Lionhearted

Hail and good tidings! Even with a time machine, I've been too mondo-busy to write up my latest adventures, experiments, and creations. However, said time machine did take us to too wonderful a place to not record...Sherwood Forest in the time of Robin Hood!

This is the third year of Robin Hood's adventures, but our first time in seeking him. Alas, we never saw the fine scoundrel who spends so much time stealing money from the government and returns it to the people, as we were too busy having fun with whatever we stumbled across in his woodland home.

For instance, a fox.


The Wethergirls love faire rides, but decided to just do the Big Swing...


...and the Red Maze. They are in there somewhere.


Me? I love the music and discovered a great, new (to me) gypsy band, VaNa MaZi!


Of course, one of the best reasons to travel through time is for the food. I can very highly recommend the steak & lamb with hummus from the Jerusalem Cafe, while the girls prefer more traditional turkey legs, chicken gumbo in a bread bowl, and a big sausage on a stick.




Strewn along the trails were tons of glass "fairy stones" (glass marbles), which were a big hit with my princesses. Kids were encouraged to take a few home with them, though I limited my girls to two each...otherwise they would have taken them all.

My princesses.


My Empress.


The Seven Sisters sacred circle and location of the evening bonfire.


Similar to TRF, there is a free tea party for kids every afternoon. In Sherwood Forest fairies run this party rather than French and it is much more elaborate and entertaining.




Mambowether and Missewether were THRILLED to discover the royal artist, Dan Marlowe. Rising booth prices drove him out of TRF and into the loving arms of Sherwood Forest. Of course, we had to do another painting under his expert instruction.
This took a little over an hour, mainly because I kept screwing up the mountains. I still don't think they look right.






While Miniwether is the best drawer among the Wetherclan, Mambowether is the best painter. She did a majority of the work on this painting, just like last time. This did not satisfy her creative urge and so she also did a spin-art.


Before spinning.


After spinning.


Speaking of spinning (neat segue, eh?) eventually night fell and everyone gathered by the bonfire in the center of the Seven Sisters rocks. From there a parade of fire artists led everyone out of the forest in a wild display of spinning fire!







It was a perfect day for the faire, partially cloudy with temperatures in the high 60s. It took a little over 2.5 hours to get there from the north side of Houston, but a empty roads, a large pile of bacon & cheese kolaches inside the time machine and beautiful roadside wildflowers outside made for a pleasant drive. Many TRF people, both patrons and entertainers, were there and so we ran into lots of old friends, which added to the pleasure.

Sherwood Forest Faire has a much purer feel to it when compared to the Texas Renaissance Festival. Sherwood doesn't have bungie jumping or other anachronistic crud to ruin the fantasy and most of the visitors were in garb, which really made it awesome. Food and kid's rides prices were a little higher than TRF, but general shopping prices were the same or even a tad lower in some cases. Admission tickets are much cheaper and better yet, on Sundays tickets are buy one get one free!

The grounds of Sherwood are spread through beautiful woods of oak and cedar, making it much, much prettier than TRF. In fact, it was by far the prettiest location for a renaissance festival I've ever seen (this includes faires in MN, IL, NY, and multiple TX faires). The only downsides to it (other than only being about 1/3 the size of TRF) were that the parking lot had no lighting (bring a flashlight), most of the merchants were not set up for credit cards (bring cash), and the parking lot was covered with tennis ball sized rocks that made walking through it in the dark somewhat treacherous. Much to my wife's and daughters' pleasure, there were flush potties but no drinking fountains so we couldn't refill our drink bottles and had to keep buying water.

These minor negatives were VASTLY overwhelmed by the overall wonderfulness of Sherwood Forest Faire. We all had a great time and Mambo decided she liked it even better than TRF, though mostly because to the painting class. I still prefer the bigger selection of weapons, leather, and crafts at TRF, but I have no doubt Sherwood will quickly grow to match that!

Adventure! Excitement! Faire!

An Easy Day in McKinney Roughs

Clark and I have a goal of one awesome adventure per month in 2012 and with that requirement we drove a few hours northwest of Houston to McKinney Roughs Nature Park. This park is part of the little-known, publicly-accessible wildernesses of the Lower Colorado River Authority.

Clark and I left Clark's house in Cypress, Texas at 7am and were signing the McKinny Roughs visitor's logbook a little before 10am. This park has 18 miles of beautiful hiking and multi-use (mainly horseback, no motorized vehicles) trails. Clark and I managed to cover 13 miles of these trails before leaving at 5pm. Here are some of the highlights:

Visitor's center, classrooms, and dorms.


Inside the visitor's center were the usual displays of lizards, snakes, fish and bones.






A fake Native American lodge. It lacked the inner-sheath of a true lodge.


The trails ran down to the Colorado river and up to assorted bluff overlooking miles of farm and ranch land.











The Colorado river.




Cook's Island.


Clark on a bluff.


Clark at the Colorado river.


Me on the Colorado.


A cool tree.


McKinny Roughs is a beautiful place and relatively close to Houston. It wasn't touched by the wildfires which ravaged the nearby Bastrop State Park. Camping did not seem to be allowed in the park but I'm not totally sure on that. Hunting isn't allowed (and we saw some incredible buck deer) so it's a good place to go during hunting season if you are concerned about that sort of thing. The trails did have a lot of change in elevation, I think something like 500-600 feet from river's edge to the higher bluffs and it definitely had Houston flat-land hikers like Clark and I complaining a bit on the longer up-hill runs. We were there on January 2nd and didn't see too many other hikers other than a local hiking meet-up group and 3-4 families near the visitor's center. There were a fair number of ladies riding horseback, though. Hmmm, now that I think of it we didn't see any guys on horseback. Weird.

Anyway, Clark and I really liked it. If you are bored of the long, flat pine-tree trails around Houston this place is really worth the drive...assuming things don't go completely nutso over in the Middle East causing gas prices to leap up over $5 per gallon though that does seem more and more likely...

Adventure! Excitement! Women on horseback!!

Some call me "Blast".

Smallest New Year's Eve party in years.


Yeah, I love the smell of gun powder. It's the smell of...well, gunpowder.

















Adventure! Excitement! Boom!

Five-Wheeling in Pundt Park

Pundt Park, along the east side of Spring, has been open for a while now but they just finished a multi-use trail along Spring creek that runs a little over 8 miles to Jesse H. Jones Park. This trail is paved with asphalt, making it a great bike path.

The trail starts off to the southeast of the main parking lot. Take the paved road loop until you get to the gravelly-asphalt path that branches off Deer Lake Trail (see map below).

The gravelly-asphalt stuff lasts about a mile then turns into a nice, paved surface.

The trail winds around, up, and down through the woods and past small lakes near the creek. Some of the hills might be a little steep for a small child on a single-speed bike but our multi-geared tandem bicycle and trailed-bike had us flying down the path on New Year's Day.

Mambo riding behind me.


Misseswether and Mambowether cruising on their 2-wheeler.


A small lake along the trail.


It took us a little over an hour to go 4.5 miles then we stopped for a picnic. Several other really friendly bicyclists and horse-riders passed while we munched. The trail seems to be becoming popular quickly.

Lunch.


The trail has only been finished for a month and either side of it is still torn up from the heavy equipment. This construction turned up a lot of edible greenbriar tubers.


Once lunch was done we headed back to the main play area. The playground is covered with a sunshade as are several picnic areas on either side of the playground. This will help a lot in the heat of the summer.

Mambowether the Adventurer.


There's a lot of people riding horses on this trail so you may have to dodge the occasion road apple. Also be aware that wild pigs are plentiful along the path, though they are rarely active during the day. The lakes are open for fishing though they are catch and release only. You can keep fish from Spring creek if you are hungry. Pundt Park is really a beautiful place to spend a day with the family, friends or even just to get away by yourself for a while.

Adventure! Excitement! Rubber on the road!