Continuing on with our day at the Bristol Renaissance Faire (see part 1 here). We continued walking on and came upon this parade of people dressed up. This jester(?) got all up in our faces yelling about “the queen is coming! the queen is coming!”
The parade was actually pretty cool. People were dressed very elaborately. No one was really doing any tricks or anything.. just walking.
When we could see the queen then the jester really went nuts in his excitement. Dallas asked “Which one’s the queen?” and the jester was all like “duh!”
Dallas said something like “You’re the queen?” and the queen looked back and waved, saying “One of them!”
Dallas looked on in disbelief.
Shortly after we posed for a photo. Kelly took this photo three times to get it just right. I didn’t realize til later that “just right” meant getting Adam and Brian’s head perfectly between ours in the background! Photobomb!
Throwing more knives. One of the actors let Adam wear his hat. He looks like a Country Western singer. I’m not sure that’s exactly what this hat is supposed to do.
And then we came upon another Jacobs Ladder. Adam had already failled at this thing several times earlier in the day. Here he is getting suckered into trying it again.
What did he think? 5 more beers would help his balance?
Uh… nope!
I’m not going to call this guy a jerk, but……
… right after Adam failed to climb the ladder three more times, this guy had to go and climb the ladder backwards, standing straight up, just to show off.
Dallas, Christine, Kelly, Todd, Adam, Mike
Christine
Christine really wanted me to go on this ride with her. She asked me beforehand but I said I’d have to see it. I didn’t totally “get” what it was. No one else wanted to go, and before I could figure out what it was and if I wanted to do it, I was getting strapped in.
The contraption mixes trampolines with bungees so when you jump you spring up 50 feet (?) 100 feet (?) in the air. It looked something like this. Christine had gone on this thing a few times before and was an advanced jumper. She was even doing flips and stuff. Check out this video of this girl doing a zillion flips on this bungee trampoline. Christine didn’t do that many, but enough to freak me out.
I didn’t do flips. I just held on. And screamed. I made a mistake in the beginning by telling the ride operator that my friend made me go on this thing. And then as he was hooking me in he made some comment like “oh, you got the broken harness. I don’t know why they keep sending people back with this broken harness. I keep telling them not to. ” And then he sprung me into the air 100 feet. And I screamed!!! I don’t know why I even believed him. Oh, wait. It was because I drank 10 beers that day. Also, I made the mistake of telling him that my friend right there was doing flips but there was no way I was going to do a flip. Then he told me he was going to press the button to make me do a flip. “Ready? 1…. 2….. 3…” And I was screaming “Don’t press the button!! I Don’t want to flip!” As if there’s a button to press to do that! Again….. 10 beers! Anyway, by the time I got out of there I was just thankful to be alive. Everyone was watching the whole time and got a good laugh. Dallas took this photo and while it’s not very flattering, I think it’s hysterical, so I had to post it.
Since I’d just had a near-death experience, I passed on the rock climbing wall we came across next. It seemed like too much work! I did a lot of wall climbing in high school, but I had no idea if I could still do it today.
Christine, Adam, Kelly and I think Brian were all over the wall.
Todd climbed too. And he got beat by a little girl. He did not get teased at all!
I showed this photo to Adam on my little camera screen and he was all “Whoa! Where is she!?” and then when I pointed he seemed so disappointed that it was a statue. Hilarious.
I don’t think I’ve ever been on an elephant before? I don’t know how I feel about this feature, in hindsight. The elephants didn’t seem to have a very good life. Kind of like the ponies you see everywhere for kids. Adam tried to say something about this and the workers were quick to point out this bulletin board they had displayed with photos of the elephants living it up in the off season. They must hear this complaint a lot.
Plus, for $6 you only got to go in one small lap. Plus, I had to let Mikey O straddle me!
Near the exit I spotted these two. No expressions. They didn’t move. Kind of freaky.
And that was about it. Fun, fun, fun first trip to the Bristol Renaissance Faire. I’m almost afraid to go again because it can’t live up to it!
