Ren Faire

Well today was a good day. Jana and I went to the Des Moines Ren Faire. We had a great time. I must say that the DM Ren Faire group has a great setup there, many wooden shops, nicely laid out, a wooded area for some groups, and just plenty of room. The portajohns were even put behind a wooden fence so that they were not in plain sight (a nice touch I must say). I have three complaints, 1) Parking was difficult 2) The roads were muddy in some places (thought is to be expected with so many feet and rain the week before) 3) The building did not seem to be completely done, you could see the modern technology in the back of most of them (thought that can be hard to hide).
The people were great, many people in costume. Many of the people that I have met at a Ren Faire were nice, and just fun (I don't get to meet many people like that in my normal life). Jana and I got stopped by a couple of people selling pickles (I don't know what it us, but people like to sell her pickles), and she told them no, she even went so far as to tell them that she would bite their dragon (since they threatened to have one attacker for not buying their pickles) - that caused some laughter around us.
We went and saw the jousters, they are good (amazing they aren't dead by now). We saw the Scurvvy Dawgs, a pirate comedy troupe, who hardly ever failed to get a laugh. During the second show that we saw with them, Jana tried to get one of the cast members stabbed with a tiny plastic sword.
We also saw the Muddy Misfits, they are funny, but in a very different way from the Scurvvy Dawgs. They (two of them) like to retell common stories (we saw Goldilocks) - but with much mud added in. Needless to say we got dirty (time to wash the kilt). Oh, Jana decided that the girl didn't have enough mud on her, and was very vocal about it. Jana almost got even more dirty then she already was.
In there, we go some good food. I got a bottle of root beer (okay, two). I did some archery (I need some practice at that), and threw some knives (I need a lot of practice at that). We got to see some neat items for sale.
As I already said, it was a great time. I would love to go again. Can't wait for next year.