Capture The Magic

So today was my first visit this year to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival.  Like an old friend, it was waiting for me.  Like a bit of a dork, I needed to get there to reset a number of items personally.  I mean, the Renfest Grounds are big.  If you take a look at that image, it contains more than a few changes, in addition to the entire grounds.

For starters, the entrance has moved south on 169. If you pull that image up in another window, right below where it says "Bryan Rock Products Shakopee/Hwy 169" you see a grey line that stops short of the line representing 169 South. That horizontal line is the old entrance. For some reason, they decided to move the entrance down the road to what is identified on this image as W 150th St. If you zoom in a little further, you'll see where what is Red Rock Road meets with 145th St. W, also known, at least to me and a few other folks, as the old entrance. And you'll note that Red Rock Road parallels another vertical sort of line, which is actually train tracks.

The tracks and trains are not visible from the grounds, but they were the most vexing part of this morning's arrival. My intention was to get there before 9 am, and instead, we were the third vehicle trapped behind a Canadian Pacific train which was being an utter dick. I say this when I have a number of extended family members - many of them my mother's brothers, and my grandfather - who made their living working for the railroads. But this batch was a freshly laid set of highly suspect eggs. I mean, who in their ... well, I'll say diminished capacity, because obviously this thing was not planned in any sort of intelligent way, sends a freight train led by SEVEN locomotives down a set of tracks that block the primary entrance to an event that has been held for 49 of the previous 50 years in the same damned spot every single weekend from mid-August to the end of September, then stops the damned train blocking that primary entrance, and then SITS THERE IMMOBILE FOR A HALF-HOUR. I had fantasies of getting a few of my fellow future attendees together to disconnect the middle of the train and push a fair number of cars back out of the way, because obviously, the individual running this train belongs right up there in the locomotive command pantheon with the nitwit who thought it was funny to slow his train and block the fire department from crossing to reach a fire emergency. While I do not know if the story is true or apocryphal, but it was so widely quoted amongst my family members there must have been some truth to it.

Anyway, after the half-hour or so delay, we were finally allowed to proceed into the field and park our vehicle. And then, hoof it to the gates. We were probably a good three-quarters of a mile from that main gate, and, unfortunately, due to someone prospecting the aggregate that had been under a portion of the parking lot, we also had to make our way down into, and up out of, about a 30-foot deep ravine. It's the big tan spot in the lower center of the image above.

And then, the scary part started. Back in February of 2020, I had purchased a pair of season tickets on a sale. At the time, I did not have a decent printer, so was not able to download and print the tickets immediately. And about six weeks after I bought the tickets, I was told I'd be working from home for the foreseeable future because my office was closing due to the pandemic.

Yeah, we were all in the same boat. I know. And when I found out that the 2020 Renaissance Festival had been canceled, I was assured my season tickets would be good for 2021. And so, Friday night, I printed out the original purchase email with the confirmation numbers on it. I'd never bought season tickets, so I didn't know what to expect. But I had been reading up plenty, and knew that I would need to go to the Will Call window at the main ticket booth to obtain my tickets. And that was ... easy.

I walked up to the window, and rather flustered, told the woman behind it what had occurred - like I'm sure she was totally unaware of the world-changing events of the last 18 months. Duh. She took my name. Took my wife's name. And then handed me two tickets, and two red-ribboned medallions. It turns out that the medallions are all I will need to returns. I'll need to go to that same ticket booth, the same will-call window, give my name, show my medallion, and get a pair of tickets.

So that worked out far easier than I had expected. And then, as we crossed a small bridge, passing between a small group of costumed attendees/players (one is never sure. I am fairly experienced with attending this particular event, but I can tell you that it is a very popular place for those who choose to cosplay - and these costumes are not at all limited to those of a medieval bent. I saw everything this year from period-accurate costumes to elaborate 21st-Century re-creations of ball gowns women might have worn in the 1800s. And yes, I did see a Star Trek Next Generation command uniform - complete with communicator - and pushing a stroller) with a very well behaved husky working dog with his vest on for his human partner.

And then we crossed under the gate, and onto the grounds. It was literally fifteen steps onto the grounds when the smells and the sounds nearly overwhelmed me. I felt the tears well up, the hundreds of hours of facing medical situations that I could do precious little to affect, only hope that I had done everything right so that the poor patient and their family would not receive a bill because their insurance company decided we were unworthy. I felt ... almost the same old me, as I stood there, the light and the breeze carried those horrible feelings of being trapped and being useless, and I became me again. And I soaked it in.

One of the things I expected to learn as we marched our way around the grounds was just what the hell the last 18 months of sitting at a desk in my basement had done to my already-questionable physical conditioning. I mean, I've been far from athletic for many years, but for six, I worked my work days on my feet, moving constantly, back and forth, hauling heavy loads, and spending a whole, perhaps, 60 minutes off my feet on a great day when I had enough staffing and we were far enough ahead that I was able to take both of my fifteen-minute breaks and my meal during the typical 8 hour shift. So yeah, I did a lot of on-my-feet time for six years. And that ended in 2018 when I traded the physical demands of that job for one that required a hell of a lot more of my brain and my ass, and paid $3 an hour more for it.

And I'm not as bad off as I'd feared, but I'm no where near the man I was 30 years ago. Then again, none of us is. But with temperatures and humidity that ranged from "ugh" to "borderline dangerous" (our temperatures were in the low-to-mid 80s, with dew points in the 60s, meant we weren't quite tropical, but we were unpleasant enough). We did make it around about 2/3rds of the ground. I saw and learned a great deal, but I will go back several more times.

Some years ago, I realized that when it comes to local events like the Minnesota State Fair and Renaissance Festival, they are wonderful opportunities to people watch, take in a few live entertainers, they're really primarily paying for the privilege of shopping. And between the two, I am far far far more pleased with the experience of the Renaissance Festival. I find the vendors there are far far more artisans than the folks I found at the State Fair. After all, many of the people at the state fair use it to make their money for the year. And that means a certain scale of inventory is required, along with substantial product movement. If you are intending to have that twelve day event provide a substantial amount of your annual income, you gotta move a lot of product, and you gotta make a significant markup. Which means most of the folks I've ever run into at the State Fair are demonstrators for a product they found elsewhere and they're trying to sell.

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Renfest vendors, by far, are more likely to be the people who made the items, or are family to the folks who made it, and it's something that these people do because they've got genuine talent, a real artist's gift, and they enjoy the experience. And let me tell you that the items I found at Renfest are just flat-out impressive. There are a wide range of items which would please most of my family members and relatives, and I'd be happy to give them as gifts. Of course, there are the artisans like the fellow who made wind chimes out of metal pipes which were - the shortest pipes, anyway - over 6 feet long. Yes, his chimes were over $350, but they had some spectacularly low chimes that were less "tinkly" and far more bell-like. And by bell, I mean the sort you hang in a very tall tower and use long ropes - or machines - to ring.

I did not spend nearly enough time there today, I shall return. Probably next weekend, to do more scouting about. One of the items I really wanted to find, but didn't make it to the most likely area (to the Arms & Armor booth to get a look at a genuine Claymore sword, if they have one), but there's always next time. And I really do like the idea that the next time I can go, I do not need to get to the grounds at 7 am, spend my entire day from 7 am to sunset wandering the grounds, taking in everything one day only for the entire season, but can take my time, leave before the outbound traffic lanes are less like country dirt roads, and more like 35W north-or-southbound into downtown Minneapolis every weekday.

It is a fairly big investment, from my budget, to spent $200 on anything that isn't an existing bill or groceries. But I think that the cost of two season passes might be a big part of my entertainment budget for years to come. I mean, aside from the Cable TV bill which is primarily an adjunct to the cable modem my wife and I require for work, this may be a priority in our entertainment. If it helps keep me being me, and I am able to smile and smell the grounds just by remembering the most recent trip, waiting 3 years to go back isn't that good an idea. And I have found that I need not acquire beautiful things - just to see them and know that there are artisans out there who can do this sort of work, and I can look at their product and be inspired, well, that's not a half-bad investment. I'm not much on buying expensive vacation memories and the like because all too soon those memories will be gone. And I'll have nothing to show for it. But if it makes me a decent human, easier to live with, and someone who will remember how to grin, well, that's not an entirely bad investment. I mean, if I take out the 104 weekend days, and the ten or so holidays a year, then I'm spending 79¢ a day for me, and one other, to attend. That's ... cheap. And I can justify that sort of expense easily if it makes me human again. And it did.