Originally uploaded by zakira rose
Today we went to Trout Lake for the 14th Annual Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and Lewis Carroll Festival. I remember this event from about 10 years ago, when it was maybe twenty oddballs getting dressed up, playing some croquet, and having a picnic under the willows. Well times have changed, and those twenty oddballs has somehow exploded into maybe 150 or so people – I’m a terrible visual count for people, but there was a great turnout this year to the event.
We hung out on the grass for a long time while the event got going, but we weren’t bored – watching Queen Victoria seem bored while listening to the lovely sounds of a historical/anachronistic band called Toot-a-Lute was very amusing indeed. Eventually the White Rabbit raced through, Alice hot on his heels. The event was a trip down the rabbit hole itself – we found ourselves running after Alice and the Rabbit, from station to station to crane our necks and catch a glimpse of her true-to-literature interactions with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle, the Walrus and the Carpenter, and the Queen of Hearts. At one point we ended up back at the Tea Party again, and in a surreal twist participated a second time in the same dialogue – bringing us deeper into the play on sense and fantasy essential to the Alice books.
What a day. With a Caucus Race and DIY facepainting, a by-donation buffet spread, country dancing to medieval music and wandering ‘neath the willows in the company of Queen Victoria and Charles Dodson, this was a pleasure and will definitely be a repeat next year.
