When I was 14 years old, the State Fair was the place to be at the end of the summer. I have many fond memories of that fair. Friendships. The first kiss with my biggest high school crush. Being able to ride The Zipper without throwing up all over myself. Bright lights and colorful people. The smell of funnel cake in the air.
After years of driving past the buzz of the fairgrounds and not actually going inside, I was curious to see if it would still hold any kind of magic for me. Fortunately, someone at work passed me a couple of free tickets, and since my office is right nearby, we wouldn’t have to pay for parking either. I was cautiously optimistic that we might have a fun experience. My husband, who is much more of a realist, was not.
I’ll let you guess which one of us assumed correctly.
All that happy stuff I mentioned at the beginning of this post? The State Fair is still the place where memories are made, all right. The night terror kind.
I have never smelled anything like it. It was bad enough that every time I saw someone lighting a cigarette, I cringed waiting for a methane explosion. Never again will I complain about the animals at the Farm Fair.
We stayed for only about a half hour; ate nothing, because neither of us felt in the mood for a coronary (fried POP TARTS?!), and rode no rides, because I was afraid to touch anything. If M had had his way, we would have turned around and left the moment we saw the large woman in a gorilla suit standing just inside the entrance gate. Except it wasn’t a gorilla suit…she just had that much hair. And she wasn’t a side-show freak either; just a typical Saturday night fair patron.
Because he is an awesome husband though, he stuck with me because I wanted to get a few pictures so I could always remember what hell on earth looks like.
At least something good came from the experience. From now on if I ever have the urge to visit the fair, I can just look at these photos. And I won’t even have to take a bath in hand sanitizer afterwards.
What’s your state fair like?
Also I’d like to shout-out to my friend Vic at Freckles and Fudge for the gorgeous feature she did on my wedding! She really made my day and if you haven’t checked out her blog yet, you definitely should. She always has something pretty going on over there!
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