Digital content coordinator Dan Isenberg

Faithful readers of “Penn State Gameday” in their Friday Altoona Mirror may have noticed in my comment from Week 1 I mentioned that I would not be watching what became the Nittany Lions’ win over Nevada last weekend.

Nay, I elected instead to spend the first full weekend of college football season — the sport I have claimed to love more than anything else besides my family — at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire at Mount Hope Estate and Winery in Manheim.

I mentioned in “Gameday” that the weather seemed to be perfect to spend the day eating turkey legs and drinking mead, and it turned out to be just that. We — my brother, Ryan, and his wife, Hayleigh, our friends, Josh and Caleb and their wives, along with another visiting friend from New York — enjoyed picture-perfect weather.

I arrived shortly before noon in the parking field ahead of the main group and spent a few minutes switching into walking shoes and watching Lee Corso’s final picks on ESPN’s “College Gameday” on my phone.

Whilst doing that, the family the parked next to me, not paying attention, swung their car door into mine own. Luckily, it was the same side that was sideswiped outside my home earlier this summer, so it is hardly noticeable.

I met up with the group near the main entrance before going in and noticed plenty of people getting into the spirit and wearing various costumes. The weekend’s theme was “Heroes of the realm,” and there were many who took the opportunity to dress up as their favorite caped (and un-caped) crusaders against villainy.

Our friend, Emily, nailed her costume with great version of Lord Farquaad from the “Shrek” movie series. A couple of other people also attempted the Farquad costume, but I don’t think any of them really held a candle to her.

We also ran into a couple dressed as Shrek and Fiona … several times … and Fiona was not happy to see us.

I wasn’t sure if she was trying to maintain a character or genuinely didn’t like seeing our friend dressed like that, but I like to think she was just having fun.

There was so many vendors to check out that I didn’t even really get to see half of them. There was lots of different art and other items to purchase, and again,

I feel like I didn’t get enough time to be able to check out

everything there was to offer.

I really enjoyed all of the live music there was to enjoy. Besides the scheduled performances at different stages across the estate, there was also a variety of individual musicians playing at many of the major thoroughfares.

This brings me to my only real gripes from the whole trip. The first one is something I can’t really help unless I just go down sooner — the trip came right after another long Friday night in the Mirror offices helping out with high school football.

Even with leaving at 10:30 p.m. to head home, I still had some things to do before going to bed, including packing an overnight bag that I ended up not using, so I ended up starting my Saturday on short rest.

No biggy, we have caffeine for that.

The second complaint is directed more at the Ren Faire, and again, maybe not something I can avoid in our modern economy, but it cost me $15 to buy a turkey leg.

My brother and friends who had been before said that was up significantly from recent years, but with the all the talk of bird flu we’ve seen, I suppose I can’t say I was too surprised.

$8 for a bratwurst seemed a bit absurd to me, though. And don’t get me started on being one of the last places I’ve ever heard of that is cash only.

But, all in all, I really enjoyed by first trip down the Renaissance Faire. My brother, sister-in-law and I want to take my nephews and go back down for the Halloween events scheduled in October.

But maybe we’ll go a weekend not during Penn State’s upcoming mid-season gauntlet.

Digital content coordinator and copy editor Dan Isenberg can be reached at disenberg@altoonamirror.com or on X @TheseDanTweets.