Siouxland Renaissance Festival: Year 4

[vakkotaur]

Friday afternoon jmaynard, my folks, and I headed for Sioux Falls. The trip was mostly uneventful, save for one reckless nutcase is some little red car that decided the left lane (which we were not in) wasn't going fast enough and so passed us on the right, on the shoulder of I-90. This joker did did that at least once more, as we saw it happen again well ahead of us.

We checked into the hotel, waited a bit, called irpooh and foolscap001 and made arrangements for supper. We were wondering where rillaspins was, and then found she'd been waiting at the restaurant. Hopefully not waiting just too long. A very good and very filling meal was had, along with much discussion and catching up on things.

And now, the muddy weekend. If I've left anyone or anything out, it's no slight. I wasn't exactly taking notes. I was more watching where I stepped.

It rained sometime Friday night. And it had rained much of the week. This left things at the festival site rather muddy. More rain, even if not heavy, didn't help. The crowd was down, of course, with that weather. I never got a crowded feeling, which is a bit odd. But then there were few places to walk that weren't muddy. Some people had boots (I still need to clean mine) some gave up and walked barefoot (evidently not too concerned about what they might step on) and well, just about everyone really gave up and accepted that they'd have wet and muddy footwear.

Zilch the Tory Steller waded to the Crown Stage and did well. The Dew Drop Jugglers followed and the water seemed to be gathering around the stage, which they dubbed the Crown Island Stage. They said they'd never tried to juggle eleven flaming torches between them, but what safer place to try? I'm not sure, but I think they did manage it for a moment. The jousters decided that it was just too risky to do a real joust and did some educational bits instead.

My big purchase was a leather mug (with some liner so stuff in won't take on a leather taste) that'd been after for some time. This time the vendor I wanted to get it from wasn't crowded and so I had my chance and took it. That wasn't the only purchase, but it was was my biggest.

We had signed on to the after-hours party but decided it wasn't going to benefit anyone for us to stay until closing and then hang around for that. So we left early, did what we could to clean up our footwear, and generally cleaned up. For supper we were again joined by irpooh and foolscap001, who had not signed on to the after party thing.

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Sunday started out looking a bit better. At least it wasn't raining outright. I watched, and listened, to DeCantus warm up and then perform. Jay and I listened to and talked with Rosaleen Dhu for a bit. She would have been played dulcimer, but in the conditions she'd have been chasing the tuning around, so made do with less humidity sensitive instruments and voice.

The Crown Stage had been moved to a less inundated area and we saw Zilch and the Dew Drops again. This was the first time the Dew Drop Jugglers had been to the Sioux Falls festival and after one of their shows we told them we realized they had a lousy weekend with the rain. They seemed not to be too concerned. They were having fun despite conditions and finding everyone quite friendly. It was good to see new tricks and hear that they want to get more new material into the act so they aren't doing the same show over and over. The problem is, some folks want to see the same old thing, so they can't change everything.

To just about everyone's surprise, the jousters decided to go ahead and perform. They might have dropped the number of mounted passes some, but that they them at all was amazing. I was sure they'd rethink it after one bit. Ever see a 1900 lb draft horse come to a scrambling skidding stop? We did.

Another thing that surprised me was seeing Mistress Bawd, or rather she who plays Mistress Bawd. She was not performing at the fair this year for various reasons (not that she or the festival wanted her not to perform - more of a paperwork/communication/scheduling thing, it seems). So she was at the festival looking around, seeing it all, shopping. Now here's the impressive part. This person who was not performing, who is in the process of moving to Ireland, who doesn't live all that near Sioux Falls... chose to attend this out of her way festival as a patron.

Eventually we again decided that staying to closing wasn't going to do anyone any good, so we bid a few goodbyes and were on our way. The skies seemed to open as we left.

It wasn't perfect, but it was better than might be expected for the conditions. I don't know how bad the attendance was, and I do hope the Siouxland Renaissance Association isn't hit too hard by it all. Siouxland is the most fun and friendly of any of the festivals I've been to. They get so much right. Perhaps not ideal, but it's successive approximation. Unlike all too many places, the problems they can fix, they do fix. I think the biggest vote of confidence was that Mistress Bawd, who had any number of very good reasons to be elsewhere, spent her weekend there. If that wasn't it, then it was one of the jouster who stayed performed - though his wife had given birth to their son on Friday. I doubt anyone would have quibbled had he decided to be with family rather than muck about in the mud.