Memory Lane

Thinking about Rachel's upcoming visit has me wandering down memory lane today! (If Memory Lane was a real place, I think it would look like this:)

When I was in college, a group of my girlfriends and I shared our love of long-forgotten days and medieval garb by making costumes and taking yearly trips to the Renaissance Fair in Larkspur, Colorado. We would drive up in a big group, stay at my grandmother's house (who reveled in sharing the experience, let me assure you!), and go to the Fair wearing our creations. It was a fun chance to pretend we lived 400 years ago, sport beautiful fashions that we (sadly) cannot seem to convince the rest of society should be worn every day, and spend some quality "girl time!"

Daniella and her best friend Emily as fairies: 

 Sarah as a noblewoman and me as Maid Marian

:

Jessica isn't really into dresses, so she opted for a knight's costume:

Here is our whole group. Rachel (in black) is Juliet, and my grandmother was doing her own thing, as usual, celebrating the "Egyptian Renaissance" in a lovely gown she acquired in Egypt.

One of the Renaissance shops (it is truly a "fair" with everything you can possibly imagine for sale!)

 Below: The jousting arena. There are four knights who joust, each with their own squire and herald. The area surrounding the arena is divided into four sections and each section supports one of the knights, hurrahing their success and booing the others.

Daniella and Emily with Anthony, the marshal who oversees the joust.

Anothony explaining the rules for the joust. Great fun...the knights are greatly skilled with their lances, though not with their jokes... 

I don't seem to have any pictures of the actual joust (I guess the horses were moving too fast!) but here are Sarah and I after the tournament.

I believe the reason Rachel and Jessica are in so few of these pictures is that they were the ones with the cameras!

Note - there are two teams, the "good knights" and the "bad knights." We cheered Sir William, one of the good guys. If I remember correctly, he was killed. ;-(

The fairies with Sir Jeffrey, an evil knight (boo!)

Sarah with Sir Marcus, another evil knight. (For shame, Sarah! Don't tell Jason...)

Our whole group outside the castle:

Now I really want to go to the Renaissance Fair again, girls!