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Saturday we got up at 5, drove to John’s place, stuffed him in the car and drove out to Stockbridge MA for the Berkshire Botanical Garden Harvest Festival.
(If any of you remember the Alice’s Restaurant song by Arlo Guthrie back in the 60’s this is the town where it was set: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Restaurant )

The instructions on where to go were not clear, but we had a map.

But, when we got there, it was pretty clear where they expected us to be.

It was just a question of getting everything out of the car and set up in the light rain that the weather reports had promised we wouldn’t need to deal with.

This resulted in lots of little leaves sticking to our tent. I expect them to blow off in Alabama a few weeks from now.

My hat has no top, so I stayed in the tent. People with more practical hats roamed about.

While still damp, not so many folks were interested in coming to see us.

But, once the swords started ringing, we did get the folks who were there.

And, everyone loves stuffing people in bags.

palusbuteo found out that the food people were selling a "pulled port parfait".

Corn bread, with beans on top, with pulled pork on that, cole slaw on top with a cherry tomato.

Yes, of course I had one for lunch too…

We had 3 1/2 hours between shows. While damp, not many folks came by to see us.

But, as the sun came out, more folks showed up and we did short sword fights on request.

And, we are always happy to talk about the swords and their history.

The sunnier it got, the more folks came by.

I had to spend some time cleaning the blades from the morning damp.

And, drying myself out too.

By the time of our actual show, a good number of folks showed up.

When the shows were over we took off through the mountains to our hotel only one highway exit, but 30 miles, away.

I let John take the photos while I drove. This included him playing with the close up feature to take pictures of his pants.

When we got to the hotel, it didn’t look totally open.

Good thing for the signs or I would have worried more.

We ate dinner at the Friendly’s near the hotel as they make my wife’s favorite ice cream sunday.

Sunday morning, it was pretty cool. 34F/2C.

I had to scrape the windshield before we could get going.

It was a nice morning, but we felt bad for the guy on the motorcycle in the cold.

The gardens are near a brook, so a bit foggy.

But, it looked nice in the (cold) sun.

Our tent was fine over night.

I was glad I had my overcoat from my costume with me or it would have been unpleasant.

The sisters showed up shortly after we did and got to practicing right off.

And, folks stopped to watch us warm up.

It was nice to have the sun.

There were a lot more people there Sunday.

I’m not sure if this was "harvest festival", "Wizard of Oz" or "Batman villain". But, the kids seemed to like it.

For the show a fair number of folks stopped by.

The sister’s parents came to the show. We had been given a bunch of event coupons for the show. We game them to them for the day. They bought us balloons as thank you. They even matched our shirt colors.