Okay, this past weekend was the first weekend of the Wild Rose Renaissance Faire, and it was a doozy.

Saturday was pretty calm, but we arrived late. Google failed us and sent us through a million small towns on the way there, which includes the towns’ red lights. Going home went much faster, because we stuck to the highway. The crowd was good, the weather was fair and a bit misty at times, but overall it was nice. Lemony had a great time, too. ^_^ A good start to the Faire. Huzzah!

We would have liked to visit nearby relatives for the night, but we had to get back here to give medicine to our newly adopted kitty, Pasha. (pics are forthcoming, I promise) We knew the weather here in Pittsburgh had been horrible all day, and we checked the overnight weather for the Faire. You see, we had left our tent, tables, displays and some merch overnight. No big deal, really. We had lowered our tent, covered our things, and half of the vendors were camping right there so the chances of anything terrible happening were pretty slim.

Oh, we were wrong. And so was Weather.com.

We arrived late the next morning due to downed power lines blocking our path. Not a good sign. Once at the Faire we saw that our tent frame was crumpled up like a dead spider! Most everyone’s tent had been flattened, but ours was destroyed. Then we learned that a tornado had touched down not far from the site! Things got wet and muddy, our tent bit the dust, but thankfully no one was hurt.

And to add to the good luck we learned that even though our tent got origamied (I now declare that a word), our tables with all of our stuff on them hadn’t budged. 0_0?! Which only makes me think, “Dude, our stuff survived a brush with A TORNADO! AWESOME!” The other Rennies, being good folk, took time from their own salvage efforts to move our tables and merch into an unoccupied wooden booth that we were allowed to use for the day. Rennies are awesome, like the kind otakus that stopped in the middle of a busy street in Baltimore some Otakons ago to help us clean up rings that had been scattered by a car colliding with our supply cart. You couldn’t ask for nicer people to meet! I love my fandoms!

And even though the weather didn’t really improve as the day went on (Curse you, Weather.com! YOU LIE! *angry fist shake*) we still got a decent crowd! It was slow, but that meant that everyone got a chance to wander about and socialize, which is half the fun of Faires. ^_^ I also picked up some sweet stone dice, some CZs and other simulated gemstones I can practice my silversmithing on. And a new bodice, which I kind of needed since my old one was bought before the Little One was born. I, uhm – Needed some more room up top, if you catch my drift.

The silver lining to the No Shelter cloud is that we get to buy a new tent. One that’s not so flimsy, and with walls (we couldn’t even GET walls for our old one – They don’t make them). I know a lot of other people dislike steel framing because it’s heavy, but in this area you need all the weight you can get when you’re setting up a canopy, so that’s what I’m getting. I managed to snag a good deal on-line for a tent with a much higher quality roof (500 Denier and UV protection, oh yeah!), solid walls, mesh walls, and I even got to pick a color for the canopy. *happy dance* To top it all off, it should be here in time for us to use at the Faire!

Despite how this all started, I’m pretty excited for this weekend. And I was cleared to take my torch and silversmithing supplies to the event, so long as I cordon off a little area for safety. So not only can you watch me link rings togather, you can watch me solder them, too. Let’s just hope it’s not too rainy so I can actually use them, eh?

See you there!