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Today, we headed to Wentzville, and the Greater St. Louis Renaissance Faire. It’s been many, many years since I’ve been to one of these, and I thought it would be fun to go, see and explore.

The weather was great for this event — temps in the mid-70s, and broken clouds. It was very easy to find comfortable surroundings! We wandered through this recreation of mid-16th century France, up and down the gentle hills, shopping, gawking at the costumes, and generally enjoying ourselves.

As with most of the events I’ve attended, there was a demonstration of swordplay and jousting. This is the part of the event I always enjoy, and this one was no exception. The riders aligned the crowd to their sides, and fought for our honor. I know they pull their attacks, and don’t hit with full force, but I’m still surprised those guys can do that, and still get back on the horse for the next show.

Probably the neatest thing we saw was a dragon singing bowl. This was a bowl, quite ornate, with two brass handles. When the bowl is filled with water, rubbing wet hands briskly across the top of the handles causes the surface of the water to show patterns, and the bowl will “sing” making an amazing sound. We watched another attendee make the bowl sing like crazy, and learned the trick to doing it. I was only able to get a little bit of sound from it, but Sio was able to make it sing quite well. I’m definitely interested in adding one of these to our deck!

We also stumbled onto a vendor who specialized in chiseling designs into native Missouri limestone. Darla found a nice piece of limestone with a celtic knot chiseled into it and, of course, it made its way home with us. I imagine it will adorn our garden once we find a good place for it.

All in all, a good time, and probably on the list of things to do again.