Key to a very fun fair – beer

So after I got home and made the dog’s supper, Ali and I headed over to the county fair which is literally a mile away from our house.  It is one of the very rare things that we don’t have to drive a minimum of 15 minutes to reach.

We have had a mixed experience with the fair over the years.  The first few years after we moved out there the fair used to actually give people on our street free tickets as a thank you for putting up with the noise the event generates for 10 days.  That good neighbor policy ended about 5 years ago.

There was a number of years when the fair ran in February that it landed in the middle of horrible weather.  I recall several years it rained almost the entire week and others where it was ridiculously cold by Florida standards.

There have been a couple years where we were disenchanted enough with the fair that we didn’t bother going at all.  The revocation of the free passes and the bullshit parking fee just made the event not seem worth the money.

Moving the fair to mid-March was a wise move as far as more friendly weather conditions for sure.  They have had great weather, last night being no exception.  They also wised up and stopped charging people extra to park.  On top of that, last night was half price night since Tuesday night isn’t typically a big crowd time of the week. We got to the fairgrounds around 6:30.

Going into the fair I had two loose agenda items.  I wanted to see what this years “big” ride was, since it was advertised as “The scariest ride in America”.  I also was interested in seeing the high dive act, something I never saw at the fair before.

We planned to eat at the fair so the first thing we did was walk the grounds, checking out our various food options.  As we did we passed the “Beer Tent”.  I have never had beer at the fair for some reason.  I decided I would try it to see if it enhanced my fair experience.  The answer was definitively, YES.

I sipped my beer as we entered the hardcore carnie area of the fair, it is an atmosphere that I really do not like.  I hate having these people getting in my face to play dumb games with prizes I don’t want.  I had various tactics tried on me during our walk through the area.

Several people tried to appeal to my manhood, insisting I should try to win one of these ridiculous oversized stuffed animals for my woman. One guy offered to let me play for free because I was drinking Budweiser.  Another held two quarters out to me and said I could play for free.  All of these people got the same response from me, “No thanks buddy…” with no eye contact.

I was somewhat bummed when I saw the the BIG ride was actually something I had ridden before.  It was called SPEED. It is basically a large rotating arm with a car on either end that has two seats.  It simply rotates you around at a high rate of speed.  Because of it’s large size it is pretty intimidating.  I recall getting the sensation of flying when I did it years ago.  However I would not classify it as the scariest ride in America.  Oh well it saved me 10 bucks.

On the way back I was ready for my second beer.  Since I was drinking on an empty stomach at this point I was feeling the effects pretty quickly.  Plus the beer was reasonably priced, $3 for a draft filled to the absolute rim.  When I got the second beer the old woman taking the money clued me in that after 7PM happy hour started where I could get TWO beers for $5.  I thanked her for the tip.

Speaking of tips, I wound up handing out a number of them while at the fair.  Each time I hit the beer tent, a total of three times, I threw an extra dollar in the tip bucket.  Two food vendors got tips and the friendly bathroom attendant got a couple bucks out of me as well.  Why there was a bathroom attendant at a county fair is beyond me but he did a nice job of keeping the area clean so I had no issue throwing him a couple bills.

Generally speaking, I try to be kind and courteous to people working at the fair.  I always am conscious of just how tough it has to be to try to carve out a living in that environment.

I decided to try something different for dinner, I got an arepa, a Cuban item.  It was two corn meal patties with cheese in between them.  It was really good.  Ali had a few bites of it as well and agreed it was some good stuff.

Ali scored a slice of pizza for her dinner which we ate in an area with some small picnic tables.

We then headed over to the “barn” and looked at the turkeys, ducks, chickens and rabbits that were on display.  I always enjoy seeing the animals but I need to keep my displeasure of seeing them in small little cages tucked away.

We also went into the petting zoo where you could pet and feed various animals (if you paid $1 for a small container of carrots).  I fed goats, yaks, sheep, and ponies.  Ali opted to not feed the animals this year.  She always feels bad realizing the life of captivity that most of them must endure.

It was now getting close to 7:30, high dive show time.  I told Ali I wanted to hit the bathroom again and take advantage of the happy hour beer deal before we headed to the high dive.  While I was in the bathroom I also had Ali pick me up another Cuban food item, some sort of stuffed, fried potato.  It was good but not up to arepa standards.

I was surprised that Ali actually claimed one of my two happy hour beers for herself since she historically is not a beer drinker at all.

Well by the time I was done it was already a few minutes after 7:30, damn it.  The walk to the high dive area which was near the entrance to the fair was pretty long as well.  By the time we arrived at the show we only caught the grand finale, a young kid jumping into a 10 foot tank from 80 feet high on a tower.  It was cool to see but bummed me out that I didn’t catch the entire show. Oh well, it was my fault.

In the tent towards the front of the fair there were a number of exhibits including art, tables for politicians, people handing out bibles and an anti-abortion group, which I thought was totally inappropriate.

However the we were quite interested in an animal organization that had some pit bull puppies along with a huge Great Dane named Prince. For $1 you could have Prince “sit on your lap” and take a picture with him.

At first I encouraged Ali to do it but she seemed to think I would be a better choice for some reason.  Well of course I was happy to do it so we handed over our dollar and I sat on the “throne”.

Prince has obviously done this drill many times and of course he was much to big to sit on anyone’s lap.  Instead he just sort of backed up to me and plopped his rear end on my knee, it was funny.

Ali never got a chance to kiss the pit bull puppies.  The one time we stopped by they were asleep, the other they were busy wrestling with each other.

So we walked back into the heart of the fair to score our desert.  As we did, we walked by the main stage where various acts perform.  I saw a young man and a woman doing tandem juggling which of course peaked my interest since I am a basic juggler myself.

I also thought it was funny that there were like four people watching the show.  As we watched the act, where they were tossing juggling pins I had to chuckle a bit as they routinely dropped pins.  I then spotted the baby carriage on stage, complete with baby inside.  To be honest I had a bit of a car wreck mentality at first as we watched them perform.  The beers I had definitely were helpful in the situation.

Well then out of nowhere comes an older guy.  Wow he just exuded energy.  Part of his intro included claims he was a world class juggler, named Steve Mills.

He was simply a FANTASTIC entertainer.

Sure he was a great juggler but that was only part of why he was so good.  He was funny as hell and able to improvise on the spot, repeatedly involving the audience in creative and funny ways, including myself.

At one point Steve brought out a mountain bike with a simple challenge.  If anyone in the audience could ride the bike for 20 feet he would give them $20.  He followed up with a brief demonstration where he performed the feat pretty easily.  He showed us why it would be difficult, it was a trick bike with reversed steering.  If you turn the handlebars left the wheel goes right and vice versa.

Well when he asked for volunteers in the small but growing crowd (it grew exponentially once Steve got involved), there was no initial response.  My Bud Light’s kicked in and I raised my hand to be a volunteer/victim.  I hopped up on the stage as I heard Ali laughing, something she did pretty much non-stop during the act.

I hopped on the bike and as predicted was unable to ride it for even that short of a distance without my feet touching the ground.  My brain was just not wired to compensate for the reversed steering.

I stayed up on the stage for awhile, riding the bike around in circles as Steve continued to entertain the crowd.  I eventually conceded I just couldn’t do it.  Steve thanked me for my participation.

The show continued from there with the difficulty of the juggling/stunts intensifying.  They did some impressive team juggling and then compounded the difficulty by bringing out the unicycles and juggling while mounted on them.

It was SUCH a good show and provided so much more entertainment than I ever expected to receive from the fair.  After it ended and the crowd was dispersing I walked up to the stage and told Steve personally how good his show was.  He appreciated my compliment.  His show pushed this year’s fair undeniably to the top of the list as far as the enjoyment scale goes.  I was really having a good time.

We still had to score desert.  Ali and I both grabbed small cones of soft serve, something we may have two or three times a year at most.

On the way back we stopped back at the barn to walk through the other half which was closed our first time through.  This was the side that had the pigs and cows/steer.

I was surprised how many of the pigs were sleeping, I bet over half of them were out cold. They really didn’t look all that different from when Sadie is catching some ZZZZ’s. There was a cute black and white pig laying against the front of his pen that I interacted with a bit. I petted him for a bit, despite the warning signs all around that advised against it.

Then there was a cow laying down that had a very sad aura about him.  I commented to Ali how sad the animal looked.  Ali said she would be sad too if she was tied to a fence and knew she was going to be nothing but hamburger. Although I said nothing I agreed.

Walking around the pen made me sad, made me feel compassion for these innocent animals that are slaughtered to feed human beings. It just didn’t feel right.

Truth is my consumption of meat is DRAMATICALLY less than it used to be.  Seeing the animals that wind up on grocery shelves and freezers down the line face to face and eye to eye just makes me want to keep going along that path.

After we finished our cones we finally headed out of the fair after spending over two and a half hours there.  It was without a doubt my best fair experience ever.

I walked out of there with $2 left in my wallet and felt like the $50+ I spent was totally worth it.