Visiting the Frasier

[fbhjr]

In the morning we found the storm of the night before had passed and it was a nice day.


I was happy to see my car had not washed away, it was happy to see I had not been fried by lighting up at the top of the tallest building around.


My wife and I went off to Waffle House for a nice big breakfast.

It was big enough that I didn’t even notice we had skilled lunch until my wife mentioned it at dinner.

hms_ennui & pallid_regina arrived to take us into town.

We had hoped to meet kismets_kiss there as well, but she couldn’t make it. Sad as we hadn’t found her new spot at the faire over the weekend so didn’t get to see her at all.

Then, off to Louisville to the Frasier Museum.


In the two years since we’ve been to “Museum Row” apparently they have decided what it really needs is a very tall, naked, gold plated person.


Ignoring Goldie, we parked and headed to the museum.


Across the street from it is the Louisville Slugger baseball bat museum.

Down the street is some other kind of giant bat.

We did not investigate the bats and went over to the Frasier to be Samurai.



There had been quite a few changes in the 2 years since we were last there.
One was they have added a huge collection of figurines.

They are all over the museum and cover a very wide range of history and subject.


They also have their large “figurines” or dioramas too.


The best of them are in the section of the museum done by the Royal Armories. Until I manage to make it to the one in Leeds, this is the best I’ve seen.


And, I do like their dioramas. They seem much better than most of the ones I see at museums.



I particularly liked the one with the falchion and buckler in one of the buckler wards and everything.


We also found information on the character perrin_o_ravnos plays at faires. To be honest, I hadn’t realized he had researched one and thought he made the name up.


They had some good originals of things we use in the troupe.




I tried this experiment with my eyes 4 times.

I got: left, right, right, left
So, apparently even my eyes are dyslectic and can’t make up their mind which is dominant.

Two years ago, when we were last in Louisville, we came to the Frasier. We flew that time, landed, got our car and left the airport by 10AM. There was a smallsword demo at 10:45. We wanted to see that and headed over there. However, there was some sort of car accident on the highway and even thought it was only 5 miles, we got there just as they were finishing.
This time we decided we were going to see that demo. It was only being given on Monday, so that is the day we decided to go to the museum.
hms_ennui ran out of his Rotary Club meeting early to get us there. (He was the president. I’m told now he isn’t. But, he didn’t abdicate just to get us to the museum in time. Well, I hope that isn’t why...)
We got to the museum in plenty of time.
And,

The LONGSWORD demo.

I guess one of the people who does the smallsword called in sick and they swapped the longsword demo from Tuesday to Monday.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the longsword. It is what I used to demo at the Higgins museum and is still one of my favorite weapons. But, it is the demo we saw here 2 years ago, so I was a bit disappointed that it was what I was going to see again.

My disappointment did not last long. These two were much better than the ones we saw 2 years ago, the demo was good, the presentation good, the audience really got into it, and I ended up being very happy we had seen a good longsword demo.




One of the two doing it reminds me of our instructor Mark.


And, I can’t deny, I envy their equipment, their demo area and their storage for the equipment.


hms_ennui knew the one in grey who is the head of interpretation and introduced us.
We had a very nice chat and know some of the same folks in the circuit. The people who came over from the Royal Armories to work with him are some of the same folks who came to work with the Higgins 12 years ago.
So, that was very nice.

Then, we went to see the special Samurai exhibit.

It is not a touring exhibit. It is only going to be at the Frasier and is mostly made up of items from private collections. So, once it is over, it is over.

They had some cool swords and other weapons.



But, I really liked that they had a lot more than just that.





My wife tried on the hats.


Back in the 80’s I read a series of stories about a female samurai named Tomoe Gozen. I had always thought they were fictional, but here she was referenced in the exhibit.

(They had been in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the store and involved monsters, retrieving people from hell, etc. They appear to be long out of print.)

Then, it was time for the gift shop.

My wife got the catalog of the exhibit, I bought an inflatable beard. (It seemed like a good, if silly, idea at the time.)

Then, back to the car and off to dinner.

We were left pondering why the highway supports are numbered, but none of us knew.


It was MUCH nicer than the major thunderstorm the night before.


So, we took the long way to the restaurant and got to see a lot more of Louisville.




The building front in the middle of the road was strange, but we were told it was always there.

My theory is it was built by early mammals to fool dinosaurs. The dinos would come and knock at the door and wait and the early mammals would sneak out for dinner.
I’m not saying it is a good theory.

And, we all had dinner.


The Louisville encouraged us to see even more of the city by blocking our way out with a train.


But, we did escape and headed back out of the city.


We visited some more with hms_ennui, pallid_regina, her father and their many dogs.


We also saw, but didn’t visit, their angry, hot, bees.


It has been a very nice trip and a great visit with hms_ennui & pallid_regina, but today we’re packing up and heading home.
I can’t deny, I regret not having a few more days on this vacation. But, it had quality if not quantity and I can’t complain about that.

Comments

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

YAY!

[pallid-regina.livejournal.com]

"So, we took the long way to the restaurant and got to see a lot more of Louisville"

o_O

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Best euphamism for what actually occurred EVER.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

We did see a lot more of Louisville, you can't deny that!

[pallid-regina.livejournal.com]

No, you're absolutely correct, I cannot deny that! LOL, so funny.