Overdue Post - Renaissance Festival

About a month ago, Jason & I went to College Station to visit our friends, Sylvia & Jake:

We thought it would be fun to go to the Renaissance Festival in Plantersville, TX together. Because of my sheer laziness in typing Renaissance, we will call it Ren Fest from here on. This festival is full of English (as in British-English) speaking people dressed in crazy attire. You see many fine people such as this man:


And of course, we can't forget this enchanting, lovely couple:


We walked around, taking in the weirdness of it all, when suddenly Sylvia & I saw something that we just had to do. We saw elephant rides! Now, I have no idea how elephants impacted the Renaissance era, but I'm not complaining. We immediately got in line to hop on. Sadly, we couldn't convince the men to accompany us. Oh well. Someone had to take pictures. Just see for yourself how we wrassled and tamed this elephant:

We also feasted on turkey legs, pizza (definitely Renaissance-inspired food here), lemonade and the biggest funnel cake ever. We saw axe-throwing contests, a dunking booth, a tomato booth and even sword fights. Then, Sylvia & I saw yet another thing we just had to do: a slingshot ride.

On this ride, they just slip a harness on you, attach giant rubber bands to either side and lift you in the air. Then, a Ren Fest-dressed man pulls you up and down while bouncing on a trampoline. You just get higher and higher. It was a blast! Sylvia tried it out first. She even snuck in a flip!

Just when you've gotten in the air, another Ren Fest-dressed man will sneak up and get you double!


Then, you go doubly high in the air!

Afterwards, we decided that we should go see a show. We decided to watch a Mud Fight. We sat in a small outdoor theater towards the back. There were two men on the stage, complete with a mud pit and a narrator. They divided the audience into two groups: the Trojans & the Spartans. For the record, that could be wrong and I actually have no idea what group we were in. Either way, each man challenged the other in different stunts. Here you can see our guy on the right & the other guy on the left with the narrator in the center:


First, they challenged each other with mud. Our guy ripped off his shirt and spread mud all over his chest and the other spread mud all over his face. Then, our guy said he would insult the other half of the audience by finding the most beautiful woman and kiss her. Sure enough, he found a woman and with his nasty, muddy chest, he kissed her.

The other guy (the one with his face covered in mud) said he would find the ugliest man on our side of the audience and kiss him. He walked around making us wonder who he would pick. All this time, Jason is hunching down as low as his 6'8" frame would go, eating his turkey leg and thinking "Don't pick on the tall guy. Please don't pick on the tall guy." So what happens? He stopped by Jake. (By the way, Jake isn't ugly. He was just an easy target.)

The mud guy then covers Jake with a sheet and plants a big one on him!

Jake, being the good sport that he is, took it like a man. (See? Not ugly.)


After this bit of emasculation, we headed to yet another show. I have no pictures from this show because it was pretty darn lame. Jake was hoping that Jason would get picked on, but no such luck. I admit, I was hoping he would get picked on too.

After this, we decided to leave as it was starting to get chilly. But before we could go, we had to convince a lovely couple to take a group picture.

Up until now, I hadn't realized that we lined up kindergarten-style: tallest to shortest. Our overall take of Ren Fest was that it was fun, unique and spread out enough that it wasn't too crowded. Would we make a day trip from San Antonio? Probably not. But the 30 minute drive from College Station was worth it.

The next morning, before we headed for home, Jason & I went to the Texas A&M campus so that he could reminisce about his college days. It has been several years since Jason had seen the campus, so I obliged his request. We toured campus for almost two hours in misty weather and had a good time. We walked through several of the buildings and he told me about many of the traditions. We even took a self-portrait under the century tree:

It was a busy weekend, but we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Thank you Sylvia & Jake for allowing us to crash at your house! We love you guys!