A Medieval Good Time

The crowd cheered and jeered as the color-coded knights rode into the arena, their horses decorated in a matching hue of honor, kicking up sand as they made their grand entrance.  A blur of red, blue, yellow and green flags and crowns moved about with the crowd.  Our hero is announced and everyone around us explodes with applause and yells of excitement, proclaiming our allegiance to the knight in yellow, shining armor! 
 
It truly takes a lot for me to venture outside of the city limits, into the rural landscape of the Chicago suburbs.  Even so, every once in awhile, something totally worth it comes up - and a trip to Medieval Times with friends is definitely one of those things!   

After entering the faux castle, we were adorned with yellow, paper crowns, signifying that we would be cheering on the side of the yellow knight.  We found the bar (priorities) and then headed to our seats in the large, sand-covered arena.  While we waited for the show to begin, dinner was served.  On the menu: dragon scales (garlic bread), dragon legs (chicken thighs), dragon blood (tomato soup) and dragon horns (corn on the cob) - don't worry, no dragons were actually harmed in the making of the dinner.   

We enjoyed a royalty-worthy feast as the show played out, featuring jousting, falconry, a king and of course, a damsel in distress.   We all winced in unison when our brave knight was hit by his opponents, and chanted repeatedly, "yellow", when he advanced to the next round.  Not only the bravest and strongest, we all agreed we also had the hottest knight (it was myself and 3 guys, so you know that vote was legit).  

It came down to one more battle against the villain of the story, standing between us and sweet victory.  It was gut wrenching to watch, but worth every minute when it was finally announced that the yellow knight was the winner!  

 

We continued our chants out into the parking lot, and waived our yellow flags out the car window with pride, as we drove back to the city.  It was definitely a "knight" to remember (sorry...couldn't help myself) and I am already looking forward to the next time I get to cheer on my knight at the medieval showdown!