Our RV Adventures

Yesterday our SIL Lowell posted a video from the Texas Renaissance Festival, and we thought that he was there with Brandi and Landon.

And it got Jan and I to thinking about going this year. and then I stumbled across the fact that we could get free tickets from Denny’s.  But only for today, Sunday.

Normally $30 each, if you bought a $20 gift card from Denny’s, you got a free Sunday ticket to the Festival, So two gift cards, two free tickets. Neat!

The Denny’s deal was only available at the Denny’s in this area, but not the one in Conroe, so this morning I called the one in Magnolia to confirm that they had the free tickets, and we were out the door.

After picking up our tickets we got to the Festival about 11:30, along with a lot of other people. Today was the 2nd day of the 2016 season and I was surprised at how busy they already were.

And of course the first thing we did was to get something to eat. I got my favorite Sausage on a Stick, while Jan got a Sesame Chicken on a Stick, and we split a Baked Sweet Potato.

We’ve been coming here since the early 80’s, but I think this was the first time we’ve ever come by ourselves. But as it turns out, our trip today was due to a misunderstanding.

After we’d been at the park for a while, I called Brandi to thank her and Lowell for giving us the idea. But as it turned out, they weren’t here yesterday at all. Lowell had just posted the video because it was opening day here.

This Renaissance Festival is the biggest one in the country, and covering almost 60 acres, it hosts over 500,000 people a season. And coming here as long as we have, we’ve watched it grow over the years, with something new every time.

In fact just since we were here in 2013 with the whole family,

we notice a lot of new attractions and areas, including a climbing tower and some new kiddie rides.

But Jan and I both agreed that one of our favorite things to do is to just ‘people-watch. And you will see some very strange outfits and very strange looking people.

Some of them are performers, like the ‘lady’ above. And some are visitors, like the family below who just dress up for the fun of it.

And no, you don’t get in free if you’re in costume.

You’ll see pirates, piratettes, German girls, and even a refugee from the Village People.

You’ve heard of a Congress of Owls, a Murder of Crows, or even a Memory of Elephants. So how about a Huddle of Fairies?

Or maybe a Triplet of Fairies, because from the front they all looked like identical sisters.

And some arre working for tips, like this Valkyrie Princess.

Or even whatever this is supposed to be. But whatever he is, I bet he’s hot.

Apparently in past years,  they even had a nude Lady Godiva.

Cue Peter and Gordon.

Our favorite ‘must-see’ part to the Faire is the Birds of Prey show, one that we’ve attended on every visit.

The people who do this taken and rehibilitate injured wild animals for the state. Ones that are so injured that they can not be returned to their natural habitat are used in the show.

They have several different kinds of hawks, falcons, owls and vultures, all of which are trained to fly out across the audience to handlers holding up food for them.

However they do warn you to keep your Turkey Legs out of sight, just in case.

And some of them you get to see up close and personal like this Red-tailed Hawk.

By 4:30 we were pooped and ready to head home. We had a great time, but I told Jan if we ever come again, we may have to rent a pair of those electric scooters.

Thought for the Day:

“Part of [the $10 million] went 
for gambling, horses, and women. The rest I spent foolishly.” —George Raft, film star

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After putting the new site online last night, I spent this morning picking at it some more, changing a few colors here and repositioning a couple of things there.

Today I added a Favicon to the site, and then configured the Mobile version that shows up on your phone.

Favicons are those little pictures you see on the tabs in your browser.

You only have a 16 x 16 pixel area to work with, so it can be hard to get a good representation. I started out using the entire Texas Flag Sunglasses Logo,

but it was so small it was just a red, white and blue blob. So I switched to just using the left lens and that seem to work a lot better.

Later in the afternoon I removed the control panel from the microwave oven to take a look at the intermittent heating problem we’ve been having the last month or so

I suspected a microswitch problem, but I didn’t see any sign of that. In fact it looked like the problem might be due to a broken flange on the control panel itself. So I cut out a new retaining bracket from a piece of heavy plastic and used it to lock down the panel a lot tighter.

Since the problem only happens intermittently, we’ll just have to see if it reoccurs or not.

With the new TV season ramping up, Jan and I watched another new show a couple of nights ago, and like Timeless, the new one we watched last week, this one, called Frequency, is kind about time travel also. Or at least time travel by radio.

A police officer finds that she can communicate with her father over his ham radio, an undercover police officer who died 20 years ago, killed under circumstances that made it look like he was on the take.

His daughter gives him info  that allows him to survive and clear himself. But like in Timeless, changing the past even slightly can have unintended consequences in the present.

When I was telling my friend Nick Russell about the show, he said it sounded familiar. Turns out there was a movie by the same name that came out in 2000, starring Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel. The premise was pretty much the same, except the father was a firefighter killed in a warehouse fire. So I guess what goes around, come around.

Tomorrow, who knows. But I imagine we’ll find something to do.

Thought for the Day:

“My advice to you is get married: If you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.”  — Socrates

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