www.renaissancefaire.net/Valhalla.htm


Planning
I've been looking forward to Valhalla Renaissance Faire for months. I've noticed that when people talk about faires, they get all dreamy-eyed when they mention this one, along with words like "magical" and "incredible".

I was going to drive to the faire, but when I realized it would take me almost eight hours to get there and eight hours to get back, I decided to fly. I had everything planned perfectly: Get up at 2:30am, meet the shuttle service at 3:50am, get to the airport for my flight at 7am, land in Reno at 8:23am, catch the bus to South Lake Tahoe at 8:30am, drop my junk off at the hotel and grab the trolly at 10:09am, which would get me to the faire around 11am.


The Trip
I actually got up on time, in spite of seeing the TaXim show the night before. I got to bed at 11pm, then one of the people who works for me called me at 11:55pm to discuss a problem he was having. I got back to sleep at a little after midnight.

Anyway, I waited for the shuttle, which was not there as expected. I called, and the time had been changed by 16 minutes. Sigh. It finally arrived at 4:15am (I could have slept longer!) and the driver was just plain mean. He criticized everything, including me, and wouldn't shut up the whole trip. He not only didn't get a tip, his boss will receive a complaint.

As I sat in the airport I saw from the weather service report that rain was expected in Reno. Sigh.

My plane pulled out on time, but we sat on the runway for a few minutes longer than expected. The flight was uneventful, and I was thrilled to see Yosemite from the air! I've seen it from the ground, and it's beautiful from 20,000 feet up.

i arrived at Reno at 8:25am, waited for my bag (which was not checked but since the plane was tiny was stashed in a compartment) and ran to the bus. I missed it by 3 minutes. Sigh.

Now I waited for 90 minutes until the next bus arrived. I purchased my return ticket, which the lady thorougly screwed up, not only charging me twice, but assigning me the wrong bus on the wrong date. I didn't find out about this until the next day...

The trip from Reno to Tahoe is wonderful. Very scenic, lots of nice smells and just gorgeous. I'm glad I didn't rent a car, as the speed limits are set very low and I saw dozens of cars stopped for speeding.

I arrived at my hotel, got my room, then caught the trolly down to Camp Richardson. I got another cranky driver, who seemed to have no end of complaints about everything.

Finally, at 1pm, I arrived at Valhalla faire.


The Faire
As I walked the few hundred yards from the trolly stop to the faire, I realized that everyone was right. This is an incredible, beautiful, "dreamy" faire. It's close to, but not on, Lake Tahoe, nestled in the pine trees high in the mountains. The scenery alone is worth the visit, and I cannot say enough good things about the faire.

As I walked up to the gates, I ran into over a dozen friends, all of whom greeted me effussively. After a few hugs, half a dozen handshakes and a dozen pictures, I made my way past the gate and into the main faire.

There was a joust in a very tiny arena. Two fully armored knights went at each other on horses several times, breaking their lances on each other. Even though the joust was short and in a very small area, it was actually quite entertaining. The joust was performed by the "Knighs of Mayheim".

There were many other shows and I caught as many as I could. I've seen most of them before at other faires. They were all still entertaining, and the scenery and smells of the forest added to the fun.

I left the faire a little earlier than I had planned. The lack of sleep and long day was catching up to me and I felt like I was about to pass out from exhaustion. So I made my way back to the trolly at 5pm.

Given the way the day had gone so far, it was no surprise to find I'd missed the trolly by less than 3 minutes. I waited on the grass, ralaxing for a while until the next trolly arrived. This trolly driver was incredibly rude. He growled at everyone, snarled and insulted people as they came onto the trolly car. I made the mistake of asking him if this stopped at my hotel. He replied "well, you got on this trolly, didn't you? Everyone asks the same stupid questions...idiots". I was too tired to respond and just sat down, well back of the trolly driver, and waited for the 55 minute trip to be over. He missed my stop, and had to endure his cursing as he had to stop in the middle of the road to let me off.

Now it was time to get some food. I was starving, so I just walked over to the restaurant at the Best Western Station House (which was were I was staying) because I didn't want to walk any further.

This is an incredible restaurant. The waiters were friendly, the food was excellent and the atmosphere was great. I'd hihgly recommend the place...

I got back to my room and thought, perhaps I could catch a show. After all, I was in Reno... so I sat on a chair to think about it.

The next thing I knew, it was morning. I was still in the chair, sitting up, and ached from head to toe.


The Second Day of the Faire
The day started better than the day before. I ached form head to toe, but I felt more rested than before. My lungs were full of dust from the faire, but otherwise things looked good.

I checked out of my hotel after getting some breakfast (free with the room, by the way) and stashed my bags. I thought the trolly would come by at 9:06am but later found it would not be there until 11:06am. It looked like today was going to be a repeat of the day before.

Until the receptionist at the hotel came to my rescue and told me about the boat shuttle across the lake...

The day brightened after this. The boat trip was inexpensive ($9 round trip), short (15 minutes), scenic and fun. Best of all, the captain was extremely friendly. So friendly that I gave my first tip of the trip (yes, I do not tip unless I get good service, and that includes treating me like a human being).

I was only planning on remaining at the faire for a couple of hours, since I had to catch the bus back in the afternoon.

So I just wandered around, took pictures, talked with people, and tried to keep the dust out of my lungs...

The trip back was much better than the trip there. The boat captain was friendly again (the same guy who brought me over in the morning), the bus driver on the return was much nicer, and everyone else had at least a little smile on their face. I was happy to feel right about giving some tips on the trip home.

My flight was at 8:30pm. We rolled out onto the tarmac right on time, then sat there for 2 hours because of fog at LAX, which had close two runways. So I got home extremely late.


Final words
Valhalla Renaisance Faire easily mesaures up to all of the words I've heard in the past. It's an incredible faire. Small but friendly, scenic and well done.

It was well worth the trip and the time.