Renfest 2022, Part III, The End.

 Okay, it's over, but just in case this is useful, here goes.

First up, on getting to the grounds, I will say that, short of the discovery of the "back entrance" some 25 years ago, I discovered, last weekend, the very best way to get to the grounds.  MVTA - AKA The Metro Bus.

The main reason we chose to take the bus was time - though there were a number of warnings that other entrance methods for the Renaissance Festival Grounds, INCLUDING the country roads, would be closed.  I didn't want to push it and experience what they meant, so we hit the bus.

First up, they have one pickup spot.  It's south of 169 on the Marschall Road exit.  Get off 169, head south on Marschall road to the first stop light.  Take a right, follow the road down to the first street, another right, then follow the road to the very end.  It's a Park-and-Ride lot.  

On this last weekend, we determined we would be best off taking that route.  However, the stupid move was taking Highway 13 to 169 South.  What we should have done was follow the County Road 42 route west to Marschall road, then head north to get to the park and ride.

When we got there, there were a few spots left in the park-and-ride lot.  My guess is if this becomes more popular, and I do dearly hope it does, maybe they'll run a shuttle from the Burnsville transit station, with a heck of a lot more parking, over to the Shakopee station.  Add another $2 per person for the trip, and that would be fantastic.  

This was good enough.  We pulled into a spot, headed over to where there was a waiting bus, and we were the last two to board.  Which meant we would stand the entire trip, but we'd be the first two off the bus.  Our driver was normally a metrobus Mechanic who was picking up some extra hours/income driving the bus to Renfest, and he'd made one trip so far.  So he wasn't really sure how to get there.  As I'd taken the route he was about to take several times over the past few weeks, I knew it well.  We headed south on Marschall and I guided the driver to take a right onto 150th street.  We were on that road about a mile when the bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go traffic started.  One county deputy was in the intersection where we had turned south the weekend before, and road blocks were set up to continue to the west.  A lot of traffic before us was turning left and right, only a few cars were trying to go west.  We waited perhaps 15 minutes, got through the intersection, went to the top of the next hill, and saw another section of bumper-to-bumper traffic.  This collection had a couple of deputies, and the road continuing west was fully blocked by two deputies standing by the mobile fences.  If you wished to continue down that road, you were going to have to show your license, or be on the bus.  So away we went.  

Then, onto the grounds, and right up to the front gates.  Excellent service.  

And so now that we're there, let me give you a little bit of a flavor of the place.

Just inside the King's gate, you'll see to the immediate right the information booth.  They know all, fest-ground-wise, so ask there if you need help.  Otherwise there will be programs straight ahead of you on large tables, and to your left will be a stand which was, for many years, the St. John's Bread stand.  Run by my alma mater, and one of the few organizations out there which had a legitimate claim to knowing what went on in the medieval ages, as they were there - "they" being The Order Of St. Benedict, Inc.  Yup.  When I was in High School, long about Sophomore year, they celebrated their "sesquemillenium" - er, that is what you do when you turn 1500.  Yup.  

So anyway, let's curl to the left.  You're now leaving the immediate gate area known as "Oven Hill Market" and headed into "Cartwheel Cove."  Following the "street" you'll pass down along vendors who do wood carving, classwork, wax flowers and figures, and glasswork.  And metalwork.  Which pretty much comprises most of the Renfest vendors, that is, except for pottery, which is a little further down the way, then there will be clothing.  A short walk that way, and you'll come to "Mermaid Cove" - or as I overheard one man say as he passed by "what's the big deal?  Fish with boobs."  But as the attraction has been aimed mostly at children, that explains why the long lines were parallel to the food counters, waiting to get into Mermaid Cove, with parents and children in varying levels of excitement.

If you follow the outside line, you continue down a little hill and into one of the first "food-focused" areas.  Think Medieval food court.  Lots of food vendors on your left side, while your right has mostly drink vendors.  So if you plan on going to Renfest, be prepared to wait in line, because if you want, say, a hamburger, fries, and a drink that's three lines.  So your best bet is to divide and conquer.  One member of the party seeks and saves seats at the tables, one lines up for drinks, one for the food, one for the side dish.  

And there ya go.  Continuing around the outside line past the food vendors, one of my favorite places comes along - it has a number of products which can be used to display your historical family crest.  That is, your crest if you believe you belong to that family.  My family crest is somewhat older and connected to the German region, which leaves it a bit dated.  So I made my own, but that's a different post.

They have lots of different items you can order, and receive in time for Christmas.  Typically 5-7 weeks or so.  So there's that, which is nice.  

Just past that spot there's one of the better outdoor stages, Gypsy Robin Hood Stage, deeply shaded for most of the day, which makes it nice and cool.  And a comfy place to watch a show.  

Across the way, past the many food vendors, you'll find Chimegarden.  That is, outdoor wind chimes.  Not the tinkly little crap you see in the grocery store, but real, proper, tuned chimes.  Think church bell tones.  Very low, and extremely well-tuned.  In fact, I lightly tapped on of the chimes, and it was still vibrating 30 seconds later.

A but further on, again on the left side as you go around, you'll leave the Cartwheel Cove and head into the Treetop Round area.  This is where things can get a little confusing.  I'm going to stick to the outside path, then down below circle the two "islands".

On the left, you'll find a steampunk shop with the time traveler's message board out front.  One of my favorites from this year was "Hawking always threw terrible parties".  You have to be a little bit odd to get the joke - which was that in order to disprove the existence of Time Travel, Stephen Hawking organized and held a party.  Then publicized that he had done it after it happened.  

So there's that joke.  But as you continue around, you'll work your way back up the little hill, past a number of haberdashers - that is, folks who sell hats - and a few other spots.  On your right, you'll see more food places, with another slightly smaller seating area.  On your right and left you'll pass more stages.  And the location of the "CrossSwords Pub" which has a Throne of Swords replica which had been a regular shop the past few years, this year looks like they turned it into a pub.  But you can continue on down around into the "Narrow Market" region, which has some of my favorite shops.  

One of the shops I'll be returning to next year will be Broomhilde - which has walking sticks and staffs of some extremely high quality.  I found last year, and again this year, they have six-foot-tall staffs, some topped with clear glass balls, and others topped with baseball-sized 20-sided dies of various colors.  So yeah.  Another high point for me on each visit is to get a good look at the sign blocking off the stairway to the upper level, which says "No Admittance - Party Business Only." 

Last year they had a shop called "Dragon's Breath" - which was a collection of laser-carved items.  Pretty cool, and one of the most excellent place names.  Yes, I'm a sucker. It was right next to the Queen's Gate entrance, which is next to the Crown Stage, one of the more elaborate stage setups on the grounds - it is one of several which does use medieval electrical amplifiers to enhance the audience's overall experience.  

Past that stage, up a little hill, is where you will find one of my very favorite vendors, LaVinge Leather.  A family which does a lot of excellent leatherwork.  Not as in "oh, look, that's cool" - as in "oh, hey, I'm still using the wallet I bought here twenty years ago."  Yes.  I still am.  And gave them a product idea this year - Dog poop bag holders.  They're going to work on it.  

But if you need a wallet, a belt, or any other sort of leather good, check them out.  Their stuff is excellent.

Then, as we proceed along the outer rim, we're getting close to my own personal favorite spot on the grounds.  I've written about it before, but it does mark the spot where I went from being acquaintance/friends with a young lady to "This Is Someone Special."  I won't bore you with it, but I will note that for the first time in 42 years, I finally found a shop on the Renfest Grounds selling items which had encouraged me to go to the Renfest in the first place.  Game Dice, dice trays, rolling towers, and ... other accessories.  Yes, that's right.  I'm that sort of nerd.  Ill Gotten Gaines is, if I recall right, the name of the place. I can't seem to find their business card, it might be upstairs, but when I do, I will mention them again and add a link.

So if you continue on a bit further, you will pass from Narrow Market to Folkstone Well, which starts (if you're following this travelogue) with a pub which is backed by the Renfest Museum.  You'll find a number of spectacular pieces they've acquired from vendors over the years, including the stained glass window which took my breath away on my first visit.  

Following the outside row of shops, you'll head into the major food end of the fest, where it's also the warmest portion.  There's very little shade out near the Jousting track, which makes some sense.  But as you continue onward, you'll pass the games area and the Blue Lion Tavern, and you will pass a number of vendors with some pretty unique items in the area which is the most poorly named one on the grounds - "Marketplace".  Yeah.  I usually think of it as "The Eastern Dry".  As it usually is, though there are a number of beverage sellers.

You'll also pass another tavern next to an arms and armor shop as you enter "Shepherd's Green".  It's under new management now, but for many years, it was the home of Angel Swords.  I did spend some hours - and more than a little bit of money - at that shop, but no sword yet.  I do have a "Flame Kris" which is a narrow blade which is very much shaped like a flash of fire, waving up into the sky.  I have also seen him drive a dagger - not my flame kris, but another one of his - through coins.  Not renfest coins, he did, however, offer a man a discount on a dagger after he drove it through a penny, a nickle, and a quarter.  And then used the tip to slice paper cleanly.  So yeah, I'm a bit biased when it comes to blades.  I have seen the Angel swords cut metal.  

And they also allowed my son and I to make a couple of our own swords.  Which was a neat little trick, because all they did was heat a pair of double-headed nails in the forge, then let us pound the heads flat, making them look like miniature swords.   So I have that memory I can carry with me forever.

You will, eventually, as you follow the outside row of shops, reach the beached ship which marks The Legend Stage.  It's the stage where you'll find Puke & Snot, one of the very few acts which can claim to have spent more years at Renfest than me.  They were a legend some 40 years ago, but their show may seem old - it never is.  It may have some of the same schtick, but it will make you laugh.  One of my favorite jokes was when Puke, one of the performers, said "hey, I got a leak in my new mug!"  Snot the First, who has since passed away, said "go ahead, it's your mug."  

Now, if you were raised as I was, that joke will catch you totally off guard and leave you laughing.  These guys are legendary in many ways, but they love to play with the language.  Some of their better lines do end up on Tee Shirts.  This year, there was "My failure to understand ancient Greek is my Achilles Knee" and an image of a man in a more Tudor-era outfit with a bird on his fist, with the title "Millenium Falconry".  

Yes.  Like that. 

As you continue past the legend's stage, there are a couple of other legendary locations.  Out a bit away from the King's Dungeon you will find a broken-off tower that stands about 16 feet tall.  It had formerly been known as The Queen's Tower, where they sold The Queen's Nuts.  Yeah, like that.  Nut rolls.

As you continue up the hill, you will leave Shepherd's Green and move back into Oven Hill Market - which means you're getting back close to the gate.  You will pass the Viking encampment, which is pretty interesting, but then you'll come to the end of the dark ages.  That's right, a building with a working water wheel which is now a scriptorium.  That is, they produce hand-lettered work, and make paper.  Thus the water wheel comes in handy.  Behind the water wheel is one of the oldest stages in the Renfest grounds, which was originally built next to a bakery shop by the folks at the Minnesota Children's Theater.  Back in 1972, they built the stage and seating benches, and did come out to perform each year for a number of years.

The stage is now known as the Bakery Stage on the map.  The bakery next to it is gone, now it's a pub, but it's known as "The Pub of the Laughing Buns".  Yeah, like that.

As you follow the rim around, there are a number of clothing and jewelry shops, and carts including the very worst one, which sells a sort of whistle most children seem to require on the grounds, and is capable of making either an extremely high screech, or a sort of warbling bird noise.  Quaint and pretty when it's not multiplied some thousand times, but it is what it is.

So anyway, if you continue your way around you'll end up back at the entrance, behind the main gates.

And so this is probably the best spot for me to go back and give you a little travelogue of the "islands".  There are two areas on the grounds where the shops are bunched into spots which do not back into the "outside world".  They're sorts of areas with their own internal spaces for parking, storage, and more modern facilities - notably food prep.  

The smallest is the island in the southwestern corner of the realm, and isn't all that notable.  Aside from Chimegarden on the western tip, I don't spend much time in the shops around that island, primarily because many of them are food, while there's also Chimegarden, a hair extension place, a "potions" place (think perfume, including make your own perfume), and some other kid-focused entertainment.  

On the east side, however, there are some places of note. First off, in the northeastern corner of the small island, you will find the only place on the grounds to get your giant turkey leg.  There's plenty more food around that island, so onward.  

By far the most interesting to me is the bigger main island.  If you come through the main gates and head off to the slight right, you'll eventually be faced with Bad Manor.  This is also known as the home of the Feast of Fantasy.  It's been an eight-or-so course meal held over a couple hours, and the per-person cost is well over $100.  Which is why I've never been to it.  That and I am a picky eater, not overly thrilled with vegetables, allergic to mushrooms, so I tend to avoid situations like that. 

But for references, we can start at Bad Manor, and work to the Left.  For at least the last thirty years, one of the very next booths is the Sky Chair shop.  I haven't yet, but will some day buy two of those chairs.  I'll also need a place I can hang them, but before my daughter was born, I had a dream which stuck with me of my wife holding our baby and sitting in one of those chairs.  It never happened, but I still dream, some day, to own a pair and be able to sit beside my wife as they hang together.  

A bit further on you'll find a shop which sells some artist's work, followed by a shop called "Pens and Things".  It's run by a very generous gentleman who sells his pens he makes, as I do.  He's far more adventurous, working stone and other material.  This year he showed me his "Politician's Pen" - it's bovine byproduct sealed in resin.  Yes, THAT byproduct.  It looks like a burl, until you know what it is.  But it's pretty spectacular.

Down a little further is John Coiner Pottery.  I own a number of his mugs, added another one this year.  He makes some spectacular stuff.  A bit beyond that, there's a coppersmith place which some some wonderful copper sculpture.  We bought a piece of theirs last year which had four leaves.  They're oak leaves, but their colors are golden, copper, brown, and reddish - all surrounded by copper frames.  Yes, it is beautiful.  They also do sculptures with flowing water.  It's pretty great.

And a bit further beyond, there's the Wonderous Works Of Wood - a group of folks based in Texas but they make wooden mugs and they don't send any idiots to work the booth.  They have folks who know a great deal about wood and woodworking - as they also do.  The fellow who started the shop invented his own tool.  The thing that always struck me about wooden mugs has been the waste.  In making a wooden mug, it typically involved taking a block of wood, rounding it on a lathe, then boring out the middle - in other words, converting a high percentage of the wood into dust.  

This outfit has a sort of hole drill that uses not one, but five different sized ring blades.  Each cuts a ring out of the slab of wood they use - so each blank yields up to five different mug rings.  Of late, they've changed their manufacturing to make the mugs out of rings, not a solid block of wood - much less wasteful.  The rings are cut, glued together, then shaped and smoothed on a lathe, after which they attach a handle and then apply the food-safe finish.  No, they're not dishwasher safe - but they are gorgeous.  And I own one.  Which is remarkable for a $100+ mug.

But then we continue around the large island, and on the northwest end, we come to Angel Swords.  They've moved from the Marketplace, they're still there in a larger booth - it's no less busy.  Moreso, even.

But as we continue down to the end, we come to Boss Wench.  Clothing - another shop that's been there longer than I have.  As you work your way around that bottom end, you start coming to some more pretty spectacular places.  There's MacGregor Games, which has a number of historically accurate games, all on highly portable game boards printed on cloth.  Yes, full medieval.

A bit further up you'll find another stained glass shop, another one where, frankly, the glass work might not be as spectacular as some other places, but the actual final work is, to me, utterly breathtaking.  I'm sure my explanation won't do it justice, but I will try.  

They have a piece of stained glass which is not all one solid color, but rather looks a lot like a foggy mist.  The colors vary - I've seen blues, reds, and greens, so far, but if you see them with the light behind (which means you're in the booth early in the day), you'll see the head, shoulder and arm of a wizard pushing through - and a shadow of the rest of the wizard behind.  Or maybe an animal.  Or maybe nothing at all, depending on the piece - but it's all literally breathtaking.

A bit further down you will find one of this year's biggest disappointments to me.  I waited until the last weekend to drag my wife over and point out the scrolled map showing the lands of Guilder and Florin - the lands of the Princess Bride.  And this final weekend, they said they could not accept cards, cash only - so I did not get my Princess Bride Map for framing.  My long-term goal was to get maps of the Princess Bride, Middle Earth, and "The Verse" from Firefly/Serenity.  And I'll make frames for them all.

Most of the rest of this larger island is food and beverage retailers.  

And a lot of this ignores the "in-between" stands.  There are what Renfest calls "Traveller Shoppes" which sell Renfest merchandise including tee shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and other items.  This year, I scored a "Belly Of The Beast" tee shirt, which is appropriate.  I missed out on "Ye Olde Fart" tee shirt, but I expect it will be there next year.  I've still got the Village Idiot shirt and my 2003 Renfest shirt, so there's that.  

And there are pickle vendors all over the grounds.  These folks are noisy, often of questionable taste, and sometimes just flat out weird.  Which is fine with me.

So there you go.  My visits to Renfest 2022.  2023 will be one where we again buy season passes.  They're much more economical to us than the single-visit tickets.  The grounds are large, there is much to see, and often there are items which we want to go back to get.  I don't know if my son will ever come up with the money and break down to buy the stained glass Camero window that has been at Gemini Glass for a couple of years now, but he's loved that car forever.  I expect he will do what his father hasn't, and pull the trigger on a bit investment, some day.  

And next year, I fully intend to spend $120 on a D20 walking stick, I want to spend some $20 on a wizard figurine, another Stained Glass trinket to go with last year's Wizard, and this year's Dragon.  Probably another shirt, certainly a mug, and who knows.  Maybe I'll start working towards my wizard costume.