Mikey and I went to Gainesville for the Hoggetowne faire--and saw some friends along the way--and followed up by going to the Tampa Canterbury version a couple months later, closer to home.

Click on the thumbnail or the words to see a large image.

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wvito1.jpg

wvito2.jpg: See, don't they look like they get along great?

tardmiky.jpg: Another guy he used to work with. They used to call him "Tard," and you probably don't want to know his "full" nickname.

mrobbie1.jpg: Mikey also used to work with Robbie, but Robbie no longer works at his old establishment so we had to make another stop to see him. We made arrangements to go hang out with him later that night. We also went to my old place of employment and saw some people, but we didn't take any pictures.

aamikey1.jpg: We also got to visit this tank.

aamikey3.jpg: Here he is sitting with it.

m7mikey1.jpg: Is he getting in?

fchicken.jpg: Then we checked into a hotel. Mikey has this thing he does where he always goes to any Internet-capable machine and looks up fried chicken. This is the screen he left on the hotel's browser.

warmfire.jpg: So we ate at Farah's, one of our favorite restaurants that we miss. They had a nice fire going! I'm always cold, so I warmed myself up.

humsalad.jpg: Mikey had a big salad. He loves those yummy things.

pigeat1.jpg: I allowed a piggish picture to be taken of me devouring my falafel burger and fries.

pigeat2.jpg: And this is after I'd eaten it all.

lipgloss.jpg: While we were killing some time waiting for Robbie to get home from work so we could hang out with him, we took some silly pictures in the car. I was trying to figure out my camera's functions when I took this one.

yeeeeh.jpg: Mikey got in on the action of silly faces.

tungout.jpg: Another goofball face. . . .

scaryz.jpg: Wow, we look very scary here.

2tungs.jpg: No silly-face gallery is complete without a shot of BOTH parties sticking out their tongues.

mpup2.jpg: We finally got in to see Robbie and Mikey got to play with their new puppy. The pup licked all over his face and made him laugh!

rpup.jpg: There's Robbie with the cute little puppy. (That's his wife beside him.)

mikeclok.jpg: Okay, now the next day at the faire. This is Mikey in his cloak, looking a lot like Aragorn.

hogz.jpg: I don't know if it's because the village was called Hoggetowne or what, but these guys had this pig. . . .

gypsies.jpg: Here were some random gypsies dancing around.

pucking.jpg: We see the Rat Man every time we go to a faire. Even though Emrys Fleet says "This is twenty-year-old crap!" when he describes his own act, Mikey and I have not yet gotten tired of it. This is the Rat Catcher with his famous "pucking stick."

scotrat.jpg: The Rat Man also does a Scottish rat-catching trick. It's quite funny. He usually tells a Scotsman joke of some kind.

mydres1.jpg: This is the outfit I wore. Pretty green bodice and black dress Mikey got me last year.

fab1.jpg: The faire's theme this time was Romans vs. King Arthur. Their Emperor was "Emperor Fabulous the First." This is him and his, like, wife I guess.

mdagger.jpg: I think Mikey was glumly waiting for me to finish buying something here. I looked over and he looked very picturesque, so I took his picture. That is a nice dagger, no?

eatkids.jpg: A very funny warning sign posted at the faire about what happens to kids left unattended. How I wish I could have posted this in my bookstore!

2knight2.jpg: Mikey took a LOT of pictures of the jousting, so this is just one of my favorites.

knight1.jpg: Another nice horsey picture.

meet2.jpg: See above.

werdsmle.jpg: It was actually hot enough that I didn't need my cloak!

druids.jpg: We liked the healers in the chess match. They didn't care whether the good side or the bad side won because they just heal everyone, so their battle cry was "WE DON'T CARE!"

druids3.jpg: Here they are trying to get us to chant with them.

fab5.jpg: Emperor Fabulous was not too happy with what happened to his people during THIS battle.

scott5.jpg: Sometimes the fighting got very violent!

qui&mer.jpg: Merlin wasn't in good shape here. He almost got his ass clobbered. But then after this he ran around getting strength from the children in the audience and managed to defeat his foe.

held.jpg: They were holding the Lady hostage until King Arthur could free her or whatever.

warrior4.jpg: They just stood at the sides and waited for their turn. Very nicely choreographed fighting scenes.

mcorral.jpg: This is when Mikey finally got to eat something at Golden Corral.

These next ones are from the Canterbury ren faire in Tampa, but it was only a couple months later so I'm putting them all together here.

trolsign.jpg: This here is the sexiest troll at the faire. He plays music and sings for money.

sexytrol.jpg: See, don't you want to marry him?

318j1.jpg: Here's what I wore that day.

wcloak.jpg: And here's what it looks like with the cloak on.

318j3.jpg: And a close-up.

m318clok.jpg: That's what Mikey was wearing.

318m1.jpg: And a close-up for him.

galgyp1.jpg: One thing we really enjoyed watching was the Demzarah Gypsies. Here are the girls dancing.

guygyp1.jpg: The guy gypsies played music while the girls danced.

gyp1.jpg: Here they are having a grand old time.

washer1.jpg: Another act we enjoyed a lot was the Washer Women, Winnie and Izzy--they had such expressive faces, and they were so silly, and they splashed everyone who made them mad.

washer2.jpg: Izzy was using some of her laundry as a puppet. Weirdoes.

getitoff.jpg: A visit to a ren faire would not be complete without seeing the Rat Man again. He had a weasel attached to his face.

318j6.jpg: And now, because I love you so, I will show you the supplemental pictures of me in my outfit taken after I got home.

318j10.jpg: Here I am straight-on frontwards. . . .

318j5.jpg: And sorta turned to the side, too.

More to come NEXT YEAR!