Florida Renaissance Festival

Most of my friends know that I’m a renny. I love renfests. I’d spend all my time there if I could. The Bay Area Renaissance Festival, affectionately know as BARF in Tampa is my “home” festival, but I do travel occasionally to go to other festivals around the country. Saturday I went down to Deerfield Beach to the Florida Renaissance Festival, a.k.a. FLARF.

My friend Bruce picked me and Ricky up about 5:30 AM and we were off for southeast Florida. We arrived at the festival about 9:30.

FLARF is held at Quiet Waters Park. It’s a huge park and the festival occupies just a small portion of it. When we got there I was thinking it would be nice if they had more trees. Well, they did, but last year’s hurricane season wiped most of them out. Oh, well.

We got there early enough to park close to the front gates. Standing outside the gates I realized I left my cell phone in the van. We went back to the van and my phone wasn’t there. Panic. It must have fallen out when we got out of the van. I was hoping someone found it in the parking lot and turned it in. When we went back and I bought my ticket I asked if anyone had turned in a phone. Nope.

Oh, well.

We went into the festival and Bruce gave us a short tour so I could get oriented. We headed back to the stage where Shae Laurel would be performing. Of course it’s waaaaay back at the far end of the grounds. We saw their first show of the day. They were surprised and delighted to see us. After the show I mentioned losing my phone. A light bulb lit up above Jessica’s head when she remembered that a security guard had come by and told them they had my phone at the festival gift shop. So how did the security guard know to tell Shae Laurel that my phone had been found? Hmmmm….. I found out later they pressed send on my phone to call the last number I had called. Ricky’s dad answered. They told him they found my phone and he told them they could find me at the Shae Laurel shows. Mystery solved!

I got to see some of my other favorite performers like the Minstrels of Mayhem (Ahem!), Craig of Farrington, and Cantiga. My friend Paul was jousting so we watched that. I ran into a bunch of old friends who are usually at BARF. We had a great time. Ricky got a pretty bad sunburn and I also lost my Ratcatcher’s Guild pin. Oh, well.

It was a nice festival and I’d like to go again someday. It was a long day with a four hour drive each way. If I didn’t have to go to work today we could have stayed overnight. We could go over to the festival for a few hours and then have a nice leisurely drive home… Oh, well.