Weekend Fun

We made our annual trip to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival today. We've now been there for all the major possible weather conditions - heat advisories (aka the year I almost passed out), drenching rain (the year we had no umbrella or ponchos), and now some unseasonable cold weather. (The Fest ends in early October, so I don't think it'll ever get snowed on, but this is Missouri so I won't swear to it.)

The high today in Bonner Springs was maybe 40 or so. It didn't rain, which would have been utterly miserable. Luckily, we'd taken a blanket and extra clothes in case it did rain, and I'd packed a scarf and ear-warmers just in case. (I was remembering three weeks of being miserably cold in Ireland.) After about an hour, I went back to the car for the scarf and blanket, and managed, with some dexterity, to put my extra shirt on under my original shirt.

Other than the cold, we had a good time. El Burrito spent most of the day riding in his stroller, wearing a polar fleece jacket and his winter hat, with his Lightning McQueen blanket tucked around him. We saw a dragon show for kids, the raptor show from the World Bird Sanctuary, bits of music, and did some shopping. El Burrito's favorite bits were the "necklace" he got for donating to the bird sanctuary, and getting to see the elephant again. He wasn't fond of the dragon (a person in a costume) but he sat through the show anyway.

We visited Nene Thomas' booth as usual (still kicking myself for missing Petal before it sold out, didn't see Tullamore perform this year, and bought a nice copper dragonfly sculpture for our future garden. I still need to scare up a recipe for those cinnamon crunch almonds.

And I have to say: it was Pet Weekend at the Festival. Dogs everywhere, from Jack Russells to Great Danes, and I don't think I saw any dog poop laying around. Fairly remarkable; there are far fewer dogs in our neighborhood and that visit Shelter Garden, and I see abandoned piles at both places on a regular basis.

Weather-wise, it frosted last night, and there will probably be a hard frost or a freeze tonight. This is the earliest I can recall a frost; there was one year it froze around Halloween, and the Christmas tree farm down the road lost a lot of trees.