Anyone who has followed my ranting for any length of time knows that I don’t like taking days off for rain, let alone a day like Labor Day.  In Michigan, everybody and their brother heads up north for the long weekend so the local traffic is lighter than almost any time in the spring, summer or fall months.  This makes for some enjoyable riding conditions where I live – in the middle of corn country (or as close as you can get to that in the surrounding six counties).  Well yesterday was about as perfect a day as you get for a fun ride.  A little on the cool side (upper 60’s), partly cloudy and a bit breezy.  By 10:30, after I’d finished cutting the grass, I had thrown my normal schedule of Monday off (no matter what) out the window.  Not wise considering I’ve been doing so well lately.

That’s when my wife swooped in to save the day with the suggestion of packing the family in the van and heading out to the Renaissance Festival.  There are a few things I don’t like about the festival, chief among them the fact that a certain rotund segment of the population likes to use the occasion to show much more skin than modern decorum would tolerate, but for the most part, it’s a really good time.  Now, it’s been some years since we were out to the festival, but I remembered two of my favorite reasons:  Turkey Legs and Chicken Dumpling Soup in a Bread Bowl:

After a fantastic lunch we hit several rides, a maze, checked out some farm animals in a little petting zoo and then headed for my favorite attraction:

In the end, we went for a five hour walk and got to see a lot of really neat stuff – and a little too much skin.