A grand day

[Kid Cossack]

Ladies and gentlemen:

Yesterday I took my family to the Texas Renaissance Festival. It's a family tradition for me, my wife and daughters, and, indeed, it was a family tradition for my parents, my sister and me as well.

Since my wife is great with child, she mostly observed as the girls and I rode on the elephant, on the giant swings, on the spinning things, as we catapulted frogs onto lily-pads, watched sword-and-buckler play, and generally goofed around and had a good time.

I wore my homemade MacGregor modern kilt---Kingussie style, with a narrower apron and unpressed pleats and no buckles nor straps, and a maroon dress shirt and tweed vest and Vibram Five Fingers.

The sun was out, the breeze was mild, the temperature was in the mid 70s, and a grand time was had by all.

I saw a lot of "kilt don'ts" yesterday, but saw a goodly number of kilties wearing it well.

[sfb]

Surely those Five Fingers would have attracted a bit of interest, even if there were plenty of kilts about!

[Wild Macrae]

Sounded like a grand day indeed.

[Kid Cossack]

SFB:

Yes! I tell people that everyone was getting used to seeing me in a kilt, so I needed something entirely new and different to catch the eye.

I do like the FiveFingers--they are comfortable and I can feel my feet getting stronger as I wear them. The next best thing to being barefoot!

[McFarkus]

Sounds like a great day. You inspired me to look up fivefingers. This is the first time I've heard of them. They look interesting.

[Kid Cossack]

McFarkus:

There's an adjustment period with them, I'll freely admit that. Theory goes that our feet have been coddled and malformed by regular and athletic shoes, weakening the many muscles of the foot and shaping it to an unnatural stance.

Here's another enthusiast blog about FiveFingers:

http://birthdayshoes.com/

and Mark's Daily Apple on them:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/even-...its-forget-it/

Compared with wearing a kilt, it's much less nonconformist to switch to Vibrams.

[Zardoz]

It really was a nice day at fair yesterday, close to perfect weather! I wish I'd known you were coming. There were only 28,000 people there, how did you miss me!

some photo's here;

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/t...110/index.html

[Highlander31]

...I do like the FiveFingers--they are comfortable and I can feel my feet getting stronger as I wear them. The next best thing to being barefoot!

I looked into those last year for walking the cliff trails here. It looks like my size 15 feet are right at the limit of their sizes. You are the first person I could actually ask about their fit and comfort. Is their sizing right on, or do they a have tendency to run either larger or smaller than stated size?

[Kid Cossack]

I looked into those last year for walking the cliff trails here. It looks like my size 15 feet are right at the limit of their sizes. You are the first person I could actually ask about their fit and comfort. Is their sizing right on, or do they a have tendency to run either larger or smaller than stated size?

At this remove, I'm not even quite sure if I remember. I went in to a local outfitter's and was fitted for them. While the Vibrams themselves have held up wonderfully, the applique with the sizing information has gone the way of all flesh. If I rightly recollect, the first pair I tried on were a proper fit.

There is an adjustment period, and they get more comfortable as time goes by and your feet get stronger. I'm an enthusiast. I do think, however, that they're better to try on in a store. Here's a link to VA based retailers (from the Vibram website):

http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/pro...r.cfm?state=va

I think of the VFFs as modern ghillies, in a sense.