Ye Olde Monster Truck Rally and Renaissance Faire

Saturday night, Phillip took Archie to the Monster Truck show in Kentucky this weekend, just the two of them. Apparently, a good time was had by all. I don't know if y'all have been to one of those (I hadn't!) but a bunch of guys (it had to be guys!) thought it'd be a swell idea to put tires that are 8 feet tall on their trucks and drive over some cars and large mounds of dirt. Here's some video Phillip took:

Phillip's video skills leave something to be desired, as we can't see what it was that caused him to exclaim so, but this was a good sampling of Monster Truck Racing. Of course, he didn't get any video of the trucks falling over, (and they did) which would've been neat. Most of the videos have Archie shouting in the background making various comments.

I didn't go, so I can't make first-hand observations, but I was told that Archie liked the acrobatic dirt bikes best. He now can't decide between an 'extranaut', a baseball player, a monster truck driver or a dirt bike acrobat when he grows up. I'm kind of hoping for 'extranaut'! Here he is enjoying himself at the Monster Truck Rally:

They got back pretty late. Archie was awake the ride home, but just barely. He went right out when he went to bed! They got me a pink and white checkered flag as a souvenir. Archie has a Monster Truck shirt and a black and white checkered flag.

On Sunday, Archie sang with the Cherub Choir during the service at the church down the street. It was tough getting him up! But he seemed to enjoy himself and sang nicely.

After church, we went to the Renaissance Faire, which takes place for eight weekends in the fall. This was the last weekend we would be able to attend, so we forked over an insane amount of money to check it out. It is really nicely done, with lots of costumed people, cool shops, and fun activities. We checked out "Daniel the Duke of Danger" first and Archie really enjoyed him. He told lots of fun stories and jokes and performed incredible feats of balance!

And of course, the highlight of any Renaissance Faire...The Joust! There's a fair amount of 'blah, blah, blah' that goes on before the cool stuff begins. I guess Renaissance era folks were created with the gift of gab, judging from all the gabbing before the performances! So the two knights spent a good while hurling insults as did the emcee. They then did a full joust, running horses at one another with the armor and lance and all.

At the end of the second 'round' of the full joust, one of the knights was 'unhorsed' (knocked down from his horse, which is the goal of the jouster) and the horse began to freak out (probably not the goal!). The knight's foot was caught in the stirrup and the horse proceeded to stomp, go nuts, and drag the knight underneath. The emcee was hollering for someone to get the horse, but I have to admit, I wouldn't be too excited to go near that horse! It began to go near the crowd. It looked as though it was about to jump the fence into the crowd! Someone finally gabbed it, calmed it somewhat and untangled the knight. It was absolutely horrifying! I didn't think the guy was going to get up! But, thankfully, he did! I guess all that armor really works! Everyone cheered the injured knight and I think there was a collective sigh of relief throughout the crowd. He walked out of the arena, and that pretty much ended the joust.

You can see how he was outfitted here. This is the knight that was drug by the horse:


I came back for the 5pm joust to see if they were going to do the full contact joust in light of the crazy horse. They did, and it was the SAME TWO KNIGHTS! I couldn't believe the one who got stomped on and drug was at it again! Thankfully, he was riding a different horse! Here's a video I took of one the jousting rounds. We had no crazy horse incidents at this one.




Pretty cool, huh? It was really neat going to this now, because Archie and I had been studying a bit about the time period such as food, fashions and housing, so it tied in nicely with our lessons!

We also checked out the Mudd Show which was really funny. It is, as the name suggests, a play of sorts, which is played in a pit of mud. Which means mud is tossed, the actors fall in it, there IS a splatter factor, and you could, even as a spectator, get potentially very dirty. Muddy. I guess the name mystified some people because Phillip said there were a few people angrily leaving because some mud had splattered on their clothes! We were sitting pretty far back, so we left mud free! I think Archie would've enjoyed it more if we had been closer. He said he didn't care for the Mudd Show, but Morgan and I really enjoyed it!

We saw some belly dancers. Here's one balancing beer on her head! My kind of lady! :-)

We left exhausted and several dollars lighter, but it was a great day! On a side note, for those expecting us in Mobile...Morgan, Archie and I will leave around noon on Thursday and arrive around 11 or midnightish. Phillip will be leaving after work, and prolly won't get in until early Friday morning. Phillip and Morgan will be returning to Cincinnati on Sunday and Archie and I will be returning Wednesday. We'll be in Mobile for the weekend before Archie's birthday as well.