Event: Minnesota Renaissance Festival

8/31/13 -- After many trips to the Renaissance Festival, it’s challenging to find new experiences. Still worth a try.

Mermaid Cove was what you’d expect – girls with rubber fish bottoms. Fairy Wing Forest was a nice walk in the woods, but diminished by the herd of sheeple – can’t help it for an event like that. Hardest thing about belly dancing: keeping your head perfectly still while moving the rest of your body.

Line of the day:
Snot: "I stand corrected." Puke: "In your orthopedic boots."

Went through the food:
• Turkey legs - can’t make them this good at home with what we get from the supermarket.
• Fruit smoothie - a bit small serving for the price but rich and flavorful, and you do get both a straw and spoon with it.
• Florentine ice - Flavored ice frozen on a frozen half orange. A bit difficult to bite into, but worth going back for more.

From the beer stand, get the “Half and Half,” aka “Dark and Tan”:  a mix of Harp lager and Guiness.

And on the way out, make sure to pick up a bag of scrumptious kettle corn for ride home; see if you have any left when you get there.

Restaurant review: Papa Murphy's s'mores

Maybe it’s a bit of stretch to call PM’s a “restaurant,” but it’s equal or better quality than the average pizza restaurant.

Papa’s All Meat is a nice thick layer of delicious tastes. For sides, sold as two for $6, the cheesy bread was a bit greasy, but the s’mores pizza was a great dessert taste. The s’mores includes chocolate and marshmallows with sauce on a pizza crust. Could have had a just a bit less chocolate for my part, but it’s better than the original campfire namesake.

Travel: headed to Winona

It's time for what has become our annual Labor Day trip to Winona, MN to meet our son for his birthday. Two more times (he's a student at Winona State).

It appears the Quality Inn, where we stayed the last two years, has closed, at least temporarily due to bankruptcy. It got some awful reviews online, but we found it acceptable because of its low rate, not to mention the coupon for Perkins.

So this year it's the Americinn. Super 8 had the best price. Americinn has a pool. Review to come after the trip.