Live birth of a calf--actually, we arrive 20 minutes after the main event to watch Enormous Mom-Cow tenderly licking off all the, uh, fluids from the dazed little newborn, who made several unsuccessful attempts to stand as we watched. Placenta (birthing stage three) not yet delivered, but on its way as we moved on (passing various pigs and goats also preoccupied with similar activities).
Stunning gardens, both veggie and flower (must stifle obvious comparison with pathetic attempt at home).
Pet big sturgeon swishing casually by in a shallow tank as if this were part of their normal routine.
Watch mini-mom horse nurse her even mini-er baby. SWEET! Next stall, monster Percheron with hooves the size of dinner plates.
Gaze upon felony cute white wallaby joey sleeping in a bag (pretend pouch)--not sure about the California connection, there, but who cares?
Eat: giant roasted turkey leg and corn-on-the-cob (Tom), fiery grated root-veggie Thai salad (me), ice cream bars and frozen lemonade. I know. Snoozers. Yes, we passed on the deep fried maggots and raccoon-on-a-stick, just two of the new meal options available. Deep fried butter and bacon are so last year.
Giant animatronic insects. Real live Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches and fat toads that look like they could easily eat a cat.
Hula dancing and hypnotist shows.
Wonderful art and craft galleries. And who doesn't love to stare at the fancy chickens? They are CRAZY to look at.
Interesting commercial opportunities--we walked on by the laser treatments for whiter teeth (though the chairs looked comfy) and feather hair extensions (it might be fun to see what they could do with Tom's head). We already have all the rest of the stuff. Well, except for the magic card deck that Tom bought and a few little things like miracle eye-glasses cleaner (Tom) and a travel mirror (me).
Duh. We went to the California State Fair in Sac on Friday. 100 degrees (though the misters and air-conditioned buildings kept it pretty comfortable, on the whole). Any fair, let alone the bigger ones like this, are SO worth the price of admission, in my book. And you get in a good walk!
This year, somehow, Nevada County won first place in the county-display building. Every other year we've noted that either our county just put up a few posters, or did nothing at all. I think it's all part of the new effort to lure all you big spenders, er, lucky tourists to our little corner of the state. We'll see if it helps. Thankfully, ours didn't include creepy animatronics, like most of the others did--the secret to our success perhaps? We always look for Solano county because they give away free Jelly Bellies. The fancy fudge people weren't there this year. We missed them.
The CA State Fair is, truth be told, not quite as cool as the one in San Diego. It's not as big, for one thing. But it has its own flavor and we like it. Our somewhat smaller Nevada County Fair comes up in a couple of weeks. The first year we lived here, I did the whole thing in two hours. Last year, I went every day. Gonna enter cheesecake again. And a few other things. Stay tuned for the exciting report.
As for the photos, the first is obvious. The second is me and sunflowers. Next is Tom petting a sturgeon. Sleeping joey. The last is an entry in the craft building-- it's needlepoint. No kidding.
