It Tastes Like Burning
Camping and King Richard's Faire
I had a fucking fantastic weekend. I had really needed a vacation and it was so nice to really "get away from it all" so to speak.
On Friday, Randy and I, Jenna and Jason, and Mike all met up at about 3pm to begin our journey. We had decided to go camping this weekend in Carver, Mass, the location of King Richard's Faire. Our trek went fairly smoothly, aside for the "kerfucking" traffic we hit on Route 93. I say "kerfucking" because Mike hated it so much he started making up his own swear words, that being one of them. 
At about 6pm, we arrived at the entrance to Myles Standish State Forest. The forest is HUGE. The signs are small. That was annoying. So we spent about... oh, 45 minutes driving down winding roads until we came to the Forest Headquarters and checked in.
We arrived at our campsites and were very happy to find that they were really nice, fairly level, and had nice fire pits. We were also close to the bathroom (yes bathroom, not Port-A-Potty)- score! I was relieved, since I had spent hours on the internet, pouring over maps of the park and trying to pick the right spots! Since it was dusk when we arrived, the race to set up our tents before nightfall began!
So what did Randy do?
He started a fire. I knew I was in for it when, on the drive from the forest headquarters to the campsites he started saying "I feel the need for fire."
Here's Mike blowing up his air mattress in the dark.
I started the tent and once the fire was sufficiently burning, Randy helped out and we got it set up.
Here it is, our home away from home. It was small, but cozy.  And we used the kneeling pad that I use when I'm on rock digs at the entrance to the tent, which was just awesome and saved us both from bruised knees!
Once we got everything set up, we were able to relax, and Randy made up for his slacking with the tent by cooking us all amazingly tasty burgers and hotdogs, and toasting the buns and everything! Then we toasted marshmallows and had a nice time chitchatting by the fire. It was so nice and relaxing and the weather was perfect! We didn't have a drop of rain the entire weekend!
On Saturday morning, we were able to actually SEE our site set up, which was nice. But let me point something out to you. Mike and Randy and I shared a site. Which tent do you think is ours?
That's right, the TINY one! Mike misjudged the amount of room he'd need and got The Pavilion. It was bigger than Jenna and Jason's tent!
That's Jenna and Jason's site and their slightly-smaller-than-Mike's tent.
At about 10:45am, we made our way to King Richard's Faire. We arrived at the Faire no problem and started making our way to the entrance. We found Beth okay, and looked for Barbara and Sev, who were also meeting us. I didn't see them, so I called Barbara's cell phone. The conversation went something like this:
Barbara: "Hey dude how's it going?"
Me: "Great, where are you?"
Barbara: "What do you mean 'where are you', I'm at home... The Faire is tomorrow, right?"
Me: "Barbara, the Faire is today."
Barbara: "Oh shit, we'll get there as soon as we can!"
Yeah, I thought it was funny for a second until I realized I had forgotten our tickets back at the campsite.
So after going back to the campsite to get the tickets, we made it into the Faire at about noon.
Here are Randy and I at the first show we saw, at the Hog's Mouth. It was a comedy swordfighting show and the guys were hilarious. Randy has a hat that matches mine, but he felt girly wearing it and so opted for his oh-so-stylish Heidelberg hat instead. Don't tell his Aunt Bonnie-Jean, who made the hats for us though.
After the show, we got some lunch. The food at the Faire is fucking fantastic. I had a delicious turkey leg, which I couldn't even finish, Randy had to eat the rest of it.
Just as we were finishing up with our lunch, Barbara called to say they made it- yay! They really made good time, it was only about 1:30pm when they showed up.
So we went to see the Falconry. It was cool to see the falcons, but it was funny because none of them wanted to do their tricks. I love it when animals are like "No fuck you, I don't want to chase your damn piece of wood!"
Here's Jason, Jenna, Mike, and Beth at the Falconry. The weather was gorgeous!
The next show we sort of saw was at the Mud Pit. I say "sort of" because we watched for about five minutes before deciding it sucked and going to look at the weapons.
There were TONS and I think Randy drooled on all of them.
Surprisingly though, Randy didn't get anything. Here's Jason with his sword and Mike with his war hammer though. They're 100% real weapons with a lifetime guarantee. The people who sell them have to wrap the blades in paper and duct tape. Like that's going to stop a fucking war hammer!
I think the best show of the day was Thomas Wood, the Juggler/Fire-Eater. He lit his nipple on fire! Here he is, with a flaming torch pressed against his tongue. He was literally two feet from me (this picture is not zoomed at all) and believe me, it was touching his tongue. He's insane. Hilarious performer. He juggled knives in front of his face. Sharp knives.
We did a bit of shopping while we were there (I found nothing that was in my price range that I desperately needed), and Mike threw some battle axes at a target.
We stopped at the Big Cat show for a moment and saw Snow White, the white tiger, who was adorable. It was too crowded there though so we moved on to the last show of the day, the Joust to the Death!
We had a great view! <shudder> Randy spent about ten minutes after I took this picture trying to get me to delete it so he would never have to see that sight EVER AGAIN. Needless to say, he lost that argument and there you have it.
The jousting was awesome, and our knight was Sir Joseph, who wore red and green. The Xmas Knight. Ha ha. Beth was chosen as one of the maidens who would give Sir Joseph his favors (the favor being a ring with red and green rags tied to it- yay  ). Yay Beth!
The jousting match was fantastic, and our knight, Sir Joseph won the match! Hooray!
Here are some incredible costumes that we saw. There were others but I dunno, I feel weird asking to take pictures of people I don't know.
Here's me.
After leaving King Richard's, we all (well, except Barbara and Sev, who were cold and needed to head home) went back to the campsite for some more delicious barbecued burgers and dogs, courtesy Grill Master Randy.
We were also serenaded by the asshole two sites over who kept singing "Stairway to Heaven" at the top of his lungs. Later he switched to Jimi Hendrix and butchered that song too. We agreed that next year, Adam and Jen will have to come so Adam can rival Stairway man with a rousing rendition of "Take On Me" by A-ha.
After dinner, we realized that even though we had purchased more wood on the way home from the Faire, we were just about out. We scrounged around the campsite for anything burnable but none of it lasted long. So Mike and Jason took matters into their own hands, and went searching for wood. They came back with a couple of two-by-fours and a weird wooden box thingy.
So Mike started hacking at it with his hatchet. After three or four whacks, he realized that it was about as dull as listening to Doug talk about Dark Age, and that something else must be done.
Enter: the battle hammer!
You have no idea how hilarious it was to watch as Mike demolished the two by fours. Jason helped out by standing on one end while balancing the board over the weird box thingy, and Mike would whack at the other end of the board. It took a while, but eventually they got all the boards into burnable-sized pieces.
Well, sort of anyway. And don't worry, those aren't real jumper cables in the fire, that's just the box that mine came in (though it does look realistic, huh?).
That wood lasted long into the night, and Randy and I sat there long after everyone else had gone to bed, making sure that all of the evidence was gone.
Oh yeah and it was fucking freezing last night so after going away from the fire to do ANYTHING, you had to rush right back to it to warm yourself up again. But our sleeping bags kept us warm once we finally put out the fire.
This morning we awoke to another gorgeous day. Sadly, we did have to pack up and leave, but we really enjoyed the whole trip and will definitely be coming back next year. And hopefully earlier in the season, so we could actually go swimming in the lake! That's our view of it from the campsite, so it's right nearby! 
Mike helped by taking this picture, of graffiti in the men's bathroom. There were many jokes made about "Gay Anal sex 4 Lype" for the entire trip. We wonder if Doug has ever visited Myles Standish State Forest... Ha ha
The drive home was much less eventful than the one on the way over (Mike did not need to invent any new swears this time), and we stopped at Bennigan's for lunch. We made a list of things we'll need for next year (more wood, a real axe, etc). Can't wait to go for a much longer camping trip there next year! | 
