Another day at the old state's fair

Hola Amigos,

I'm back to work after a very busy, fun day off. I started out by picking up a friend at the airport. He's in town to visit family (none of whom could come and get him which is how I got involved). We went out to breakfast at one of our favorite places, Beans and Barley. I had the eggs to order (over medium with whole wheat toast) and he had the egg burrito. This place is awesome. They have many vegetarian and vegan options, and a great store attached. Just a nice place all around.

So then I dropped him off. Then I went home and watched some television and took a nap (hey, days off are a thrill a minute when I'm in charge). Then my friend T and I went over to my brother's house and proceeded to go with him and my nephew to the state fair. We had a blast. My nephew is only 5 so we started out on the midway. We got him a wristband which meant he could go on anything where he was tall enough as many times as he wanted. So much fun watching him enjoy the rides. There was one, though, a kid's ride, that we adults wanted to go on, but since my nephew was afraid of it we didn't. We tried not to look to disappointed, but deep down, we really were. I think it's called a rockin'tug or something like that, it's a little ship that rocks around and goes awry. Too cute. We all went on a big ferris wheel, 2 to a car, so we would shout to each other at the points where we could see one another. It was a blast.

T and my brother went on a ride called Extreme, while my nephew and I watched. It was insane. I'm pretty sure my brother was going to barf, but managed to keep it together. They did go home for a bit of a lie down after that. While they were gone, T and I went on the tilt-a-whirl. I had read my good buddy Alabaster Mom's blog about her experience with the tilt-a-whirl, and I wasn't going to go on it. I was all about the bumper cars. But I knew that T really wanted to go on the t-a-w and I always did think it was a blast. So we went. I'd say maybe 30 more seconds on that thing and I would have lost my eggs to order. It's amazing, the spinny rides just get to me now. I don't know if it's age or if it's that I don't go on them very often. I love roller coasters and never feel sick on those. But the tilt-a-whirl? What's happened to me?

Then we went and looked at some cows. There was a petting zoo too, we looked at but didn't go into because the lines were too long. The animals, oddly enough, all looked relatively happy. Spacious areas and such. I was thrilled because there was a humongous tortoise there tooling around. It's a dream of mine to have one of those some day. I like the idea of coming home and having a tortoise roaming around the house. A couple guys walked past with a 60 pound python they held between them so I gave him a pat (the python) and that was cool.

Then we had corn. Then we had fried mushrooms. Then we met my brother and nephew and went to see the Chinese acrobats (who were INCREDIBLE) at the expo center. Of course, being in the expo center we had to look at chotchkie too. Then we got a cream puff and watched the 'ejector seat' extreme thrill ride that I decided you'd have to pay me at least $50,000 to go on. No kidding. I wouldn't do it for a penny less. Actually, looking at it today I may move that number up to $75,000. This is the one where 2 people are strapped in and literally catapulted into the air by some type of bungee cord. Yikes! I said they'd have to hose the seats down when I got off. So, we watched that for a while. Then my brother and nephew took the sky glider and T and I walked to the other end of the park. Then there were a couple more rides for my nephew, and then we split. We didn't leave the fair until like 10:30. What a day! So much fun.

I'm sorry I went through literally everything we did, but that's sort of what the fair does to me. I like to remember all the stuff I did and ate (oh, I ate some candied almonds and cashews too) because there's just so much to do and eat.

So, that was this year's trip 2 to the fair. And tomorrow? You guessed it. I'm going to the fair. I still have ride coupons left over, so maybe my mom and sister and I can go on something. Our tradition is to go on one of the spook house things, you know, with the car that goes into the dark area and stuff jumps out at you. Last year we went on that. I didn't think it could possibly have been worse than the last time we did it, but it was. Pretty much nothing happened. There was a loud noise and a buzz. And a flashing light. And somewhere a piece of string brushed across my face. And then we got spat out the other end. It reminded me of when Bart and Lisa Simpson went on something similar at a carnival. They came out and glared at the carny, who apologized. It was that bad. So maybe this year we'll go on something different. Just not the tilt-a-whirl.