never having been to one, they look tremendously fun to me and I'd love to have the opportunity to do that. (There really aren't any anywhere near me, then again, if I want much of anything cultural, I have to drive at least an hour)
Also, I'm not 100% sure, but your "little friend" might have been a dung beetle (or at any rate, some kind of scarab). I presume they had livestock at this faire?
(The only time I ever saw dung beetles out in the wild was on a horse trail, where they were going after the horses' leavings…)
Too Long at the Fair by Bonnie Raitt.