Sunday adventures

[fbhjr]

We had already known that one of our sword people would miss this week and another would be very late for it.
But, when we got up this morning we found out that all the others would miss it too.

So, faced with the choice of just us and someone who would be very late, we cancelled practice for the week.
Sad as we had just bought new swords yesterday. And, I REALLY wanted to try mine out.
But, what can you do it others don’t want to play?

We were left with the question, what to do instead?
My wife remembered that the street festival in Worcester (the city next to where we live) had been postponed from last week and was going on today: http://www.startonthestreet.org/start-street-fall-edition

So, off we went.

The first thing we saw, to show it would be a good festival, was someone left a keg of beer on our front steps.

Turned out to be our downstairs neighbor. She came and carried it in as we went off.

We also drove past where Spags used to be. They’re building something new there. Rumors are a Whole Foods Market. We’ll see.

I miss Spags…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spag%27s

Off to Worcester across the (not in the day light) colorfully lit bridge.


The water already looks cold and it has only be autumn for 4 days…


Parking was an issue. The festival website was of no help saying basically "we hope you find some".
We did find some a few streets over and walked down to the festival.


We passed where one of our sword troupe members lived when we started the troupe 16 years ago.

(Which is, of course, part of the reason we know where to park in that part of town…)

The festival closed off one of the main city roads for two blocks.


There were a surprisingly large number of folks there doing their thing.


They had several stages with people doing shows.



Our comic book store was literally in the middle of it.

So, I stopped and got our comics while we were there.

My wife spent a fair bit of time at this booth. I was not surprised.


Halfway in and there were lots of folks.


There were several groups doing sword fighting there.
The SCA.



One of the groups that had been at the Higgins museum before they closed.


(I went and stood at their table for 2 minutes and not a single person came to talk to me…

Maybe they know I don’t get along with their boss…)

There was even a fire show with folks doing poi…



"Swords and fire," I said to my wife. "That’s what we do. And, we’re only one town away. Why aren’t we hired for this show?"
"They want people to do it for free, and you said no to that," my wife answered.
"Oh yeah. Good reason…"

The Worcester Art Museum was there. Since they bought a lot of the old Higgins exhibits, they were there in armor. They were happy to talk with me. (I didn’t even show them my membership card…)


They had dragon dancers too. That’s not something that Phoenix Swords has ever done. But, I’ve always thought it cool!



I know I keep saying it, but there were a lot of folks there.


This made it challenging when my wife and I got separated.


But, she was able to find me despite the crowd.


We walked down and back and ended up where we started.


I found it interesting how it went from thousands of people in the street to normal traffic with little in between.


As we drove back home, we went past the hospital with the train track running through the middle. We were surprised to see a train stopped under the hospital.

Made me wonder if a doctor said "stop that until I’m done with this operation!"

While I’m sad we didn’t do a sword practice today, it was a fun way to spend the afternoon.