The California State Fair is really Sacramento Regional Fair with a few county displays set up in one of the pavilions. Some counties, like Solano, go all out--different every year--and build elaborate, free-standing, walk-through structures complete with music, Disney-style animatronics and costumed staff to pass out brochures and little packets of prunes or Jelly Bellies. Some, like Nevada County (ours)--blow up some photos and stick 'em on a wall. Some apparently let some of their enthusiastic third-graders organize the whole display. And some, like many this year, blow it off entirely.
Not unlike most folks, we look forward to some fun fair food. Tom got the deep-fried White Castle burger one year, for example. We're not suicidal, however. No chocolate bacon or fried twinkies for us. This year, Tom broke the time-from-car-to-food-in-mouth record by pouncing on a cheese-filled bratwurst a few steps from the gate. Here he is, not one bit sorry about his rash behavior. By contrast, after visiting ALL the food vendors at the fair, some more than once, I landed a--ta da!--roasted veggie panini! Of course, by that time, Tom was hungry again and we got some deep-fried artichokes to share. I must say, timing aside, we made excellent choices this year. The gelato (or some kind of frozen thing) and fudge are routine chasers. The fudge guy sells umpteen kinds. This year we chose Pralines and Cream and Mounds (that's right--layered chocolate and coconut). Yum.
Among the special exhibits this year were two fun ones. The first was a complete history of the bicycle complete with museum-quality artifacts. I chose the multi-rider bike for the photo, but there were other unusual examples--a bike made mostly of bamboo, a ten-foot-high bike, and a bike made entirely of glass. The other exhibit was all about animation and included lots of Disney/Pixar video and process info as well as sections of Warner Bros., Hannah-Barbera and Japanese Anime. Fun and fascinating!
The last highlight I'll mention is the farming/animals area--always a biggie for me. You can see Tom standing in front of the field corn. Everything growing in the ag exhibit looked as though it had been fed that Alice's cake from Wonderland.
Enormous. But the most fun was looking at all the baby animals--goats, sheep and cows with their days-old young. The photo shows piglets only three hours old! They had been born after we'd arrived at the fair! That's me being happy about it.
The entertainment was fine (group called Fog Hat), but we walked on by toward the exit. We scored last year with Three Dog Night. This time we just bopped to the beat as we made our way to the car.
But guess what's coming up in 10 days! Ha! The fabulous Nevada County Fair. And I have a few more ways to participate this year, which I will share in due time. Stay tuned...
