elanya

This was Renfaire weekend! For that past... 3? 4? At least three... years, I have been going to the Texas Renaissance Fair with some of my local-ish friends and camping out. We usually come out sometime in Friday and the go in to the Faire on Saturday (very occasionally on Sunday as well), pack up on Sunday and come home. Same deal this time!

I tried to get as much as I could ready on Thursday, but I was baking for a Hallowe'en potluck at work as well, and things were a bit chaotic. I didn't get as much together as I would have liked, and wound up forgetting a few things as a result. Including my flashlight. Fortunately I have an LED flashlight keychain that lives on my nalgene, and I got on fine with that.

I left Friday after work with my friend Mara, and we picked up some stuff, including a ton of MEAT - some pulled pork I'd been crockpotting, plus some barbecue form one of the local places here (C&J's). Then we drove to the site, with only a little bit of driving hijinks (there were some questionably conveyed directions >.> "go to Town X and turn left onto road Y" is not the same as "Stay on the highway until you are past Town X, take Exit Z onto road Y (which will get you heading left from your point of origin but is in no way an actual left turn)"). It was after dark, but other people who were already there had set up the tents and stuff already, so score! I hate setting up in the dark.

I *also* have to get everything set up before I am ready to do anything else, including eat and talk to people. I like to know that I can fall into the fun without having to worry about where I am going to crash out later - that I won't be trying to set up my bed, or find my stuff, or be fumbling for a flashlight, etc. Not everyone feels the same as I do. There was some debate about who would be sleeping where, and they didn't think my tent was big enough for my twin + a queen - I'd done a queen + a full the year before though, so I was pretty confident. But it hadn't been done, and I didn't want to have to deal with someone *else trying to get *their* shit set up when I was trying to go to bed either >.> But people were distracted at first with meatnoms, and then with the sudden unexpected downpour >_<

One of the other tests did not have their rain fly up, so we had to scramble to help with that, + bring stuff in out of the rain (the precious meat!) We managed to get thngs sorted pretty fast, and though the rain was intense, it did not last long, and everyone and everything stayed more or less dry (that right - the rain was not in tents :V). After that I nagged until the bedding thing got sorted, and then we all chilled around the campfire for a few hours, save two of the party who had opted for early bedtime when the rain started, and apparently crashed hard (one of the typically works nights nad have been up all day). A couple hours later the last stragglers of the larger group turned up, and we helped *them* get set up. And then it was chilling out, some light drinking, etc, until we decided to go to bed.

Unfortunately our neighbors in camp didn't decide to go to bed, the decided to have a dance party! Every time they would get quieter, my tent mate started snoring. I did not get very much sleep :/ OTOH, I was retty warm! I think I did sleep for a few hours between like... 5 and 7, maybe? I know I was awake past 4:30, as one of the loud obnoixious drunks was lamenting that they had mmissed 4:20 :p

I crawled out of the tent once I heard signs that other people were up, and there was more chilling and milling around as people gradually woke up, had food and generally got garbed up. I had brought my traditional 'weekend out camping' foods of a nice peperoni, really nice cheese, apples, and granola bars + bread of some type - in this case crackers. Nom! Oh, also cookies. Mmm, cookies.

We headed into faire a little after it opened, and set about figuring out what shows and such we definitely wanted to see. We are all pretty dedicated fans of Sound and Fury, a vaudeville Fakespeare troupe that caters to the best low-brow humor. They do 4 shows a day - the first tends to be different that the others, and the last one is usually their naughtier show. We decided to catch the first one to see what was up, only to learn that they were going to debut a new show at the last of the day! So, we knew we wanted to come back for that. We spend the rest of the time generally wandering about - checking out the new(?) petting zoo and pirating animal pettings through the fence. Some of the guys threw some ninja stars. Turkey legs and apple dumplings were consumed, shiny things were ogled, delicious pepper jams and soaps were purchased. Mara decided that a fun thing to do would be to look out for people dressed as The Doctor, and run up to them, grab their hands, and shout 'RUN' and see if they would go along with it. The first guy didn't, though his friends thought it was hilarious. The second one (a lady Doctor 11) totally went waith it and thought it was awesome. Score! Also at some point we wandered through the fancy gardens and I bought a CD from some folks because one of them had a cool psalter that she was playing with two bows.


Around 2:30, we decided to go back to camp to sit for a bit and drop off purchases and have some camp noms. It was nice to sit out of the crowds for a bit. We hung out and chilled some more, then made our way back in for the new Sound and Fury Show. I admit, I sort of thought that once we made it back to camp we wouldn't get back out, but we did, so go us! The show was hilarious and totally worth it - it was really more of a dress rehearsal to test how things worked in front of an audience. They usually have some audience participation stuff in their works, and this one had a bit that took audience cues for improv stuff... At the climax (heh) of the show, they asked for audience input as to what style they should perform the last act in. There were many suggestions from the audience to consider... until one genius suggested Bollywood. It was all downhill from there. It was hilarious, and terrible and amazing. They called for backup dancers, and just.... it was nor what they were expecting and they ran with it and we laughed our asses off. We have decided that next time, we ought to demand Kabuki.

After the performance, we milled around a little bit more, and some people went back to camp. I had wanted to get a massage, and was going to stick around for that and then meet back up with folks and go see the fireworks. There was an hour-long wait though, and I wound up nooot doing that. Instead I wound up going to Ravenswood Leather to Ogle All The Things, and wound up making my one 'big' faire purchase, which in this case was an amazing pair of black leather gauntlets. wearing them is like hand sex. They are so soft, and they look pretty awesome as well. By then our party was reduced to three - we wandered more to kill time before the fireworks and, after looking through the flowery garden chapels, wound up in the Polish section for snacks. Then - fireworks! The pre-show involves Adam Crack, the fire whip performer, who is awesome, and some musical stuff with a person in a bear costume that is really lame, even if they do play the Game of Thrones theme. Fire whips!



(There are lots of his other performances on youube as well, and he is super cool to see live/shirtless) The fireworks themselves were spectacular. They put most other fireworks displays I've seen to shame, which is really saying a lot about how much money the festival rakes in, I think!

After that, we made it back to camp, where there was fire! This was good as it was coooooold D: There was more firepit hangouts and chilling and shit shooting, but we packed in in relatively early - I'm sure it was before midnight at least. Once again I slept for crap though - my tentmate had gone home earlier that evening, so I didn't have the extra extra body heat to raise the temperature in the rest of the tent, even though I was pretty cozy in my 1970s down-filled sleeping bag. I was still a little chilly, especially before I dragged in my makeshift liner, and I had drink enough that I had to get up to pee in the middle of the night, and there was a generator running really close to my tent as well. I kept having the 'head inside sleeping bag = warm but can't breathe' vs 'head outside sleeping bag = cold but can breathe' debate, and I couldn't find my scarf to wrap my head it in and settle the issue. Alas. I am usually not bothered by that sort of thing at all, and probably could have coped if it was just the cold *or* the generator, but both together conspired too well to keep me awake. Boo. I was sort of zoned out most of the time, and because I am a total nerd kept thinking that this must be what it is like to be an elf who is trancing - sort of resting and also completely aware of what is going on @_@

I got up early again, giving up on sleep when the peeps in the tent beside mine got up and started taking their stuff down (they had to head out early). I decided I was going to make there be fire, because it was still freeeeezing. I used my gatherer skills to get wood and kindling, and my human socialization stills to borrow an igniter from the people beside us, and I made there be fire! Go me! Then we hung out until other folks woke up and things dried out, and pitched in to pack things up and clean up. And then Mara and I drove back, listening to more Night Vale. Next year, we have determined that we are going to try coming in the quiet camping, where there will be no raves and no generators after 10, but we can still sit around and chat quietly into the wee hours if we so desire.

After I came home and put shit away and showered and did a load of laundry and lay around like an exhausted lump doing nothing but writing this up, mostly so I don't fall asleep and completely mess up my sleep schedule @_@ Next I will post some pics to FB (I didn't take many this year, just a few of folks in garb before we went in), and then investigate some kind of dinner.