The Fair

Well, the State Fair wasn't quite what I expected. Much smaller and a lot less people. That probably had something to do with the weather report, as it called for thunderstorms all day. The weather actually turned out to be fine. Not too hot and not raining.

I think I over did it a little though. My sciatic nerve has been tied in a knot and is killing me. I'll post more about the fair later (tomorrow).

ETA:
Like I said yesterday, the State Fair was not the Great Get Together that I am used to. First of all, the fair is all about the food. Particularly about food on sticks. It's tradition. You go to the fair and eat food on a stick. The second greatest part of the fair is the free stuff. Everyone is giving away something. You can walk out of there with bags and bags of free stuff. Pens, pencils, water, buttons, bumper stickers, your name written in Brail, key chains, yard sticks, hats, water bottles, the Pickle Lady's autograph, etc. It's fun to hunt for all the free stuff.

This state fair had very little food on a stick. Hardly any in fact. Not much food selection either. There wasn't much in the way of free stuff either. I really had to hunt for that. It was still fun though. We were running a little late and couldn't find the building Itchy needed to be in, but we eventually got him there. He was only a little late, so not a big deal. They invited me in the back so I hung out back there until the first surgery. The doctor that had volunteered to be there didn't let Itchy do a damn thing, but he was a large animal guy and a pretty experienced one at that, so it didn't surprise me at all. It would have been nice if Itchy had been allowed to do anything, but whatever.

The first surgery was a neuter. So it took all of five minutes. Not really, but the doc took his sweet ass time and explained every detail and it was still over in about 10 minutes. After that Itchy and I walked around a bit. Looked for tasty food but I wasn't really hungry and nothing looked good. Itchy had a steak sandwich from the Cattle Association which he said was really good. We also had roasted corn which was pretty tasty.

We walked through the barns but really, they weren't that great. The cow barn was empty. In fact, I only saw one cow all day ( a super cute baby Jersey). The pigs are too smelly so we skipped them. The horses were great but it must have been Belgian Draft Horse day because that's all that was there. They were fun to look at but they are some huge freaking horses. The sheep barn was full of Suffolk sheep.

We also went to the Horticulture building but that was not that impressive. Even the giant pumpkins didn't look that big. Eh. We tasted some Honey Ice Cream. It was kind of gross. After that Itchy had to get back to prepare for the second surgery. All of the exciting stuff happened after Itchy went back.

I went to the Home and Arts building. There were some amazing quilts in there. The art work was pretty cool too. After that I walked to the other side of the fair grounds. I walked passed a stand where you could get a henna tattoo. I had no interest in it but the elderly Indian woman that was doing the tattoos really wanted to put one on my belly. Even though I declined she was very nice.

I went through the DNR building, which was nicely air conditioned, and looked at the aquariums. I talked to a DNR employee and asked for fishing recommendations but they could only suggest places that I already knew about.

I walked through the FFA building and determined that FFA is the same no matter where you are. The only difference was how many people are involved. Around here there are way more participants.

There were lots of vendors along the way but I had no need for straw hats, leather wallets, and fleece blankets for the local NFL team. I did stop for a Lemonade Shakeup though. I figured it must be tasty since every food stand was selling it. Turns out it's not very good. I was expecting something like partially frozen lemonade. It was more like sugar water with a slice of lemon in it. Given that people here love their sweet tea (IE sugar water with a splash of tea), this was not a surprise to me.

Then I hit the jackpot and found what I like to call the Free Food building. They were just giving away samples of foods grown in the state. They had a ton of stuff. I didn't even try everything (a lot of pork products are made here) but left there feeling full. Probably since they gave me two huge things of ice cold watermelon. Mmm.. watermelon.

Since Itchy wanted to get back to school as soon as he could (they were really busy and one of his patients was having surgery) he asked me to be back before the second surgery was done. As I was walking back across the fairgrounds I saw an old man fall and hit his head on the curb. He had a pretty good size laceration on his forehead that was bleeding a lot. A fair employee happened to be close by and after he was told what happened, he called for first aid. Surprisingly, of the dozens of people that saw what happened, not many offered to do anything. One woman went to alert the fair employee but no one else really did anything but point and gawk. The old man was with another guy in his 30's (I'm guessing it was his son). I went over to offer the old man my water (I had just bought a bottle of cold water, it was not open yet) since the old guy was all sweaty and looked hot. I suggested that the 30ish year old guy help get the old man into the shade. Once the old man was in the shade and the fair guy got there, they both thanked me for the water and then I left. I'm pretty sure the old man had a little case of heat exhaustion.

I got back to the surgery building in time to watch the end of the spay. It really surprised me how many people were grossed out by the surgery. Since I was sitting in the back a few people asked me what they were doing. When I told them, they seemed genuinely disgusted by it. Not necessarily the idea of the spay, but the actual surgery itself. Even people who were sitting there watching it cringed when the doctor was pointing out the ovaries and uterus.

Once Itchy was done with recovery, we had to go. I made him stop for ice cream on the way out. Not that honey flavored crap we had earlier either. The high schoolers running the dairy barn clearly need to be back in school. Not the brightest bunch. Yikes. The ice cream was good though.

That was pretty much it. I have pictures of Itchy in the surgery booth but you can't tell it's him. I doubt he'd want me to post it anyway. I didn't take many pictures because there just wasn't much there.