It's Fair-tastic!

This is me in my "mom-ish" outfit next to giant pumpkins.

This guy is ordering him some deep-fried Buckeyes. I did not partake but of COURSE they would have deep fried buckeyes. We're in OSU Country after all.

Deep fried macaroni and cheese!

MOOOOOO!!!

Guys, I definitely took some great pictures at the fair this weekend and when I try to post them, they're all mini! I don't know what is up with Blogger but I didn't want to put off my fair post while I tried to fix the picture size. So...here we go!

This past Saturday, John and I dropped Sadie off at day camp and met up with my parents in Columbus at the Ohio State Fair! We LOVE a good fair and can you believe it? We've never been to the state fair, only our local County fair. My parents had never been either (go figure) so when I suggested we meet there (sort of halfway between our homes) they quickly agreed. We had a lovely weather day, for awhile.

The state fair is no joke, people. This ain't your podunk county fair by any stretch of the imagination. It was HUGE! And there were all sorts of buildings and exhibits and livestock to see. Admission was $10 but, penny pincher that I am, we bought our tickets ahead of time at Kroger for only $6/each. Bargain! Parking was $5 but we were still $3 ahead in this equation, yes? I felt like I was totally rocking the mom-wear that day but I knew I wanted something comfortable and while I hate wearing tennis shoes with shorts (sandals please!) I did it anyway to save my foot from all the walking we'd be doing. Oh yeah, to add to my mom-ness, I also picked up this drawstring backpack at the Nike outlet so I wouldn't have to carry a purse. I'm glad I didn't run into anyone I know!

When going to the state fair, make sure you have clearer directions of where you'll meet your party rathern than "just inside the gate." There are multiple gates and of course, we went in a different one than my parents. So, we hauled ass down past all the vendors on the "Food Highway" (Seriously, that's what it was called) and finally found them near the ferris wheel. We weren't sure which direction to head in first so we picked the closest barn. It was the Ag-Hort building. There were lots of things like nuts and corn and prize winning flowers here.

After that, I don't have the slightest idea of the order in which we saw things. We went to the "Commercial" building, which was basically row after row of Sham-wow, Mighty-Tite and other things you'd see on infomercials. We saw rows and rows of poultry and cows. Nary a rabbit in sight though. I was pretty disappointed by that. I love rabbits. We may not have seen rabbits but we did catch some...pig races!!! That was very exciting. Smelly, but exciting. In fact, lots of the fair was very smelly.

Here are some things we saw that you wouldn't think of as being at the fair. In the middle of the day, we got stuck in a downpour in the pavilion that housed the boxing tournaments. This was interesting for awhile but was also confusing. I couldn't ever tell who was winning. Then it got really boring. We also watched a cooking demonstration for half an hour or so. This was more interesting plus we got to sit down. Whee!!! I also read on the schedule that there was to be a spelling bee. Unfortunately, we missed this (I am an awesome speller) but again, not your typical fair fare. (see what I did there, with the spelling?)

Onto the food.....John and I had been banking calories all week in preparation for the fair. However, we were determined not to get too out of hand. We thought we may have been derailed at the start when my parents bought some fried macaroni and cheese. That's right, fried nuggets filled with macaroni and cheese. Can you feel your arteries closing in? Boy, was it delicious! We skipped the fried Oreos, fried Buckeyes, fried Twinkies, etc. For lunch we both had corn dogs and fries with lemonade. Then we treated ourselves to ice cream from the dairy barn. It's been a LONG time since I had real ice cream. It was tasty but very soft, for hard serve. Nothing beats a good mint chocolate chip. Yum yum.

The fair had lots and lots of rides. I don't trust fair rides. Do you? Plus, they kept running them during the rain. That doesn't seem like a lot of fun to me. But, like I said, I wasn't riding them.

We ended up spending about 5 hours there and our dogs were sure barking by the end of the day. The fair runs for something like 3 weeks and everyday there are different competitions and judging and other things happening. Lots of people make going to the fair a vacation and camp out there. This would not be a vacation, in my mind, but I'm not a camper. All in all it was a great experience. Even the day didn't damper our fair spirits. I would definitely go again in the future!