Once upon a time there was a beautiful summery weekend that came in the middle of Fall. And so the villagers decided to visit two fairs in as many days, to take advantage of the "faire" weather.
First, the Oktoberfest. What better way to enjoy an indian summer afternoon than dancing to an oompa band, sipping pale ale from frosty mugs, and chowing on knockwurst, bratwurst, and potato pancakes with applesauce and sour cream? The kids loved the music. Aiden even did half of a chicken dance competition with me, until he chickened out (ha ha) when the tempo got too furious for him. And Haley has her own special brand of oompa dancing; I think we'll have to download some german beer music for her on iTunes.
On Sunday we left Andy behind to complete eleven million chores and watch football, while Aiden, Haley and I (along with Cristine, Sonya, Finn, and Molly) piled into the mini-van and headed 2.5 hrs south to King Richard's Faire. Mike and Kyle got to drive separately in a much more reasonably sized vehicle. The "faire" was wild- lots of crazy things to do and see... if you don't mind shelling out a few pieces of gold, so to speak. Aiden tried catapulting (stuffed) animals, archery, knife throwing (no age restriction, go figure... maybe Haley should've tried it), and zip-line dragon slaying. We sunk our teeth into the obligatory humongous roast turkey legs for lunch, washed down with raspberry mead, honey mead, and plain ol' beer. Other highlights included "Cirque du Sewer" which featured trained rats walking tightropes and jumping through burning hoops, and the "Mud Show" which I didn't see (Haley was taking a nap) but sounded very messy. All sorts of fancifully costumed people roamed around too, making the people watching just as entertaining as any of the actual performances. There were giants on stilts, knights in chain maille, winged fairies with flower wreaths on their heads, fauns with devilish horns, and lots and lots of impressive cleavage on display! The bar wenches were especially well endowed, and allowed customers to place tips in the convenient "notch" between their jugs. If Finn and Aiden had been paying attention to anything but the weaponry, they'd have gotten quite an education!
After five hours of revelry, the villagers were quite weary and headed home... to dream of "faire" weekends happily ever after.
No comments:
Post a Comment