The Great State Fair

Yet another day in recent memory that I can post saying I'm so exhausted.

Yesterday my friends and I went out to the New York State Fair. I haven't gone in a couple years and this is my first time going in a long time with people who actually enjoy the fair itself. I went with my dad 3 years ago or so and we went just to go to a concert.

We had perfect weather yesterday. Lots of sun, but not too hot, with a slight breeze going through. Of course that means it was crowded as heck there. We got there around 1-2pmish since we intended to stay later.

I'm not even sure where to start describing stuff. Once we got there we cut through the Center of Progress building just to get to the meat of the fair, passing by all the infomercial people. Once we grabbed some stuff to eat we began the quest to see all of the animals that were on display.

First up…cows. I wasn't too excited about this one, considering I live practically across the road from a cow field. There were some cool varities though. I particularly liked the cows that had borders on their spots. Three color cows, if you will. Then we tried to locate some horses, but there was a show going on and they had closed the horse barn for an hour or so. We went for the goats/pigs/llama building in the meantime.

Now, I've got a problem with this goat/pig/llama experience. I was promised Llamas! There were no llamas to be found. Just…goats. Lots of goats. Although it could be entirely possible we missed the llamas… Oh well.

We went to the Poultry building next, which also had ducks and rabbits in it for some reason. I took some pictures of a couple chickens but they didn't turn out so well. The hazards of using a camera phone to take pictures…anyway, I was excited to see they also had Pigeons! Although as we were looking at them this crazy pigeon lady person came up to us and started explaining stuff…two pigeons were picking at each other through the cage bars, and she told us they were trying to be a couple, but one was a long beak and the other was a short beak and they would make a really odd pair…or something to that effect.

I believe at this point we stopped by the Dairy Building in an attempt at visiting the Rainbow Milk Bar for some milk, but the line was long, so we dove over to the Wine Court to do some wine tasting. Oh yes, and some wine slushies. Don't as me who came up with that idea…but they were a genius! Mmmm…Sangria slushie…

I think we went next to the Horticulture building with the intention of checking out the sand sculpture. I totally missed this the last time I went to the fair and I wasn't quite expecting what we saw. It was a lot larger than I thought it would be, although my friends informed me that this year's was pretty small in comparison with past years.
It was quite impressive. I did take some more pictures of it that showed it better, but the sun was shining through a window and made the picture not so good. There was a lot of frogs and a wizard reading a spell book and stuff. I wish that pic didn't turn out so horrible. I'll include it here anyway…but…it's not the best. Then we went back to the horse barn because it was open to check out all the horses.

Then back to the Milk Bar to stand in line to get some milk. And what milk it was too. I was told it was the best milk you'll ever taste, but I'm not sure I believed them about it. But…it was. That was the best chocolate milk EVER. And only a quarter a glass too. Mmmmm…

Of course I had to go over and see the butter sculpture. It wasn't as impressive this year as it was the last year I went. That year it was a whole farm…this year it was just a couple farmers and 2 cows. Bah. And after seeing what the sand sculpture people do…come on! You can make it bigger!

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur because I can't recall the order of events. We did a lot of eating, interspersed with some trips to the Wine Court (Niagara wine is goood…) We also swung through the Infomercial Building…er…I mean the Center of Progress building. When I was younger, we didn't have cable. So if you wanted to watch TV at certain hours, you were going to watch Infomercials. And watch them I did. So walking through this building was like walking down memory lane. They had people selling knives, mops, vacuum cleaners, kitchen ware, pet groomers, monkeys with elastic arms that let you shoot them into the air…it was awesome!

Oh, right…before I finish my post, I need to mention one last thing…In the poultry building (the one with the rabbits) they had two of those little wood cutout things where you can stick your face in the hole and then  from the other side it looks like you're a bunny or something. Classic photo op stuff here, for kids anyway. I turned to my friend Jason and said "Go stick your head in the hole and I'll take your picture!" He replied "I'll do it for $5". Five bucks was a little expensive…but I managed to talk him down to $1. He even gave me permission to post the picture! So…here it is…

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