The weekend of May 15-16 was quite a delightful one for my good friend Melanie and me. Happily we chose to step out of reality for those couple of days (and a rather high fee...) to enjoy the wonders of the Utah Renaissance Festival on friday, and the Art Ball here in Springville on Saturday.The Renaissance Festival took place in the (almost) scenic town of Marriot-Slatersville, in a very lovely and large-ish field about a mile from the freeway. Melanie and I chose to dress up for the occasion which was not only amusing, but also gave us entrance to the festival at half price (six dollars instead of twelve - quite a nice deal I'd say). Melanie dressed as a regal maiden, in a flowing white gown embroidered with pearls, and crowned her hea
d with a 
tiara of the finest worked silver. (I'm sure it was pretty close to silver..) As for myself, I chose to dress myself in the browns and greens of a peasant's garb, but of course it was altogether quite flattering. I even created a woven flowery garland for my head out of the nearby weeds - I was very pround of that accomplishment. When we arrived we looked through the smattering of shops that dotted the area, there were many lovely hand-crafted trinkets that were very tempting, but also very expensive, so we managed to resist. The reason for us coming to the fair - the highly touted full combat joust - was not until the end of the day, so while we waited we watched a rather childish though pretty entertaining magic show and enjoyed a pleasantly medieval lunch. Then as we were watching Queen Elizabeth test the magical "tyme masheen"...(which ended up being NuSkin product or something nonsensical like that)....
A swashbuckling pirate approached Mel and me with this debonair line: "Dear ladies, th
is is not a grocery store so please stop checking me out!" He then laughed and told us we could check him out as much as we wanted. Then he took my hand and said to me, in utter seriousness "Your eyes are so blue, they are bluer than the water in my mother's toilet. And i'm serious, really I am." And he kissed my hand. What a suave pirate, eh? He urged us to find him if we were ever not having fun at the "Ren Faire" as he called it, and then he left and Mel and I had a good laugh. Captain Lefty was his name, and he is the one with the ridiculously feathered hat in the picture. The pirate to the right of him wielded a whip and was pretty cute too.
After a trip to the stocks, it was finally time for the joust! The watchers were split in half, and one side was told to root for the knight of Ireland, and the other side was told to cheer on the knight of England. Melanie and I were seated near our good Queen Elizabeth and so were among those who were fans of England. Then each knight got a rose, and went in search of a lady that he favored among all the ladies who cheered for him. Our good Sir Michael of England stopped in front of me and asked "My lady, may I joust for you today?" To which i made some witty and appropriately dor
ky response like "Yes, of course.." and accepted his rose with a lovely nerdy-teenage-girl-who's-way-too-into-pretending-she's-in-the-sixteenth-century curtsy. Then the announcer said for all to hear "Of course, by accepting this favor you know that you must bestow upon your knight a kiss for good luck!" Which I didn't know, actually, but so it was. SO I ducked under the fence and entered the lists, and ascended this wooden platform that brought me to the same height as the knight (he was on a horse after all) and the announcer said "Wait! how old are you?" "twenty," said I, and he replied "Good enough!" And so I gave my knight a kiss (on the cheek...he was probably twice my age and bald besides haha) and the crowd cheered. Then they jousted four passes, and sadly Sir Michael lost, he had to forfeit after he injured his hand. And then we went home. It was a very good time for all.
The Art Ball is much shorter to explain. I promise. Every year the Springville Art Museum throws a ball in which they pick the Art Royalty for the year, display new paintings, drawings and sculptures, show off student artists
who do their art throughout the night, and have a dance with live bands. This year they opened up the newly fixed up garden,which was lovely, especially with the perfect weather. Mel and I went without dates, which was kind of weird once the dancing started but we had fun anyway. We wore our prom dresses (because what else can you do with those after high school?) and looked gorgeous indeed. Overall it was a great weekend and well worth the cost. I recommend both events for anyone who likes to dress up and have fun escaping reality for a while! :)
