Worlds Worst Renaissance Festival

A few weeks back, a Renaissance Festival appeared in town. It's kind of amazing that we even found out about it, because the advertising was minimal at best. In fact, I have no idea how we even heard about it! It's a local group putting on this Ren Fest, and they intend to do it twice a year; once in the spring, and once in the fall. As someone who feels mildly cheated out of getting to be a Ren Fest worker as a teenager due to the lack of festivals in central Illinois and not owning a car during college, I've had a soft spot in my heart for Renaissance Festivals. Meat on sticks, people in goofy costumes talking in accents, jousting, jesters, and let us not forget the ale. Or the mead--I still have clear memories of the honey wine I had in the fall of 2002 in the suburbs of Minnesota. Anyway, it was published as costing only $5, so we scheduled some time on a weekend afternoon to visit the Land of the Ye Olde. As it turns out, we were there for less than 20 minutes, and it was not worth the ten bucks it cost us to get in. The "festival" was at the Washington County Fairgrounds, and took up a wee bit of the vast fairground space. There was no jester, no jousting, no real food, and absolutely no mead. No king or queen, only a magician and some (bad) minstrels. Most of the "festival" was booths where people were selling fairy wings. It was mightily disappointing, let me tell you. Next year, though, we're going to go to the Tulsa Ren Fest which happens at some place called The Castle. Already sounds better, right? We couldn't go this year due to wedding planning and other obligations, but rest assured, I will make sure that Doug gets a good Ren Fest experience at some point in our lives. I swear it will be done (Princess Bride reference intended).