One Fair Day
The Labor Day tradition in my family has been to attend the State Fair for as long as I can remember. Although my mom was out of town and my dad was working, I was happy that I could continue the tradition with some good friends.
After an "early" start (10:30am) of shopping and lunch, my friends and I began our fair experience by searching for a parking spot. Last year, I was tipped off to an area of free parking that was super close to one of the entrances. Apparently, over the space of a year a lot of other people have been tipped off to it as well. Needless to say, we had to walk a good distance just to get in so that we could walk some more.
Once inside, we met up with a few friends and immediately made our way to the rides and games. Due to the outrageous prices (for me) and the fear of puking on the array of strange rides (my friends) we did nothing more than walk around and talk. Occasionally the talking took form of a foreign accent to try to persuade game screamers that we did not have "American money".
We spent time walking around all of the buildings from the commercial buildings (which used to be my favorite as a child) to the art buildings (where we were in awe of the cake decorating) to the livestock buildings where we stopped to watch a miniature horse showmanship competition.
To me though, there were two highlights. The first is the food. I love food and if I could, I would spend four days and four-hundred dollars on food alone. Corn dogs, scones, mozzarella sticks, sno-cones, chocolate-covered cheesecake on a stick. Everything sounded so tempting, but nothing more so than a lamb gyro. Yes, I am biased because it is one of my favorite foods, but still, it was a good choice. Accompanied with fresh-pressed lemonade and cookie dough ice cream, the food was a definite highlight to my day.
Last but certainly not least was the one show that we waited an hour in the beating sun with people climbing over us and almost sitting on us to see. The hypnotist. What else would it be? There are lots of singers (mainly country amateurs that need to turn down their mics) and the occasional juggler, but the hypnotist is the star of every State Fair I have ever been to.
It did not disappoint.
Those who have seen a hypnotist show before know the routine. A group of volunteers are pulled from the audience, put to sleep, put into a deeper sleep, put into a sleep Aurora would be surprised with, and then coaxed (or whatever word best fits) into doing so pretty interesting things. This show had a martian who could not speak any earth language, exotic birds with diarrhea, men with their heads stuck together, and 15 teenagers who kept falling all over each other.
The hilarity was great and almost completely masked the feeling of my skin being burnt by the sun. But alas, I felt it. So now, the morning after, I am left with a sunburn as a reminder of a very nice, long, tiring, enjoyable day that I would not trade for anything...except maybe a bottle of sunscreen.
After an "early" start (10:30am) of shopping and lunch, my friends and I began our fair experience by searching for a parking spot. Last year, I was tipped off to an area of free parking that was super close to one of the entrances. Apparently, over the space of a year a lot of other people have been tipped off to it as well. Needless to say, we had to walk a good distance just to get in so that we could walk some more.
Once inside, we met up with a few friends and immediately made our way to the rides and games. Due to the outrageous prices (for me) and the fear of puking on the array of strange rides (my friends) we did nothing more than walk around and talk. Occasionally the talking took form of a foreign accent to try to persuade game screamers that we did not have "American money".
We spent time walking around all of the buildings from the commercial buildings (which used to be my favorite as a child) to the art buildings (where we were in awe of the cake decorating) to the livestock buildings where we stopped to watch a miniature horse showmanship competition.
To me though, there were two highlights. The first is the food. I love food and if I could, I would spend four days and four-hundred dollars on food alone. Corn dogs, scones, mozzarella sticks, sno-cones, chocolate-covered cheesecake on a stick. Everything sounded so tempting, but nothing more so than a lamb gyro. Yes, I am biased because it is one of my favorite foods, but still, it was a good choice. Accompanied with fresh-pressed lemonade and cookie dough ice cream, the food was a definite highlight to my day.
Last but certainly not least was the one show that we waited an hour in the beating sun with people climbing over us and almost sitting on us to see. The hypnotist. What else would it be? There are lots of singers (mainly country amateurs that need to turn down their mics) and the occasional juggler, but the hypnotist is the star of every State Fair I have ever been to.
It did not disappoint.
Those who have seen a hypnotist show before know the routine. A group of volunteers are pulled from the audience, put to sleep, put into a deeper sleep, put into a sleep Aurora would be surprised with, and then coaxed (or whatever word best fits) into doing so pretty interesting things. This show had a martian who could not speak any earth language, exotic birds with diarrhea, men with their heads stuck together, and 15 teenagers who kept falling all over each other.
The hilarity was great and almost completely masked the feeling of my skin being burnt by the sun. But alas, I felt it. So now, the morning after, I am left with a sunburn as a reminder of a very nice, long, tiring, enjoyable day that I would not trade for anything...except maybe a bottle of sunscreen.
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