The fair was Kelly's idea and so the girls and Austin, my nephew, piled into the Suz Mobile and headed off for an adventure. I had looked the directions up earlier on my Iphone and the Elkhart County Fair site suggested not using a GPS because several of the county roads were not recognized so Susan printed directions off the computer. Armed with those and the GPS we managed to veer off track somewhat when we decided to follow the "this way to the fair" signs. We did arrive safely, parked, hiked, purchased tickets, and entered the fairgrounds.
The first areas we passed by were the animals. I led everyone through the birthing cow tent where pregnant cows were in various stages of labor from not ready yet to here is my baby. One poor cow was obviously in some painful labor as she lay on the ground, her swollen belly protruding, breathing heavily and none too happy. The pregnant cow in the pen next to her kept sticking her head over to the in labor cow's side and offering what I liked to think was soothing words of encouragement. I have to admit I was taken aback by their size. These cows were HUGE!
The next animal tent we went into was the horse tent. I never made it pass the first stall because this horse was seriously GIGANTIC. I know my mouth hung open the entire time I was standing there. I am not a horse lover at all, but this horse was magnificent. It was a Shire horse. These horses are work horses that can pull 40 tons. The males stand at an average of 70 inches and weighs between 1,700 to 2,000 pounds. I was so busy marveling at this horse and thinking how I would never in hell approach one of them that I never took a picture of it. But it was as big as this thing:
The kids wanted to do some rides so we paid an ungodly amount of money for tickets and the four first rode the Crazy Mouse roller coaster and then Austin and Madison flew high on another ride. It lasted about one minute and did not mess up Austin's hair.
We wandered some more and ended up at the games where we played a few and then got caught by a bored carnival booth operator who encouraged Susan to throw darts at balloons. It started out free and then he gave everyone a shot at hitting the balloons. I didn't throw, but took photos. Austin was the only one who hit a balloon so the guy gave him a prize. Susan felt obligated to pay the man so she gave him $5.00. We started to walk away, but he encouraged her to go again. She told him she wasn't paying any more money. He told her to try it for free. She declined, but he insisted so she walked back and lined up to throw. At some point in there he made her a deal; throw until she hit one, pay $2.00 when she hit. She didn't hear this part, but the kids heard it.
She hit and missed. He gave her another dart. She hit and missed. She thanked him. He gave her another dart. This went on several times until she hit one. Everyone cheered. The booth operator wanted his $2.00. Susan was aghast. She told him she wasn't paying him any more money. He was aghast. But that was the deal. The two of them went back and forth with Susan getting really angry. She paid him the money and called him a scammer and a cheat. He then didn't want the money. We ended up leaving it and walking away.
Our next bit of excitement came in a tent where several different companies had booths set up to give demonstrations and to sell products. We entered and the first area was set up for a cooking show to sell kitchen products with Chef Lloyd. A group of chairs was set up, but it was obviously not time for the show or it had already happened, but everything was vacant. Our group passed by it and turned the corner to head down the aisle. I noticed Austin had disappeared so I stopped and turned around to find him behind the cooking counter putting on the headset.
He has spent most of his four years of high school in the drama department and in
telecommunications so this was right up his alley. He got the headset on and began pretending he was going to cook something with the fake vegetables sitting in a glass bowl in front of him.
The mic wasn't on so no one could hear him, but I snickered and Susan came around the corner looking for us and she too laughed. Then suddenly a man approached came up to the booth and we were sure Austin would be kicked out. Instead the man asks him a question about one of the cooking items.
Austin: "Let me guess. You would be Chef Lloyd."
Man: "What? My name is Mike."
Turned out the guy just wanted an answer on a product that had suction cups on it. His problem was that the thing kept coming unstuck and falling off. Austin decided to play along and pretend he knew what the hell he was talking about.
Austin: "I don't own one of these myself, but I have several gadgets with suction cups on them and I have found that the best way to use them is to get them wet first. I like to lick the suction cups before attaching them to whatever surface I'm using."
The guy seemed happy with that answer, thanked Austin for his time, shook his hand, and wandered off. Austin took off the headset and moseyed over to join our group, which had now gathered together again to witness this demo, quite proud of himself. We moved on through the tent watching demonstrations and checking out products that we wanted but couldn't bring home on the plane.
We finished our adventure by going back through the rabbit tent and the chicken tent. We washed our hands, bought some more to drink, and headed back to the car. We got into some traffic getting out, but the line to get into the fair was miles and miles and we quite glad that we had come at the time we did. We declared it a winner of an activity and gave props to Kelly for suggesting it.
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