Sonora Celtic Faire

March 13-14, 2009

We were excited about the weekend and were hoping to get away early, but early turned out to be about 10 whole minutes earlier than usual. The 3 hour trip had us arriving around 7:30 PM on Friday. We checked into the Gold Lodge www.goldlodge.com , which is across the street from the fairgrounds, so that was nice. We grabbed dinner at the Frog and Fiddle, enjoyed great tapas and cold beer, and then wandered back to the room.

The next morning was an easy one; we were slowing getting ready at a nice leisurely pace. We were to meet our friends at the front gate at 10:00 when everything opened. I could hear the bagpipers playing at the fairgrounds when standing just outside our room, then BOOM, BOOM. What was that? Can’t be the opening cannon, it is only 9:00 AM, it just can’t be, right? I grab a cell phone and guess what, it is 10:00 and NOT 9:00, the clock on the night stand was an hour off (the time change was a week ago). Shift gears into hurry mode, lace the last things up, and we make it through the gate by 10:20, frazzled and feeling a bit rushed. Now we must find our friends. The first thing that catches my eye are the Irish Wolfhounds, those dogs are huge. They have about 6 right next to the royal court area.

The fairgrounds are set up with the queen’s court just inside the front gate and most of the rest of the faire is on the other side of a building you pass through. All of the other guilds are on the far side of the grounds, so we really didn’t go back to the queen’s court until we left. I think it might be better to have the queen’s count with the other guilds, just my opinion.

We find our friends almost immediately and the ladies head to the shops and the men head to the ale stand for a Guinness. Beer is $5 and they have Harp, Newcastle, and Guinness. Water is $1, a shot of whisky is also available, but I didn’t have any. The morning slipped away into early afternoon browsing the vendors, but not before my friend finds something that he MUST have around his neck. He does look good in it.

As we get into the guild area for the first time, we are looking in on the Viking guild and a stranger says to me "Hey, I know you, you are Northbaydreamer”. I say that I am. He says that he is Chainsot and was at the agreed meeting place at the agreed time. Eeek, with the screwed up start to the day, I totally forgot about the R/F meet up. I apologize profusely and tell him what happened, he welcomes us into his guild yard and we spend a great deal of time with the Vikings Saturday and Sunday. This is him and I:

And the guild yard

We discover that they added a 3rd Ale stand this year, how nice of them. We rotate between them being unofficial quality control inspectors. They only failed us once, when the keg of Newcastle was empty and would not be ready for a QC check for 10 whole minutes. Can you believe it, the tragedy, the horror, the suffering? Being quick thinking and never dissuaded from my mission, I weigh my options of seeking another ale stand (a 2 minute walk) or have a Harp, I decide to sample the Harp rather than risk dying of thirst during the trek.

I took some time during the afternoon to do the scotch tasting. It was the same format as last year; $20 is the cost to do a blind taste of 8 whiskeys. I did my tasting in 3 sittings over about 5 hours. At the end I went back and got the card that showed what I sampled.

1. Bushmills 2. Maker’s Mark 3. MacCallan 12 year 4. Jameson 5. Trace Buffalo 6. Bowmore Legend 7. Tallamore Dew 8. Famous Grouse

You could also get and Irish coffee from there, which some of our cadre availed themselves of.

It was a fine of revelry, shopping, flirting, and wandering about. The faire was open until 10 PM, but we petered out about 9. I am just not used to being on my feet all day. We retired to the hotel room and opened a nice bottle of red.

Sunday morning went more smoothly that Saturday and we were fully dressed, had the truck packed, and just drinking coffee by 9:30. It was a crisp 39 degrees, and I think it reached 65 later (about the same as Saturday). This was to be the day of acquisition. I guess it seemed more appropriate being that we were now dressed as pirates. YES, we were not true to our history in that we did actually pay for all the acquisitions. I added a pin to my collection, it says "Everything is fun and games until the flying monkeys show up”, and another small knife (I don’t think one can have too many). My friend got a Viking sword, but managed to leave his wallet there, he noticed a couple of hours later, he had a LONG 20 minutes of running back to every vendor he had visited, but in the end his wallet was intact and in good keeping. My wife acquired matching kilts for us. I actually wore the kilt to work and later out to the pub on Tuesday. Her biggest hit was the beautiful frock coat that she tried on twice on Saturday and then bought on Sunday.

We got to watch the trebuchet fire heads of cabbage at the Dauntless sailing ship, which was about 50 yards away with the queen watching the attack. I really love the music at this faire, bagpipes play all the time and 3 stages of music are also going all day long.

I did make another photosynth (a panoramic view):

Here

I will let the rest of be told in pictures.

Dickens Faire 08 Trip Report

Happy Christmas!!

Our last event was Folsom in October, so it had been 8 weeks since our last adventure. The plan was that on December 13th, four of us were going back to London about 150 years. But as in many plans, the plans had to change and it was only three of us to start the day off (the demands of work, oh well). We had pre-ordered tickets for will call pickup (19 each with a 2 service charge for the whole order, so very good) and we were able to get the 4th one used by a friend who showed a couple of hours after opening. We arrived just before 11 with our first 3 mission orders already issued. We strolled in and the dance floor at Fezziwigs was already busy. I dispatch my wife to the telegraph office to secure tickets to the first “Naughty French Postcards” show at 5:00 pm (it is free, just very popular and an over 18 only show) and the two of us gentlemen step up for ale (which is conveniently located just 20 feet from the front gate). I ordered the Dickens Stout and it is a bit on the sweet side, so that will be last of that one for me. My wife returns with the tickets and gets her first ale (missions 1 and 2 are now complete). The beverage selection is quiet good.

We are now properly armed for our primary mission which is a new hat for me. We meander slowly down Maiden Lane and through Fagan Way making our way to Petticoat Lane. We then arrive at the Haberdasher and embark upon a very detailed discussion of the proper hat for my head. It was decided a black derby is the only way to go. I keep seeing cards that say “I BELIEVE IN THE GREEN FAIRY!” Hmmm. While we stroll and shop throughout all of London, we drop by the Dark Garden a few times during the day to admire the latest of corset fashions.

We find ourselves at Mad Sal’s Dockside Alehouse and gaze down the bar and see another bar that is dimly bathed in a green light (something new this year). We find out that it does not open till 1:30, so we are off again to shop, see the sights, and flirt.

Well, we don’t make it back to green bar next to Mad Sal’s till 4. We learn all about the proper way to consume Absinthe. They are serving 3 varieties: Saint George (a local one made across the bay in Alameda), Obsello, and something called Tormented Gargoyle (I think it is Le Tourment Vert from the French brandy distillery Vinet-Ege). Each shot is pricey at 12 ¼, but being that there are 4 of us, we decide that we need one of each and a second of our favorite to share (which turned out to be St George’s). They pour the shot and then add ice water and it turns it from clear to a milky color.

We are distracted with all the activity at Mad Sal’s and are late getting to the 5:00 Postcards show. It is good and funny as always, but being we were in the back and it was hard to hear unfortunately we missed a lot. Nudity and a good play on words ALWAYS makes for a great show. We finished the show and wandered the lanes again. A shop owner mentioned to me that this was busier than opening day, so that is good news to know that the show is doing very well in these trying times. Out of the blue, they yell out “Last Call” and alas it is 7:00 PM already and the whole place is still full of people. My friend gets himself a new vest at the end of day and it really gives him the splash of color that he needs.

We head out and stop in El Fornaio (a very nice Italian restaurant) in Walnut Creek for dinner while we are all decked out and don’t get home till after 10 PM. We got lots of looks and comments. I just love a day at the faire.

Happy Christmas!!

The rest of the pictures are here

I orignally posted this at R/F.com, but I thought I would repost the whole thing here (just cuz I can).

Short version: Went, saw, ate, drank, walked, talked, shopped, slept, and repeated on 2nd day.

We decided to go on the second weekend (Sep 13th and 14th) for the Pirate Invasion. We have recently met some new friends that like all things “ren” as much as we do, so we starting planning this weekend during the summer. Things started with the arrival of the wife’s cousin from Colorado (we took her to her first faire last year and she decided to fly out to hang out with us on a faire weekend) on Friday afternoon. We left directly from work and headed to Gilroy stopping in Morgan Hill to eat dinner at the El Toro Brewing Company. A very large list of brews (bigger than most craft breweries). I had the taster set (2 flights of 4 beers) and chicken nachos. We made it to the Comfort Inn about 8:00 PM and got settled in and opened a bottle of wine. One of the other couples (Clueless and Lady Libertine) were already there and the last to arrive were 9 Fingers his wife. This makes 7 in our raiding party (party will be a recurrent theme in this is report). We “prepared” for the raid until almost midnight (that is when the wine ran out).

Obviously everybody was excited because most of the party was in their garb by 8:30 AM. We left about 9:15 for the 15 mile drive to the site. Being that we had 5 in the truck we opted for the close in parking and paid the $10 for the privilege. While trading in our 2-day tickets ($35 from the website, single day is $25) for 2 paper tickets (one for each day) we watched the opening ceremony and the heard the opening guns go off. The main gate is much smaller this year, we later heard that the county made them take down all 2 story structures because the faire is defined a temporary facility and therefore can’t have 2 story structures (go figure!?), so the big pirate ship in the food court is also gone.

Now, every other time at faire we ALWAYS start by turning right after entering through the front gate and heading down the lane towards the Jousting, but this year, NOOOOO, we head left because the wenches have urgent business at “Hearts Delight” , “Tickle Thy Fancy”, and “Pendragon”. Alas the trials we must face, but what do we find that is between the main gate and the wenches destination is the Rusty Cutlass Ale stand. Being that it is 10:00 in the morning, only a Guinness will do (it’s what for breakfast), ale is $7 this year but the selection is good (Guinness, Harp, Bass, Newcastle, and Stella Artois) as well as Rabbits Foot mead (sweet and raspberry). Water is $4 for a liter bottle (a little too large of a bottle for me because it gets warm and is a pain to hang on to). Rabbits Foot Meadery has their own stand this year with several more varieties of mead. The men got to hang out the ale stand for the next hour while our Colorado visitor got fully decked out in a new wench outfit. What she had on was OK just not very wenchy (is that a word?)

Anyway, we finally got headed the CORRECT direction (you know that there are certain things that a pirate should be able to depend on). Up the hill towards the Queen Court and the Joust we go. “Avast, ale stand dead head” so we pull up to “The Lance and the Shield” for another ale (who would have guessed). We has a nice chat and flirt with a most lovely and sassy wench named Maxi McLicker or McLiquor (not sure but either one works for me) who extolled the virtues of joining “Friends of Faire”.

I was a member last year, but we might not make it back this year, so we passed on the invitation. I picked up a fun little item at a winery in Angels Camp a few weeks ago (another good pirate party story for another time), it is a small rubber chicken keychain, yes I know, it ain’t period or even close, but it is fun. I hung it near my ear and I got more comments about it than any other thing (most of the comments only appropriate for John’s Inn) and had a LOT of fun with it. I need to work on my comebacks and banter as several times I was slow.

I got turned on to a new technology from Microsoft called Photosynth which is a totally awesome way to post and view panoramic/3D photo sets. I am a total geek and not a lot of things impress me in the gadget and internet world very often, but this technology is amazing. So I REALLY think that folks need to go to the site and download the software at http://photosynth.net/default.aspx (the installer is a little quirky, you DO NOT need an account to view, just to create your own). The site hosts the pic sets for free (20 GB limit per account).

A Synth of the Queens Court area:

Next was the dreaded saunter down jewelry row and amazingly, not a single wound to thy pocketbook. We catch a good portion of the MooNIE show as several people in our party had not seen MooNIE or BRooN perform. We did come back and catch the 5:00 PM show for “adults”. After the end of the show we made a slow progression forward to the next ale stand. A good stop at the harp vendor for my wife where she sat and played for a few minutes (this stop last year caused the appearance of new harp at home for Christmas). I looked for Valknut at the fencing booth, but never saw him. Down to the Amethyst Arbor stage for some of the “Dirty Laundry” show (and privy stop). Here is a Synth I took there:

Everybody was hungry at this point (how did it get to be 1:30 already), so we quickly went directly to the food court for the obligatory turkey leg (medium is $8, large is $9) and another ale (of course). We got a steamed artichoke as well for $7; it was excellent, but sort of small. Saw the BBQ oysters, but they were 3 for $7, so we passed this time.

We bumped into the last of the folks at the turkey leg vendor that were suppose to join us this day (taking the party to a total of 9)

From here, we started our 2nd lap around the faire (this faire is basically one single giant winding lane).

I did stop inside the main gate and did another Synth of the washing well:

The rest of the day was filled with watching people, wenching, flirting, strolling from hay bale to hay bale (bad back so by the end of the day I need a lot of time sitting rather than on my feet), and the sipping of ale (duh). The weather was perfect, it got into the low 80s with a slight breeze and it felt a little warm in the sun, but not bad at all. I was looking for a rum tot and found something that fits the bill on jewelry row. I had two shopping objectives, a rum tot and a baldric, but I did not find a baldric so that was acceptable. As we left, we heard the closing shooting of the guns so I would say that we made the best of the day.

Being that somebody drank all the bloody wine last night we required a stop at BevMo to restock the rations. The gang went to Chevys for a late dinner then back to the room to dispense with the wine we bought. Another late night that included and attempt to reopen an ear piercing and the use of an electric razor to re-shape Clueless’s beard as it was determined to be in an unacceptable state. Lots of laughter and giggles. As long as one considers wine a food then yours truly (Horndog) is sticking with the story that I got food poisoning. Sunday morning was rough, but a pirate must endure and I did indeed rise from the dead (just barely) go back to faire with the rest of everybody.

Sunday morning I made the last Synth. I made of the entrance to the food court but did not stitch together very well, so check the different groups within the Synth:

I was told to mark the calendar because I passed the 3 ale stands in row without filling my mug. I finally caved to pirate pressure (being the only one in the party drinking just water up to that point) around noon and had a Guinness. Three of the wenches went to the 11 AM Joust while the rest of just watched people at the ale stand. Lunch was a toad in a hole for me (very good and I grabbed another one later).

I met another lovely lady and had a nice chat, but me being so brilliant, didn’t even manage to get her name, just that she is from Scotts Valley. (If she ever reads this she should let me know). Anyway she had this silver sort of eye liner that really made her gaze alluring. The rest of the raiding party just waited patiently while I spoke with her.

I think it is my favorite thing about faire is meeting new and interesting people.

The final strike on Sunday for my wife was a new hat.

The raiding party as we were dressed on Sunday.

We left about 3:45 on Sunday and made the 2 hour trip home. Overall, one heck of a weekend. Both days were well attended, we heard that was much better attendance than the first weekend.

A few of the more fun images I took.

This is another post tht was lost when R/F.com forum got attacked.  BTW, the forum is back up, but all the old posts are gone :(

Medieval Feast in the Napa Castle - March 29th, 2008

In short, it was awesome!

The long story starts out last summer when we visited the Castello di Amorosa, the castle of love in the Napa Valley. We took the tour of the castle (which I highly recommend) and during the tour they mentioned their wine club and the planning of 4 events a year at the castle for the wine club. Oh yea, they just happen to mention that one of the events would be a medieval feast. With that, I said “Where do we sign” while reaching for my pen.

The invitation finally arrives in February for the “Il Banchetto Medioevale” a Medieval Banquet. We had been given a gift certificate to a Bed and Breakfast as a wedding gift, so when we booked the feast, we also booked 2 nights at La Belle Époque in Napa. We reserved the Champagne Suite.

Fast forward to Friday night. The plan was to duck out of work by 3:00, well that was the plan anyway. We got away a little after 5:00 and traffic was good. We got there about in about 45 minutes. Got checked in and shown our room and all I can say is wow. Whirlpool tub, breakfast nook, fireplace, the works. Our friends have excellent taste!

The B&B has wine tasting at 6:00 every evening and we timed it perfectly. We strolled the 2 blocks into downtown Napa and peeked in several restaurants and decided on Tuscany mostly because it has live music. Caesar salad, quail for me and chicken for my lady, a bottle of Syrah, and dessert bought for us by the waiter. A very tasty meal. Back to the room to try out the tub. A bottle of 2005 Sangiovese from our last wine club shipment from the castle. Both the tub and the wine worked wonderfully.

We broke our fast in the room, it was served in a very nice basket.

Underneath was the main course of a Monte Cristo sandwich.

We really hurried and got out of the room by the crack of noon. Crawled around the downtown antique shops looking for stuff to help decorate our new ren corner in the house. We found nothing and developed a dire thirst from all the hard work. Just my luck, a brewery, right there in the next block. Hack, gag, throat sooo dry, need IPA now. The sassy bartender at Downtown Joe’s was able to save me and treated us well. Hmmm, as long as we are here, a little snack never hurts (you just never know when you might be able to eat again), oh and another beer sounds good too. Back to the room by 5:00 to get into garb. We shocked the rest of the guests at the 6:00 wine tasting, priceless.

Load the chariot and we are off at 6:30 for the feast. It is up valley about 22 miles, I think next time we will stay in Calistoga, which is only a couple of miles from the castle. Checked in right on time and given the lay of the land and a wine glass by the Baron Sattui the owner himself, he is dressed as an Italian baron in blue and gold.

We entered the courtyard to the sounds of minstrels and conversation. We step up and get our first wine taste, the Pinot Grigio. As we step away from the bar, they call for the group of volunteers for the next mini tour and barrel taste, so we are immediately off into the caverns.

We get three different barrel tastes, then up to the tasting room for…Guess…I know you can…MORE WINE. We immediately find a few folks that are clearly rennies and strike up a conversation. IT is quickly determined that my wife’s garb needs “fixing”.

Much better (being the pig that I am).

This is the better half of the cadre that we wind up spending the rest of the evening with. The “other” half.

Our next stop is the great hall for the feast at 8:15 and what a sight to see. It is full and I would say that there was 250 people seat at the 3 long tables. As we sit, it is clear that the first course is already on the table, quite literally. Grapes, strawberries, tomatoes, radishes, bread, cheese, cauliflower, asparagus, pears all there just to start. We each have a knife, a plate, and napkin, but not a fork or spoon in sight.

The next course was a lentil soup. Oh yea, a little more wine too.

The main course of chicken, turkey, and beef kabobs.

We try a new style of eating.

The last course was dessert, which was a plate of 4 different things and did I mention a little more wine. During dessert there was some sort of disagreement in the front of the hall. We are informed that the ruckus is over a lady (as always) and it must be settled with a duel in the court yard and that we all should adjourn to witness.

It was pretty dark and sparks actually flew when the swordsmen clashed. As the loser lay dead, the fair maiden was about to awarded to the victor when she was swept away by the Baron Sattui. It was great magical evening that we never wanted to end, but alas.

All the pictures are here and here. Pictures of the castle are here.

I posted this trip report to renaissancefestival.com before it got attacked and lost everything.  If you enjoy it please comment or let me know,  this gives me the motivation to keep writing. 

 Sonora Celtic Faire Trip Report March 8th, 2008

This venture has a dubious start. A few weeks before the faire, I thought I would be slick and pre-order faire tickets and book a hotel room, so a few clicks and it was done. The tickets arrived a few days later and then promptly went into deep hiding, never to be seen again. Note to self: When you have a ticket, don’t throw it away with the junk mail.

The day grew closer, I had set a meet with Lady Toadflinger at 11:00, found the hotel reservation, printed the maps, got cash. All set, or so I thought. I had a nagging feeling that I needed to check my garb, but that feeling drifted away after the first bottle of wine was empty on Friday night. --Queue ominous music here.--

Saturday morning, we are up and moving, just a little bit behind schedule. Start putting on my garb and get to my pants and then it becomes VERY clear what that nagging feeling was, a 8 inch rip right down the crotch seam. Not wanted to be that well ventilated, I call to my wife who just gives me a cute smirk and laugh at my situation. While I stand there dumbfounded, she calmly instructs me to set up her sewing machine and fetch the black thread. She quickly and deftly takes care of my pants, but we are now a good half an hour behind schedule. After that, the loading of us and the car go well only forgetting to load and take my flask, which is a bummer because it was a very cool Christmas gift that my wife got for me at Nor Cal in October. We key in our destination into the GPS and are away and down the road when my wife asked me about my other Christmas gift, the paned slopes that match my doublet, oh well, a U turn and another 15 minutes behind. Hmm, the GPS says to a take a different route that what Google maps told us. --Queue more ominous music here.-- I know we are suppose to take highway 4 but the nice lady of the GPS disagrees with us. We fight her tooth and nail, and we are winning for the first hour, then we miss ONE turn and we wind up in her grasp. She manages to get us back on her intended route and then we just follow her instructions from there. I take a closer look at the map and she was right all along with the fastest rather than the shortest route. Note to self: Stop trying to think that you are smarter than a woman and don’t argue.

We manage to snag the 2nd to last parking spot just across from the faire grounds, but it is now 11:00, oh well chalk up one more missed connection. It takes just a few minutes to fully garb myself up and get my wife’s hoop skirt all set. One last grumble about one of the dogs stealing our tickets as we hand over $48 to walk through the gate. Note to self: When you have a ticket, don’t let the dogs near it. Anyway, things get a heck of a lot better as we cross the time portal and safely arrive in the 16th century. 500 hundred years is a long time to be without ale, so that is our first mission. We find the ale stand is manned (and womaned) by vets and proceeds go to a Vietnam vets fund. They are pouring Guinness, Harp, and Newcastle Brown Ale, as well as wine. Being that it is time to break fast, I choose a Guinness and my lady a Harp. Now that we are properly outfitted it is time to take a slow tour about the shire for this is our first time at this faire and it is a new site for the faire.

My Lady has new garb this season, so I was informed that she needed to accessorize (a ritualistic quest that consumes gold coin). Her first strike was 2 hair dangles from Dangly Bits www.dangly-bits.com. My first strike was the whiskey tasting which was very near to the Guinness stage. It was a blind taste of 9 whiskeys for $20 (about 3 shots total), with that you got a ranking card that you use so that you did not need to do all 9 at the same time. Well, I did the first three while listening to the band Malinky www.malinky.com, a traditional Scottish folk song quintet. I quiet enjoyed the music, but alas I screwed up and did not snag any CDs from them, oh well.

Another tour and another beer, my lady making her 2nd strike of the day, a necklace and earrings.

My 2nd strike lands us at LUNCH a bit late, we get 3 meat pies: steak and mushroom, Sheppard’s, and a Scottish. A tankard of ale to wash it down and then we whisk back to the whiskey tasting area for a table and the next three tastes. Funny, the folks at the booth seem to remember us from before. This is a combination Celtic and ren faire at the same time so there are lot of mundane, so we definitely stand out. The pies are excellent and surprisingly, too hot to eat, so while they cool I work on the whiskey, noting that #6 is most delightful.

Next, we are off to the joust. It is the “Knights of Avalon” which is a full contact joust troupe.

The Master of ceremonies had a guy heckling him and shut him up with the comeback “I don’t come to McDonalds and harass you at your job.” We all roared and did not hear a peep out of him again. Our knight won the joust 5 to 3, which is true competition and not staged. The sword fight was staged, but lots of fun.

Off for more Ale for me (we trade who gets to drive and it was her turn) and accessorizing. We caught some of the Wicked Tinkers (5 guys who play rowdy songs with drum and pipe) performance somewhere during the day. We also ran across a lady doing portraits in pencil but who also does portraits in other mediums. I am taking a small corner of the house and trying to make it ren, so it would be cool to get us painted while in garb. We got her card laurenreeser.com and just might call her someday.

Well, not sure where exactly the rest of day went, but we did make it back for the final 3 whiskey tastes. I also liked the last one (#9). After you were all done, they gave you a card saying what you tasted, and for those of you who are interested:

1. Speyside
2. Famous Grouse
3. Bushmill’s
4. Glenlivet
5. Dewars
6. Jameson 12 yr
7. Dalmore
8. Jonnie Walker Red
9. Michael Collins

By this time it was not very busy and they were pouring you any shot of anything you asked for, so I double checked that I did indeed like #6 and #9. Laura got a chance to chat with a friend while us men discussed important affairs of state.

We next caught the last show of Tempest at 7:00 PM. They are a high-energy folk rock band, it was a great show and they were joined by the Wicked Tinkers for their encore. We sat with a coworker and had a good stomping time.

This is the only faire that we have been to that is open after dark. So after the show, we got one last ale and took one last tour. Many of the guilds had fires going so we just drifted about chatting a bit with the folks at a few of the fires. We finally ate some dinner and enjoyed a quietly magical atmosphere that was all about after dark. Tired and with my feet hurting, we grabbed the car and drove the 5 blocks to the hotel. There is a hotel directly across the faire grounds and we will be sure to get a room there next year.

Not wanting the day to end, we stayed in our garb for 2 more hours in the hotel room and had a picnic with wine, cheese, capers, and some mushroom pate. It was an awesome day.

The rest of the pictures are posted here: here