Lone Star Pirate Festival

Oh Boy, I wish I was going to be home for this! Amazingly, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of it. The Lone Star Pirate Festival. Wow. Right here in Houston, how lucky we are. 😉

It looks like so much fun. You get to dress up like pirates, drink lots of pirate beverages, listen to maritime/pirate music (the Bilge Pumps, Blaggards, etc), and go around saying ‘arrrrgghh’. And everybody around actually ‘gets it’. 😉

They’ll also have food trucks and vendors and according to their Facebook page, a real life mermaid. 😉 It’s also inside so you don’t have to worry about the weather. I’d love to go!

I can’t wish too hard though, since I am supposed to be working during that time period. It’s scheduled for July 20th and I should be shipboard by then (it’s not a pirate ship 😉 ).

I was thinking about it this afternoon and until this job I will have only worked 5 weeks out of 36! I can’t hope for anything else other than that I actually get to go do that job! So many have been cancelled this year at the last minute.

Maybe they’ll have another one of these festivals that I can go to. I hope so. I hope they come back to Houston. I don’t like driving all the way up there, but it’s not too far for something like this. If anybody get’s to go, I hope you’ll let us know how it went.

Surfside Food and Art Festival

Today I went to the 2nd annual Food and Art Festival at Surfside Beach. I showed up around 1400. There were cars parked all along the highway, filling up both parking lots and even the old convenience store down the road. I found a place to park and headed for the music.

Stahlman Park was as busy as I’ve ever seen it. The beach was full of people with surfboards and kites. It was a beautiful morning, the sun was out and the sky was blue. By the time I got to the beach, it had clouded up and was grey and clouds covered the sky. It was windy enough for the kites. There were a lot of people having fun with them. I saw a lot of different kinds. My favorite was the dragon. 🙂

The Surfside Volunteer Fire Department was out with their fire truck (and mascot). They were cooking up a storm. Art car by Bonnie Blue was parked out front. Downstairs there was a live band playing, people were dancing, and the chili was cooking. Upstairs the artists were set up. The whole place was crowded, a few of the booths were completely sold out. They even sold out of hot dogs. Good news for the SOBA and St Patricks Day folks. 🙂

I was glad to see such a large crowd. The vendors I talked to said they were selling a few things. I had a booth myself last year. There weren’t many people then and I didn’t sell a single thing all day so I didn’t bother to get one this time (I also thought I would be back to work by now, but still stuck trying to find a job).

They had a lot of interesting stuff for sale. Everything from cupcakes and honey to home made soaps and cremes, jewelry, pottery, paintings, wood carvings, and more. They even had a ‘community art project’ where everyone was welcome to join the fun and add their own personal touch to a large canvas near the front entrance. I liked to see that the whole thing was very dog friendly too. I saw quite a few people brought their dogs along and they were welcome everywhere. Nice.

There was a man by the front door who built model ships. He had a couple of really large models, one finished and the other still needed a few details added. It looked very time consuming! Tiny little pieces everywhere. I would never have the patience for that, but it looked like a good hobby for some.

The Fort Velasco people had a table there too. I drove by later and saw they’ve got signs up prohibiting metal detectors and a round wooden palisade. Looks like they’re making some progress but I didn’t stop to talk to them this year.

There were quite a few teams entered in the chili cook-off too. Everyone looked like they were having a blast. I’m not a big chili fan so I didn’t try any myself, but it must’ve been popular since a few of the teams were already sold out.

There was also a craft beer tasting that looked interesting, but I can’t take any chances on that so had to skip it. I think the chili and beer definitely helped the attendance this year. I hope they’ll keep on adding more things like that to the festival. It definitely increased the crowds by a lot this year!

CFFC: Letter K

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is to use the letter K. It can be anywhere in the word.

Here’s my entry…

Knight showing off for the King and queen

the red Knight attacKs the blue Knight as the jousting continues…

I took those photos at the Texas Renaissance Festival. It’s still going on, every weekend til the end of November.

I love to go and see all the creative costumes. People really go all out. It’s a long drive for me. This year I splurged. I got a weekend pass and stayed at a hotel nearby so I wouldn’t have to deal with the long drive and the miserable traffic. I’d like to go again, but I’ve got some other things planned and need to be careful of my budget.

PS: the Featured Image is of fireworKs. 😉

Thursday Photo Prompt- Tower- #writephoto

I was looking through some of my photos while I was trying to sort them out yesterday. I thought I had some really good ones for this challenge. Sue does a weekly photo prompt on Thursdays and this week the subject is “tower“.

I went to the Texas Renaissance Festival last weekend. It was ‘Fairy Weekend” and I really wanted to see the fairies. I’ve been to “Barbarian Weekend” and “Pirate Weekend” before (I especially liked the pirates). 🙂

They have all sorts of things to see and do from back in the days: jousting, archery, magicians, traditional music, fireworks, dancers, and fire dancing as just a few examples. I really love to see all the amazing costumes people have created. Some of them spend thousands of dollars. Some create quite an effect with only a minimal expense.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

One of the things you can do is to climb the castle tower.

Renaissance Weekend

Just a quick update since it’s been another busy week. I got up early yesterday to finish up my photos to enter in the fair. I dropped them off and headed up to the Renaissance Festival near Magnolia (NW of Houston).

I didn’t get there til about 1600, but at least there wasn’t the usual huge traffic jam to deal with and I got to park fairly close (without having to pay the $10 ‘preferred parking’ fee. 🙂

It was a good idea showing up so late. It was still hot and humid, but not nearly so bad as if I had shown up at noon. I still got to check out the shops full of old time clothing, weaponry, jewelry and other assorted goods. In between I enjoyed a chocolate ice cream cone and a $6 lemonade.

I stayed to watch the fireworks. That was a blast (literally)! First the fire dancers put on their show. Then Tartanic started playing their spirited rendition of Celtic inspirational music as the rockets whistled into the air. 🙂

I spent the night ‘nearby’ (thought I would save time but got stuck instead). I’ve got to check out of the hotel. More later- with pictures. 🙂

Phoenix to the Faire

I got back from Phoenix on Sunday. On the way, I stopped off at the Renaissance Festival (Faire). I’ve been trying to go for a couple of weeks, but it has been raining every weekend. It’s not really much fun anymore to wander around in the rain.

This Sunday was finally nice. The weather was gorgeous! Sunny and cool. 🙂

So I went straight from the airport up to the Fair. Looks like everybody else in Texas had the same plans!

The traffic was horrible! It took me over 2 hours just to get from Magnolia to the festival grounds. That’s only about 6-7 miles!

Once I finally got there, I was happy to wander around all day. There was plenty to do. Watch the jugglers, jousting, fools, belly dancers, magicians. Listen to some really cool music, I really liked the Scottish group “Tartanic”. They put on a fantastic show!

There was all kinds of food to sample, set up in ‘villages’: Greek, Italian, Polish, Mexican, etc along with the usual fair foods (turkey legs, cheesecake on a stick, corn on the cob, gyros, sausage on a stick, funnel cakes,etc).

There were interesting shops for such necessities as armor, magical supplies, leather, candles, writing instruments, weaponry, jewelry, hats and clothing (mostly to fit the theme).

I loved seeing all the creative costumes. Some of the barbarians were really scary. Some of the costumes were just plain weird. Some of the outfits were just gorgeous. Some ladies I talked with told me they spent thousands of dollars on their costumes!

I really loved some of the clothes, I even went to try on a few. I couldn’t find a corset that fit. That’s probably a good thing, they were NOT cheap!

trying on corsets

trying on corsets

Besides, when would I ever wear something like that other than Halloween? Or maybe for the St Patricks Day festivities here at Surfside?

I didn’t get home til after midnight. Slept late Monday and didn’t get much done. More on the Festival later, once I get caught up. Lots to tell. 🙂

Photography 101: Rodeo Moments

I haven’t been able to get out to get many new pictures lately, so I’m looking through some old ones for the Photography 101 Challenge: Moment.

The idea is to ‘”capture a fleeting moment and experiment with blur and movement”.

I did try this last time they ran this challenge, but I found some different pictures this time. I took these at the Brazoria County Fair a couple of years ago. I don’t think these turned out as good as the earlier ones I just posted. It was SO hard to get a good shot of the cowboys once they came out of the gate on those bulls!

I’m thinking of going to the Houston Rodeo tomorrow tho, so maybe I’ll be able to get some better ones this time. I really love going to the rodeo. I’m lucky to be home for this one. I’m in Houston tonight anyway, so might as well do something here in the morning before I go home. It’ll be either the rodeo or the zoo. 🙂

Weekly Photo Challenge: Nighttime- Brazoria County Fair

I love to take pictures at night. They almost never turn out very good but I keep trying. I was glad to see the Weekly Photo Challenge: Nighttime.

I’ve got a few good ones. I like to take pictures of everything, so I have a good variety of stuff. Here are a few from last years Brazoria County Fair. I’ll miss it this year. My new job has me missing pretty much EVERYTHING I usually try to do when I’m home. 🙁

 

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Nighttime- Bikes and Blues

I love to take pictures at night. They almost never turn out very good but I keep trying. I was glad to see the Weekly Photo Challenge: Nighttime.

I’ve got a few good ones. I like to take pictures of everything, so I have a good variety of stuff. Here are a few from the last time I went to the Bikes and Blues Fest in Freeport TX. I missed it this year. 🙁

 

 

More: Bike and Blues Fest 2013

I’m glad I had most of these photos uploaded before I came out here this hitch. I really haven’t had the time to get online much and the computer situation is not the best here. I’m kind of limited in what I can do til I get back home.

So, I figured since I already had the pictures on here, I might as well add a little bit more flavor to my earlier post about the Summertime Bikes and Blues Fest.

I was actually there last summer. They usually have this event the last weekend in August. I try to go if I’m home. I usually see a few friends, it’s neat to check out all the cool bikes, and I really love the music. It’s out in the open, spread out around the old downtown area of Freeport. I like that it’s that way, it doesn’t feel very crowded. The food is good too. 🙂

This slideshow requires JavaScript.