Pat, his mom, his step-mom & I went up to the
Des Moines Renaissance Faire on Saturday; it was pretty neat. They're obviously wanting to set this up as a permanent thing: there was crushed rock everywhere, laid out as paths, and permanent buildings (a plywood & brick castle, vendors' buildings, performing and "feasting" pavilions, etc) were set up. I think that the neatest part of the day was when the
New Riders of the Golden Age did their joust performance; the lance-work was real (that is, real wooden lances, not faked up to shatter photogenically) and very neat, though the "storyline" was fairly predictable -- the handsome blonde knight was the chivalrous good guy and the dark-haired guy with the goatee was the bad guy
of course, since everyone knows the
goatee = evil equation (hear that, Nathan?). Although I have got to say that I did
not expect evil Sir Matthew to
stand up on his horse in full plate and do "off the top rope" onto Sir William. Here are some photos.
Sorry I didn't get any photos of the "off the top rope" move; I was standing there, dumbfounded, camera in hand. But you can see photos of it
on their website.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)