By Laura Bond
Arizona Daily Wildcat
February 26, 1998

A Fair to Remember

It was a springy Sunday afternoon - blue skies, Tucson finally drying out from a week of rain. The perfect day for my mini-road trip up the Old Tucson highway: 70 miles north to the 10th annual Arizona Renaissance Festival and Artisans Market. Despite the overall sense of well-being that such a day can inspire, I had a dull sense that something bizarre loomed on the horizon; something even odder than the alternative reality that is the Renaissance Festival.

I've been to the Renaissance Festival more times than I care to admit, and I've always been interested in the young people who travel like gypsies as part of it - sort of a modern-day equivalent to joining the circus.

I arranged to spend one day and night with a bona-fide "wench," a member of the touring Renaissance Festival who did choose circus-life in lieu of, say, college. The plan was to observe her routines, in character, during the day, as well as after the final cannon sounded and the tourists went home. I wanted to know how Renaissance regulars lived, wanted to ask questions about how they maintained normal lives on the road, how they ate, bathed, slept, and, more importantly, how they feigned believable interest in which knight slaughtered which in the daily joust.

I bought a map and headed north on Oracle until I hit the highway - a two-lane twister through the high desert - and headed speedily toward Florence.

Florence, Ariz. is a town with few points of interest. Driving down Main Street (Florence is proud to be "A Main Street" city, numerous signs on the highway will remind you), I noticed a shop window announcing "We sell empty water bottles" - obviously a scarce commodity in these parts.

There is another landmark in Florence responsible for most of the town's "tourism": The Arizona State Penitentiary, a maximum security facility housing the biggest, baddest, meanest mothers in the Grand Canyon State. Driving past the "joint," I was mildly disappointed to discover there were no prisoners in the yard; it was a nice day, after all, and it's not often one has the chance to openly gawk at the criminally dangerous.

I nearly stopped at the ironically named "Prison Outlet," a shack selling prisoner-created arts and crafts. Some paintings displayed outside looked intriguing; I suppose spending years behind bars can really heighten one's understanding of postmodernism. But my wench was waiting and my family was en route to meet me, anxious to gobble up frighteningly large turkey legs and peach cobblers, so much a part of the Renaissance festival lure.

I continued north. Until the tire gave out, that is, about four miles north of the prison, a place where passers-by are warned not to stop for hitchhikers. I surveyed the phoneless desert, upset that I'd ignored the episode where Oprah taught women how to change tires.

Amazingly, a car stopped. I had keys in hand in case I needed to gouge out the eyes of the molester, murderer, Alanis Morissette fan or leper who might be inside. I happily discovered that the car contained two pairs of senior citizens - hip senior citizens with mobile phones. I called my dad, who also travels with a phone, gave him my coordinates and a serious plea to burn rubber. The old folks drove away waving and I vowed to reconsider my contempt for mobile-phone owners.

I waited, perusing the Renaissance Festival press materials. But I knew what to expect: armies of youthful dancing damsels and frilly-collared flute playing dandies, scalawags selling ale and swarthy swordmakers peddling knives and daggers. There would be rope-climbing games, high-flying swings resembling swans, puppet shows, drum circles. There would be a king, queen and royal entourage, suits of armor and velvet frocks. Basically, there would be lots of people in funky clothes selling lots of funky, though useless, stuff to people who, inspired by the atmosphere, might feel compelled to shout "huzzah."

"Huzzah," incidentally, is defined by Webster as a "former variation of hurrah," an apt summation of my emotions upon seeing my father's trusty truck arrive. From there, it should have been simple; we'd fit the tire with the spare, go the festival and deal with finding a real tire later. But such things are never simple, as we discovered in true Seinfeldian fashion that the spare, too, had a flat.

So my mom, dad, brother and I went to Florence in search of tires, only to discover that all of the auto shops on this Main Street town were closed. There was a wealth of empty water bottles at our disposal, but nary a tire to be found in the incarceration capital. Stopping at a service station to pool our brain power (there were four of us after all, a combined IQ of at least 400), I noticed an oddly-garmented woman pumping petrol nearby. All of the telltale signs were there: long flowing cape, pointy hat, small leather satchel. Yes, there, in the gas station, was a Renaissance refugee - Carrie The Renaissance Lady, who had made her own costume, was on her way home from the festival. A woman of few words, she informed me that the festival was "fun," that there were "not that many people there," and that "it was kind of muddy." Carrie let me take her picture with my hi-tech weapon of mass photojournalism, the Polaroid camera. She wished us luck in our tire quest, which soon led us to Florence Junction.

Once there, we discovered a gas station with promise: "Boopies," so named for the startling abundance of Betty Boop paraphernalia for sale, along with T-shirts proclaiming that the future wearer was "With Stupid." Yes, Boopies had it all. Cheese-in-a-can? Check. Big Red soda? Check. Tires? Negative. We knew we'd have to go in search of a town truly equipped to handle this modern disaster. We passed the intricate village housing the Renaissance festival and its merry inhabitants and headed for a town with savvy, sophistication, and resources. In a word: Mesa.

Mesa was brimming with urban activity. So many mega-stores to choose from! We finally wound up in the Auto Service center of Sears, where a cherub-faced tobacco-chewing lad in coveralls agreed to sell us tires, even if we had arrived two minutes before closing time.

More than an hour later, I passed the Renaissance Festival twice more: on my way back to my car, then again on the way to Phoenix - I'd decided to cut my losses and head to a familiar tavern. The sky was dark, though a clear trail of smoke told me the festivillians had commenced nighttime activities: cooking, laughing, enjoying a brief respite as members of the 20th century. The cannon had been fired, the festival was over, and I had four functional tires on my car.

Huzzah!

The Arizona Renaissance Festival and Artisans Market runs Saturdays and Sundays through March 29th. Hours are 10 a.m.- 6 p.m., rain or shine. Phone 520-463-2700 for information.