A Texas Journey, Part I

During Thanksgiving Weekend 2010, I took a short vacation to see some elephants and travel Texas a bit. On my way to southeast Texas I stopped by the Dallas Zoo and was given a VIP tour of their fantastic new elephant facility. Crystal Eng and I later visited the Texas Renaissance Festival and the Beaumont Shrine Circus produced by Bret Carden. We will feature this Texas Journey in three parts...


I attended my first Ren Fair with Crystal. We had a great time enjoying all the shows, shops, festivities and "Rennies" as we found they are called. Mike and Viviana Swain showed us a great time and were very hospitable.
Best line of the day by Crystal: "These carnies are worse than us!"
Worst site of the day: Ugly man with huge boobs in a corset and dress. Named Missterry.


Mike Swain's brother Julio owns "The Brachiator" and gave Crystal and I free rides. They strapped extra bungees on us so that we would vault higher than the uprights. My explicatives on the first shot were not rated lower than PG-13. I managed to hit both a forward and backwards somersault. Crystal hit a double backward somersault with a bit of help from her attendant.



Mike allowed me to climb the rock wall and I soured his bet that I could not ring the bell.


Our friend Chris Hamblen from his journey to Peru. A simple several day trip to help a friend move a boat evolved into a several month-long battle, encountering pirate attacks and thievery and third-world living conditions. We were glad to have our friend return safely, but we could not help but give him a few friendly ribs about the similarities of three times asking directions to the Ren Fair and his inability to leave South America. Of course, I also could not miss the opportunity to catch a photo of Christ with one of his dreaded pirate enemies (or Mike's son, depending on who you ask).