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Saturday, June 7, 2014
Today is the main reason we timed this little trip to Billings for this weekend. The Montana Renaissance Faire is today and Kelly is the queen!
After a slow breakfast at Stella’s again (even more crowded than yesterday and a slower waitress who was easily distracted - “squirrel!”), we drove to the west side of town to the ZooMontana, which is where the Faire is being held.
Despite using the GPS and looking up the directions ahead of time, we managed to miss the entrance road on our first pass. Found it on our second attempt... From the looks of the parking lot, this is being well attended already and the gates just barely opened. Unlike yesterday, this was a clear, sunny day. And the sunscreen got left in the motel room....
We were greeted at the entrance by King Jayme and Queen Kelly (left), who introduced us to some of the others in costume and escorted us through the entrance.
This is a much smaller affair than the RenFest held annually in Larkspur, CO, that we’ve gone to a couple of times. It has a much more amateurish feel, which is good.
We had a good time and managed to see all of the zoo (it’s a small one) and the flower gardens (it’s also a botanical park) and caught several of the events during the day. Lunch was steak on a stick (yum) fixed by one of Kelly’s coworkers.
These three photos show some of the things we saw around the Renaissance Faire area. The photo on the left looks over a spinner's shoulder as she spins wool. The center photo shows a potter at work. The photo on the right shows "Gandalf" chatting with Queen Kelly.
Aroung noon, the people in costume formed a parade to procede through the grounds. The three photos above show parts of this parade, with Queen Kelly and King Jayme leading the way.
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Near the back of the grounds, the Fairy Queen was entertaining the youngsters by creating lots of bubbles by dipping a net into a bucket of bubble mixture and waving it back and forth.
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No Renaissance Faire would be complete without a joust! This one was no exception. The three photos above show some of the jousting action.
The Renaissance Faire was held on the grounds of ZooMontana, a nice little zoo. We took some time to wander the zoo area, also. The photo on the left shows one of the peacocks that seemed to have the run of the grounds. This one was perched on a fence in the children's section of the zoo.
And even the zoo signs were taken over by the Renaissance Faire. The photo on the right shows the new sign for the tom turkey in the children's section. He's been renamed The Town Squawker... Most of the animals were given temporary names, such as Sir Bruno for one of the bears.
These photos show more of the zoo animals. The photo on the left shows a mountain sheep. The center photo shows one of the bald eagles. The photo on the right shows one of the white wolves.
The zoo also had some very active river otters, some bears, some red pandas, and a lynx. The tiger cubs were still under quarantine while we were there, so their enclosure was empty.
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ZooMontana is also a botanical garden. Many of the flowers were in full bloom. The photo to the left shows a large lily pond near the children's zoo. The photo on the right shows a closer view of the lovely lilies found here.
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The iris were in full bloom while we were there. The photo on the left shows some of the iris (and water iris) near the koi pond. The photo on the right are some blue iris in the xeriscape demonstration garden.
We left a little after 4 and drove back to the motel for quick showers.
Once we got cleaned up, we walked over to one of the pubs downtown and had a beer apiece at the bar. Nice finish to the day.
Carl did some quick work on the internet and found a good place for dinner called Famous Dave’s. It was just what we needed after a hot day. They specialize in barbecue of all kinds. Kelly had come by the motel once her royal duties were over for the day and we drove there in her car. Very nice dinner. We’ll be back!
After dinner, she dropped us at the motel as she was beat. She went on home and crashed. We did too.