Minnesoooota

In tracking down more info about the Kogswell Porteur mentioned several posts below, I found out from Matthew that Kogswell World Headquarters is in Shakopee,MN. I spent a great summer there about 15 years ago, jousting at the MN Renaissance Faire. You'd be amazed at the number of women in the world with latent Knight-in-Shining-Armor fantasies. This pic is from that time. Lance (yes, his real name) and I had been working some new horses into the show, and this was their first time in front of a crowd. I'm on the horse on the right, and as we came down the lists, something spooked Lance's horse and he came through the barrier and we collided head on. Some good soul snapped a pic at the moment of impact. I was knocked out and down for about 2 or 3 minutes, but got up and we finished the show with our old standby horses. These two horses never got over it and were sold back into farming. Maybe I never got over it either, that was my last year jousting. Lance worked a few more years until he took a sliver of broken lance into his eye/head at a faire in FL a few years later. He lived, but I haven't heard from him in a long time. I'm thinking bikes are safer than medieval combat.