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| Arc de Square |
Friday night my wife and I made an impromptu trip to the county fair. It was a great night for fun, and fun we had! The air held a slight chill and the steady breeze helped keep us alert even this late at the end of a work day. I didn't take my good camera but I couldn't resist snapping shots with my phonecam. So, here's an illustrated recap of our short trip to the fair.
Our first stop was the ticket booth and we picked up 20 ride tix for $14. As it turned out, most rides took 3 or 4 tickets so we weren't prepared for much in the way of nausea inducing thrills. So, we decided to get our kicks out of the way with a ride on the Scrambler. I was wearing my Swiss Army knife (in a case) next to my phone on the right rear quarter of my belt. So as not to crush my wife I took the outside seat of the The Scrambler, hence I took the brunt of the centrifugal force and nearly became fused, Borg-like, with my knife and phone as they were pressed into my kidney. Otherwise, it was a good ride.
Then we hit the Monkey Maze which was a fun-house mirror experience. After the mirror maze we decided to explore a bit.
When I saw the booth in this first picture my brain jumped instantly into Cloverfield mode. My reaction surprised me because news about 1-18-08 has been slow to nil of late and, on this rare date with my wife, Slusho wasn't in the forefront of my thoughts. I find it interesting that I was able to get this shot (a) with a modest cell phone camera which makes the image seem like it belongs in the Cloverfield mystery, and (b) that there aren't any clearly visible people in the image, just the blurry fellow who looks like he might have been in a hurry to get away from "the monster." It gives me a chuckle. :-)
We made our way to the Ferris Wheel which seems tame enough, but my wife has a fear of heights so she was challenging herself just to get on the thing. I took a picture of her on the ride to prove to her daughter that she had done it, but I'll spare her the embarrassment of posting that closed-eyes photo here. ;-) [I love you, sweetie]
So, here are some shots I took of the grounds from the ferris wheel. This shot is behind us looking toward the area with most of the food booths. Beyond the lights seen here are the barns housing the livestock.
This shows one of the main game
areas of the fair.
Similar view showing more of the rides and games along the back side of the grandstand.
This shot impressed me with the amount of color visible. The color wasn't washed out by the luminescence.
The last shot from the Ferris Wheel, just before we exited the ride.
This is the Four Horned Sheep. Pretty impressive. Being an Aries, I can appreciate a good set of horns.
I'm no vegetarian, and I completely understand that someone has to know how to butcher a pig for us to have bacon with our eggs, tasty ham sandwiches for lunch, and pork cracklin's for Sunday games, but seeing this display gave me a bit of a twinge. Like a vaccination needle. It's not pleasant but it's gotta be done. Keep in mind, this photo fails to fully realize the experience I had seeing this colorfully painted, living, breathing animal who knew nothing of the meaning in his fancy new coat.
This particular room was filled with pigs of just about all the colors and sizes a pig might be. They had a pig sort of odor, but it wasn't too bad. You could pet them and hear them and watch them play and otherwise interact. It was easy to enjoy them, which made the sting just that much greater when we finally stumbled across the butcher chart pig.
The ponies were done for the night and enjoyed some food and water outside their trailer. Not to mention the adoration of my wife and many other passersby.
Bonus feature: here's a clip of my wife and I in front of a moving fun-house mirror. Enjoy!
