Saturday morning, April 26, Justin and I set off from Chattanooga heading to Atlanta. We got a later start than we’d hoped, so we got to Atlanta after the opening at the Renaissance Festival. We tried to check into the hotel we’d be staying at that night, but they were totally booked and weren’t able to give us access to our room until later in the day. So we went to the faire.
Missing the beginning meant we missed the few lines that our friends, Becky and Julie, give during that portion of the faire, but we did manage to search them down later on. They decided a while back that working/performing at the Ren Faire was on their “Bucket List” so they tried out to be musicians this year. They somehow managed to end up as Cast instead, meaning they’re part of the crew of people who do different skits during different parts of the day. Becky and Julie spend all day, all weekend, in character, dressed up as peasants who pretend to clean different areas in the faire while singing folk songs to the people around them. It’s hard and it’s hot and they had to do a lot of hard work before hand, like learning the King’s English, to do what they’re doing. But as far as I can tell, they are having an absolute blast doing it. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t trade it for anything. They were also able to score a bunch of tickets for their friends and family, so Justin and I were able to get into the faire for free!
Becky, by the way, is our friend who’s traveling around the States in her Casida camper trailer. If you’re ever interested in hearing about what that’s like, she keeps a blog over at Interstellar Orchard. Julie is going to be joining her later this year when they head out to Nevada to work on the Amazon Camper-Force this fall.
But for now, back to the Ren Fest. As always we had a lot of fun. We tracked Becky and Julie down a couple of times to see them in action. The rest of the day, we wandered around and saw shows and browsed shops and had fun.
We saw one of Justin’s favorites, “Cirque du Todd“, juggling and doing other feats of humorous silliness.
He was followed by one of my favorites, “Hey Nunnie Nunnie,” a couple of singing nuns. (Heads up, that link will automatically start playing music.)
We caught “The Washing Well Wenches” with their usual good-natured inappropriateness.
I made my traditional necklace purchase. I have a weakness for pendant necklaces and they have so many of them there. This year I got a little glass leaf.
Justin still wasn’t feeling well, so he left as soon as we were able to check into the hotel. He went back to rest and recoup a little bit. I stayed and caught a “Barely Balanced” show, a group of acrobat comedians.
I’m really not sure if you can see it in that photo, but that’s one guy laying on his back, propping up the gals thighs, while the other guy stands on top of her thighs, while she’s doing a really impressive split, and the two guys are juggling flaming clubs.
And then I stayed for the last “Tortuga Twins” show of the day, which is always the most rowdy one of the day. They were having a blast and ended up going longer than their time-slot.
After that, I went to listen to the Pub Sing, where the musicians and cast tend to end up at the end of the day, where I got to catch up with Becky and Julie again. After the singing was over, I had to leave the premises along with the rest of the guests, and the girls went backstage to Becky’s camper to change. I waited for them at the staff parking exit, because I had no other way of getting back to the hotel, and then we went to pick up Justin for dinner.
We went out for the traditional after-faire Mellow Mushroom dinner, which was as delicious as always. And then we went back to the hotel, where we pretty much just sat around chatting while the girls each took advantage of our shower. The shower at their campground is about the size of a very small closet, with inconsistent water temperature. Julie is driving back and forth to the faire from home each week, so she has nice showers at home during the week. But Becky is living at the faire campgrounds full-time, so she jumped at the opportunity to take a nice, hot shower.
By the time showers were done, we were all starting to fall asleep sitting in our chairs. It’s a long, hot, tiring day wandering around the faire, so we said our good-nights and everyone set off for bed.
The next morning, the girls went back to work at the faire and offered us another set of free tickets, but Justin and I were tired and decided to head home instead. We had planned to stop at a Costco on our way out of Atlanta, but it ended up being closed, so we went straight home. It was an uneventful drive and we got home before 4:00 that afternoon. Thankfully, the house was still there and everything was in order. We dragged in our luggage, worked on unpacking, and relaxed a little before heading to bed. I had to get up to work in the morning, so I made sure to get unpacked and prepared so I could jump right back into being at work.
The following morning, by the way, was awful. My boss made me cry at the 7:00 meeting. It was embarrassing and frustrating, but he apologized by giving me an orchid.
And that was our whirlwind trip! To quickly recap:
4/16: Justin flew out to California, I worked
4/17: Justin spent time in San Diego, I worked
4/18: I flew out to San Diego
4/19: We went to Desert Hot Springs
4/20: Spent the day in Desert Hot Springs
4/21: Went back to San Diego
4/22: Spent the day in San Diego
4/23: Flew to Atlanta, drove to Chattanooga
4/24: Spent the evening at Nathan’s house
4/25: Spent the day in Chattanooga
4/26: Drove to Atlanta, spent the day at the GA Ren Fest
4/27: Drove back home
And that’s the end of Part Five and the last post about that trip. Now I’ll get back to posting about other things that are happening around here. 🙂