About 45 miles before you reach Houston on I-45 rests the little town of Conroe, Texas. About 30 miles from there headed East lies Plantersville and the stomping grounds of the annual Renaissance Festival that descends on the little town every fall. When my fiancé' had told me about the festival I had pictured in my mind a football field of people: tents, little booths set up under canvassed canopies, maybe an area roped off for staged sword fights done with big wooden shafts and full body armor.
Instead what I arrived at was an entire Renaissance village. Stretched out over 100 acres of land were small castles, an arena for jousting, an amphitheater, several shops and stores all un-air-conditioned and filled with people that greeted you with either "How may I serve you my Lord?" or "...my Lady?" depending. Walking up to the entrance gave one just a small glimpse of what one was in for. A young lady clad in skimpy black clothes-a short skirt, a sort of halter top, striped socks, and a violin-stood outside the entrance. Awaiting what I don't know, but I asked her kindly for her picture and she agreed. Oh, yeah-she had black wings as well that curled up towards her ears. The photograph evokes wonder and amusement. Then a sort of warlock troll walked up, robed and staff in hand. A sign out front of the entrance stated "...merrymaking/firearms" and I wondered if flint had been discovered yet or not? I wondered if the word firearm had even been coined yet. It was this kind of thinking that inspired people to attend these things in full costume. People from all around, that didn't work the festival or even got paid for showing up, were showing up fully costumed and paying to walk around in one of the very few places left that you could dress like a wench and not be judged for it. A suspension of belief, and passport through time. Once you walked underneath the archway and gave the peasant your ticket, forget your cell phone, forget your electric bill and your car. Forget even about converse shoes and polo shirts. Here the leather boot laces wrapped up your calve, a simple loin cloth would be excepted at the hippest club. Here the boustie' wasn't provocative but uniform, round plump ladies were encouraged to show off what they had, today we have the phrase 'plus size' to describe an attractive voluptuous woman, but once we walked through the entrance they were supermodels. Another sign should of been hanging on the other side of the entrance quite literally stating: "welcome to the renaissance festival and the end of civilization as you know it."
A good bit of people were sort of dressed up, meaning a family let their four year old son dress as a pirate and their eight year old daughter don a pair of butterfly wings bought at a costume shop so she could pass as a fairy. Good clean fun. A few adults had wings as well, or little accessories that stated, "I'm going to have fun with this, but I still have to show my face at the office come Monday..." But over half, at least, were immersed in their kingdom. Winches, warlocks, friar tuck like monks, king Arthur and Tim from Monty Python's The Holy Grail, knights and peasants sharing supreme nachos, court jesters, gypsies, Vikings, pirates (even captain Jack Sparrow himself), Robin Hood, kings and queens, magicians, and all sorts of mythical beings; trolls, fairies (good and bad), elves, gnomes, hobbits, demons, dragons, satyrs (with hooves), He-Man, Skelatore, and even some from our own time and place: trekkies, pimps, a cross-gendered antlered amazon, Goths, furries, and even two playboy bunnies.
Of course I trained my camera on as many as possible. When I asked for a photograph most just simply struck a pose and held it for me. They either flexed or growled or hissed or spread their wings or put their hands together in front of their chest as if in prayer. Great stuff, really. One particular guy, dressed up like what looked to be an oversized kid referred to my camera as a "Click box!" and had me spin the propeller on his hat before I took his photograph. Another young woman dressed as Elizabeth the first or second or whatever was making her majestic way to somewhere when I stopped her. She stood, hit a pose-her faint mustache showing that she was just too into her time period-and after the shutter clicked she matter of factly said, "The fairies in that box must paint very fast!" and then turned and walked hurriedly off without missing a beat. My response was reactionary and I laughed, not so much at her, but at her commitment to character. Another moment of suspended reality occurred during a conversation with a jeweler. I stood admiring his rings and he began explaining that most of his rings were made out of tungsten, one of the strongest metals there are. "It can only be scratched by another piece of tungsten or a diamond. You could run over it with a Mac truck," and he added under his breath, "whatever that is."
We walked around for hours just soaking in the atmosphere, people watching, popping in and out of stores where you could find anything from mythical puppets and thick leather hats with beautiful feather plumes sticking out of the side of them to an actual crystal mine where one could dig through piles of dirt and find your very own rock crystal. Amidst mobile carts of pickle salesmen who kept exclaiming for us to taste his pickle and a woman who kept urging us to look at her chest we grew hungry and decided to find something to eat.
I'd like to say lunch was an adventure in itself but it turns out that medieval peoples much more prefer the food of modern times. There was no whole roasted swine dangling by it's heels over a huge bon fire, and no one drank water from a nearby river bed. In it's place were fajita tacos, nacho supreme, turkey legs, funnel cakes, coke, dr. pepper, margaritas and strawberry pina coladas. Where's a good ol' pint of Guinness when you need it? I know Guinness has been around since medieval times...it just tastes that way.
The day soon wore on and the afternoon and evening came. I was continually amazed at the people we kept passing. Fairies and priests and another pair of queen elizabeths (twin sisters at that) who were fighting about where one of their friends had disappeared to. A smoking dragon. A guy all dressed in leather, spikes, and skulls; I guess he was simply a motorcyclist but he fit in perfectly. A gay satyr ("It's a cursing well damnit!"). A hundred fairies. And quite a few people that looked just like me: dressed in modern clothes and a huge camera hanging around their neck just waiting for the next opportunity to try and capture a little bit of the Renaissance times and bring it back home to the year 2000.
