Excerpts from Texas Renaissance Festival - Vol. 2

We eventually went our separate ways. My group back out on the road towards camp, The boys on their way back home. At least Musketeer #2 was able to convince his parents to meet him halfway so they didn't get to the camp too terribly late.

Our group stopped at a convenience store to pick up some alcoholic beverages. It was a little strange for me, I mean, we don't get that kind of convenience in my area! By alcoholic beverages, I, of course, mean beer for Musketeer #1 and Smirnoff Ice for me. I don't do beer. In any shape or form. You can try to make it fruity and call it something special, but I will know. People tell me, 'But you can't even taste the beer! It just tastes like apples!'

Wrong.

It tastes like beer flavored apples.

I'm like that though. If I don't like something, I can usually pinpoint what is in it that I don't like. So don't try sneaking any ginger into my food. You will have a plate thrown at your head. Okay, I'm not that mean, but I assure you, I won't eat it.

/detour

Back to the story at hand.

We got to the campgrounds only to have the guys at the gate tell us that we needed to have our tickets. Well, our tickets were on their way back to Dallas... oops. They let us in with a warning. We drove in and grabbed the first clear area we found so as to make it a little easier for the guys to find us when they finally arrived.

Musketeer #1 quickly set to putting up the tents. It was freezing. Well, freezing for a native Texan... I mean, I could SEE my breath! Of course, I didn't bring my heavy coat. I did bring my heavy, zip-up hoodie, though! By the time we were sitting down with our 'beverages', I was wearing 4 shirts and was still cold. (My original shirt, my hoodie, the long sleeved shirt I brought to sleep in, and the extra hoodie that Musketeer #1 brought, just in case) I was quite a sight to see, I'll bet. I kept joking that we should be going to make friends with the group down the road with a big campfire. Ha!

We had two tents. One large, three person tent and one smaller two person tent. I had the pleasure of 'rooming' with the two Musketeers that I had only just met a few hours before back at the Love's. I had my area all set up by the time the boys got there. My sleeping bag, pillow and multiple blankets. One Musketeer opened the tent and said, "Well, I guess we know where somebody is sleeping!"

We were all very happy to see the last of our party show up. They had the extra chairs and the 'heating element'. It was nice to get my lap back and be able to warm it back up by the fire.

From what I understand of the heating element, you put paper underneath, add chips in the top and light the paper. It has two levels and kind of looks like a big metal mug. Musketeer #3 thought it was more like a mug than it was and thought it would be funny to walk around with a big mug of fire, kind of like a torch.

He was quite surprised when he picked it up and a bunch of flaming paper fell out of the bottom! He put it back in it's place pretty quickly and no harm was done.

We sat and talked around the 'Camp Mug' until it started dying and we decided to finish setting up our respective sleeping areas and bed down for the night. We were apparently planning on being up at 8.

I, of course, was up at 6 to utilize the PortAPotty.

*Gag*

TBC