We Went to the Animal Fair...

These guys kindly posed for me. I love the expression on their faces.

The Adventures in the Indian Land

One of the most beautiful parks in Escondido is Felicita County Park that you must pay to get into. Cheapskates and smart people (that is, us) can park a block away and walk in there for free. They don't charge you for being in the park, only if you drive in and most of the day you can even probably get away without paying. But not on weekends: this place is very popular for family picnics and there us usually somebody at the gate charging you admission.

Anyway, we went there a couple of weeks ago and the place was full of Mexican families having picnics all over the park. Yes, there were mainly Mexicans, very few gringos, though of course now and then you will see a gringo.

Anyway, driving past it the other day we saw a huge number of cars parked all over inside the park. Something clicked in my head: this is too many cars even for Mexicans. So the next day curiosity got the better of us and we went in.

Well, our usual parking spot a block away was taken. In fact, there were cars parked literally all over the place so we had to park TWO blocks away. No biggie, though.

Then we walked in and found out what all the fuss was about. I was right, it was not an ordinary Mexican get-together thing. It was

A Renaissance Fair!

Now my only experience with Renaissance Fair before was one in San Luis Obispo. It was fun but nothing really to write home about. The costumes were cool though.

Well, we tried to get in but they wanted money for admission. Well, I hate to admit it but we just did not have the money. So we turned around hoping to get in through the back way. It was not a priority though, we actually did not give a damn whether we get in or not.

So we went to one of the playgrounds and watched a Mexican family have a good time there. We even climbed a couple of kids' ladders ourselves and saw a guy performing pushups on one of the pieces of equipment. Then we went around...

And here we were in the dark and shady grove. Down the slippery slope we went, across the bubbling brook we jumped and lo and behold, in five minutes we were in the Fair. I want to accentuate the fact that we did not do anything illegal, did not climb over the fence or breake any other rule. There was a yellow ribbon prohibiting access across the only footbridge. We wily coyotes did not need the bridge.

The Fair was closing. The best part was that we got to see people in cool costumes and take some pictures. You can see a couple of them here.

What a fine costume! Thank you, dear stranger, for posing.

Don't get any ideas of doing illegal stuff. The method described above takes extreme knowledge of the area and the ability to slide down the slopes. We do not promote any illegal activity.