Home after a lovely weekend

So this weekend was the first Springfield Vermont Steampunk Festival, and hopefully it will be held again next year. For a first time festival/convention it was very well run (at least from the guest's perspective, and from what I heard from vendors it was mostly well run on that end as well and only suffered from a few first year con hiccups). Since the festival locations were a bit spread out, and Springfield is a mountain town full of hills which makes walking that much more exhausting, they arranged to have a shuttle bus service for the entire festival. The shuttle drivers were awesome and didn't mind making stops that weren't on the official stop list (parking lots and venues). It helped that it was a small con and very laid back.

There were a lot of fun vendors, mostly local to Vermont, upstate New York, and New Hampshire. I spent entirely too much money, but I had planned for that. Between surgery and studying for the bar I'm going to be very focused for quite a few months and not spending much on anything not related to my usual monthly expenses. So this was my birthday/Christmas present to myself. :) It helps that I tend to only attend festivals and conventions once every year or two. In addition to jewelry and various other interesting knick-knacks, I also got quite a bit of tea (three different blends). Between the new stuff and the stuff I already had I can rest assured that I will not run out of tea this winter. :D

In addition to the vendors there were musicians and other activities. I missed the tea duels, and still am not entirely sure what happens at those, but I had a blast wandering the festival. My favorite bands from the weekend were Rusty Belle, The Stringfield Springers, and The Suitcase Junket. The Suitcase Junket is actually a one-man band and that man happens to be one of the members of Rusty Belle. So I wasn't too surprised to fall head-over-heals for both acts. :D

( a bunch of music videos behind the cut )