On the weekend of August 17th, 1996, the Jackels took a trip up to the
Minneapolis Renaissance Faire. The Jackels, pictured here, are: Ken, Denise,
Erick, Jana, Stephanie, Adam, and me (Lee). This was the first year that we
went in costume, and I would suggest to everyone to give it a shot if you're
planning a Ren Faire trip.There are about eighty or so pictures in this album; all of them were taken with a cheap-o Casio digital camera, so the quality is not always what it should be. Also, although we spent most of our time shopping, we didn't take any pictures of that, so it's kinda underrepresented in this album.
The Fantasy Feast was the biggest event of the
weekend. A group of about seventy five was shown into the feast hall, and we
were treated to a fantastic meal while entertainment was performed in the
center of the hall. The menu was (as near as I can remember): shrimp softshell
tacos with pico de gallo; chilled zucchini soup with curry and edible flowers;
salads with artichoke, palm, and date hearts; a sorbet floating in chapagne;
grilled swordfish with basil fettuchini and delicious edible
pea pods; roast rack of lamb with skins-on mashed potatoes; and a
cupicchino-iced honey thingy. Yum.
The Falconry Show was one of the best shows of the
faire. About six birds of prey that were injured in the wild were brought out
and shown to the crowd. An eagle, vulture, two hawks, and a falcon were all
shown to the crowd, and at one point a low-flying red-tailed hawk hit Jana and
Ken on the head. Stephanie assisted the Falconer in caging the owl, but we
think that the bird smelled Clancy, and just wouldn't have anything to do with
Stephanie. Jana says that she wishes that the eagle would have flown. I
bought a T-shirt about it, and then promptly gave it to whatever sharp-eyed
child came along after me. After bringing the birds back to health, they are
released back into the wild.
While hustling between venues, Jana and Stephanie caught the
Maypole Dance, and managed to snag a few pictures
of the event. They taught people in the audience how to do the dance, and
invited them up afterwards to do the second half of the dance.
The second day, after we were out of costume, we decided to try our apparently
small skills at the various games on the midway. Although we did not manage
to win even a single event, we did it with a grace and dignity rarely found
in such an unsuccessful endeavour. There was knife-throwing, throwing-star
hurling, darts, battle axes, archery, feats of strength and balance, and some
maze thing that wanted to charge an arm and a leg for so we skipped
completely...
There were a lot of other things that we did that
we didn't really have time or camera availability to capture permanently. This
section is kind of a little illustrated listing of what else we did at the
faire.