Sunday, May 1, 2011

A birthday excursion

On Saturday we took our annual excursion to the Moscow Renaissance Faire. I use the term "Renaissance" loosely since this event is most assuredly NOT a Ren Faire. Rather it's a hippie fest held in the college town of Moscow, Idaho. It's a lot of fun and since it falls close to Younger Daughter's birthday, it's become our annual excursion.

(By the way -- Younger Daughter is turning THIRTEEN!! Yikes, where has the time gone?)

The day started out sunny. This was such a rare novelty that I took a picture.


Here's Younger Daughter and her friend Miss Calamity, in costume (with warm clothes underneath -- the day was chilly). Older Daughter was with us and had a friend along as well, but they weren't in costume and declined to be photographed.


The assurance that merchandise is made from recycled materials is typical at this fair.


Stage and seating.


A booth selling Tie Dye Everything. Trust me, this would NEVER happen at a Ren Faire. Neat booth, though. Very colorful.


A really cool Chinese dragon, set up on hoops so children can go through it. At the end of the day the dragon goes on a parade around the fair with whatever children want to take part.


A young woman in a most extraordinary costume. Apparently she's part of a phenomenon called cosplay, where people dress up as characters from books. Not my cup of tea, but she seemed delighted to pose.


The obligatory Renaissance royalty, bundled up against the chilly temperatures.


Getting ready to dance a Maypole dance. Miss Calamity is on the right.


This fellow was watching the Maypole dance. Not a bad costume...


...until we noticed the four lip piercings, which sort of ruined the effect.


Someone had set up a Hulo hoop station. Older Daughter is quite good at Hula hooping -- during this photo, she hooped for ten minutes straight!


After that she didn't do too bad with three hoops at once.


This tyke wasn't going to let a little thing like size deter her.


I dubbed this dog the Legless Wonder.


Toward the late afternoon, the Chinese dragon went on its excursion around the fair.


Younger Daughter and Miss Calamity got to join the ranks. Since they were bigger kids, they each held an umbrella which helped support the body of the dragon.


Altogether a delightful time was had by all, and to our surprise the weather held. (We had a gullywasher rainstorm in the evening.) But we were chided about our earthly mortality by a barn billboard we passed en route on the way home.

9 comments:

  1. Looks like a lot of fun (except the lip piercings, those didn't look like they'd be fun)!

    Happy birthday to Younger Daughter!

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  2. 21 May???? Is there a time?? We're 6 hours ahead of you - and I need to plan!

    Our base is having the Spouses Challenge that day - we'll have to run fast...

    Whew! I just checked the photo again - the cataclysmic event will happen at 1830-2000. I'll be in bed by then!
    KatieJ
    Germany

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  3. Happy Birthday to Youngest Daughter!

    For Mom & Dad, if you think it flew by fast to this point, it goes faster from here on....enjoy each moment while you can :)

    The Faire looks like fun, but I'm a sucker for any kind of craft/art show so I can't be objective about these things, hehehe.......

    LOL @ the dog with "no legs".....

    It's so green there....it's like WOW green there.....I can't wait to get out of the brown desert *snickering*......

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  4. I'm happy for you that the weather held, but it got me to thinking that there would be tremendous entertainment value were Mr. Maypole Dance watcher and a dozen or so of his heavily pierced friends to be caught out in the open in a lightning storm.

    But that's just me.

    Jeff - Tucson

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  5. Phyllis (N/W Jersey)May 2, 2011 at 12:30 PM

    Ah, the Maypole! Brought back memories of grammer school (over 60 years ago). How excited we were when we were handed that ribbon to wrap around and around the pole. Too bad it's not done now-a-days in schools. It was such a sweet custom! Isn't it great how we can remember our childhood as being so carefree and innocent.I was truly lucky.
    Happy birthday to younger daughter and congrats to older daughter with the hula hoop - I would be in traction for a month if I ever did that for 10 minutes!!

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  6. Heheh, I am very familiar with cosplay. Cosplay is where you not only dress up as a character but often act out that character as well. Its a very popular thing among anime/manga fans, and its loads of fun. Usually its just teenagers and twenty-somethings that do it, but I've seen some killer costumes on older fans. Thankfully, they often pick more mature looking characters rather some teeny-bopper look. I'm getting more and more into the steampunk stuff now that I'm older, and my sister is leaning towards medieval reenactment which is a little more hard core than Ren Fest.

    ~Lily~

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  7. The loon who is pitching that prediction is local to us here in N Ca. This is not his first prediction. He wasn't right on the others either. No I won't mention his name - I won't give him the PR... He looks like a skeleton....

    What part of "No man shall know the day or the hour" don't these people get?

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  8. What a FUN day!! You deserve a break today, er uh, Saturday. Happy birthday to Younger Daughter. Our YoungEST Daughter turned 13 on April 27th! Maybe they share B-days! Where has time gone is so true. We home school, too!
    -K in OK <><

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  9. To Jeff-Tuscon..what if Mr. Maypole Dancer was dancing around the Maypole with his dozen heavily pierced friends and they bumped into each other? Just for entertainment... hey it's almost as bad as the lightning scene!
    --K in OK <><

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