People watching at the Renaissance

I know where Waldo was last Saturday. As anyone who recognizes the allusion will expect, he was wearing a red and white striped shirt and hat and mingling among a large crowd of people dressed in every color imaginable and each carrying or wearing items that helped represent who they were and what they were doing.

 

I also rubbed shoulders with Fred Flintstone, Dumbledore, and a goat-footed satyr or two.

We were all at the Renaissance Festival wandering about and seeing what there was to see.

We could not have been more fortunate when it came to the weather–temperatures in the 70s and no wind to speak of.

 

I enjoyed many things while I was there. Sat in on a show or two. Ate wild rice soup in a bread bowl. Saw some capybara, elephants and an albino snapping turtle. Enjoyed the company of family and friends.

 

What I appreciated most, though, was the people watching.

 

There were characters there from video games and current popular culture–though I could not have named them, I still appreciated the effort and creativity people had employed to make their elaborately shaped headgear or footwear or wings. Some folks were dressed as royalty or elite members of various cultures and widely divided times in history. Some were covered in layers of fabric, even leather and furs (both real and artificial), while others were barely dressed.

 

All these bizarre beings were mingling and weaving among each other in ever-increasing numbers as the day’s crowd continued to grow.

 

My group of four arrived on site around 8:15 after getting underway from Waseca shortly after  6:30–yes, I do mean a.m.

 

Since the gates don’t open until 9, that might seem rather fanatical. But after the hilly, slightly dusty walk from our parked car, we were glad to be standing still for a bit. The people watching had begun already in the parking lot, where people got out of their cars in fairly ordinary clothing, then began to buckle on armor, drape capes over their shoulders and strap on weaponry. Others were pulling dresses over their heads, wrapping scarves around their shoulders and waists, and setting flowered coronets on their heads.

 

Our walk to the main gate was behind a pair of glimmering dragons–who happened to be helping an older lady, their mother, as she worked to walk uphill. Beginning at the gate and throughout the day, we couldn’t help noticing that mushrooms are “in” this year. People had made large rounded hats, usually red with white dots, although other color combinations did appear. Clever touches of all types had been used: strings of beads suspended underneath or along the outside edge. White buttons large and small scattered across the top. Clumps of moss on a dark-colored mushroom apparently meant to look threatening–I got hints that one was from a movie or video game. Parasols decorated to be mushroom tops. One group of friends who had made similar but not identical hats and looked like a matched set in an array of colors.