I drove Alena to visit her friends in Michigan to visit the renaissance fest there.
We also tried taking an alternative route to avoid driving through the center of Detroit, but it ended up taking us through the center of suburbia, and we ended up running pretty late. It did take us past a bunch of lakes, which was nice
Once we arrived and parked, it was a long walk through some kind of nature preserve to get to the actual fair location. It was a struggle, but we managed somehow.
There was an insane line just to scan the digital tickets, and when it was finally our turn, it turned out the tickets hadn't saved correctly, so we had to pull up the site again, but there was no mobile signal, so I had to leave the line to find somewhere with enough connection to load the page. I did manage to get it and someone was kind enough to let me back in line near the front, so I didn't have to wait the entire time again.
Once in the fair proper, we met up with Brittany and Eric, and set out to find the rumored mermaid tea.
The mermaid tea turned out to be tea and lemonade with the addition of several wasps. After drinking and being harassed by bug defense force, we decided to head to the location where they were having the jousting tournament and get some lunch.
Along the way, we encountered a parade, with the King and his entourage
All of the food places had super long lines, and after investigating various options, we eventually settled for chicken tendies, since everything else seemed to be out.
While we were waiting in line, the first round of jousting started. We knew they would be doing it again later, so we weren't that concerned about missing it, but I did manage to get some nice shots with my zoom lens through gaps in the crowd.
This thing is basically cheating at photography.
Anyway, we found a random patch of grass to sit in, since all of the nearby seating was taken. The patch was also near the next event, which was birds of prey / falconry demonstration. Once again, the zoom lens comes in clutch.
At the end, the bird flew up on to the roof and refused to come down. We weren't sure if it was part of a bit, or if the bird was actually misbehaving.
In any case, we headed to the jousting arena to try and get some good seats in as close to shade as we could find.
While waiting, I set off to find something interesting to drink. I had heard rumors of a pie shake, and managed to find it pretty much by chance. Of course, while the sign above advertised smoothies, it turned out they did not actually serve smoothies there. I got a shake for myself and Alena, and after waiting for half an hour for it to be made, I wearily made my way back.
The shake was good, but at that point, milk was a bad choice.
Anyway, it was time for the next round of jousting, and we had a much better view this time.
The half of the stadium we were in all started chanting "Mr Clean" in support of our sides knight, who was sadly bereft of hair.
They also did a demonstration where they tried to cut a pumpkin in half off of a dummies head, and Mr Clean ended up hitting the dummy. He was berated for killing the poor think while the helpers in the field started giving it CPR.
Both jousters ended in a tie, so they had a hand to hand brawl to decide the winner.
And finally, the last picture I took was of the very good dog that our seat neighbors had, who we got to pet a lot. It seemed to take a particular liking to me.
After that, we made our way out and headed for Brittany's house, where we would be spending the night before heading home.
Once at Brittany and Erics house, we showered and got some fancy noodles. We then watched Cabin in the Woods, which was fun.
Eric and I also got to talk a lot about various tech stuff, and he even gave me an old server computer he wasn't using anymore.
But most importantly, they have cats
Some pics from the trip home. Detroit's roads tried to trick us into going to Canada, but we managed to outsmart it.
The computer Eric gave me
