A night at the fair

Kate came home yesterday afternoon for her Fall Break and decided that she wanted to attend the Spalding County Fair. So after I extracted myself from the office, I drove home and changed clothes and we made our way to the fair. In years past, and it has been quite a few years past, the time around the fair was usually a dry patch, weather-wise, and the dust usually was an impediment to your enjoyment. However, it rained heavily on Wednesday and the ground was somewhat wet and muddy from the rain and the comings and goings of the fair-goers.

We arrived at the fairgrounds in the late afternoon, and the sun was still relatively high in the western sky. We paid our fifteen dollars to the man in the booth and stepped gingerly over the patches of mud and wet grass. There didn't seem to be a definite path onto the midway and we ended up working our way around the carnival headquarters onto the path.

When we finally found ourselves in the midst of the fun, we worked our way back to the exhibition halls. My first favorite place is always the farm animals, although, the number of exhibited farm animals has shrunk considerably from 1984, when I first attended the Spalding County Fair. There were two adult cows, two calves, two pigs, several goats and some guinea fowl. We watched the flies buzzing on the dark black coat of the Angus calf for awhile and enjoyed the general domestic smell, then worked our way back to the exhibition halls.

In years past, I could hold Cindy's attention for at least thirty minutes or so with the horticultural exhibit from the respective garden clubs; however, there was no such exhibit at this fair. Instead, the relative schools in Spalding County and Pike County had brought art works for exhibit and judging. That turned out to be the most interesting part of the exhibits. A number of our friends and acquaintances had children whose art was displayed.

After we finally got to the end of the exhibitions, we could finally work our way down to the real reason for visiting the fair: the corndogs. I worked my way down to the end of the line and followed the diminishing line to the front of the corndog stand. Ordering five of these precious golden pieces of food on a stick, we found a picnic table on which to enjoy our repast in the dying light of Autumn.

After finishing my corndogs, Cindy decided that she needed a lemonade from the lemonade stand we had passed when we first entered the midway. So I worked my way through the crowd and down to the stand, which sat in a low point of the midway, a perfect collection point for the rainwater from the day before. I purchased the lemonade and returned it to Cindy through the mud.

After that, the three of us worked our way down the midway past the rides, as Kate took pictures of the sights. Later that night, after a visit to "The Pig" for some groceries and necessities, we went home and Kate showed us some of her pictures of the fair. She has quite an eye.

After watching the thrill and concern and joy on the faces of the patrons for several hours, we finally made our way back toward the entrance to the fair. Ironically, just as we were going to purchase cotton candy for Cindy and a funnel cake for Kate, the sky fell on us and we ran to one of the carny game booths to escape a thirty minute rain shower. Our spot under the awning cost me five dollars so Kate could have two tries to knock over three milk bottles and win a stuffed tiger face. Kate really didn't want to try, and her ambivalence showed in her efforts to knock over the bottles; however, the rain finally stopped and we could slog our way through the mud to the exit from the fair.

Interestingly, as we passed the animals again, I noticed that one of the goats had parked himself, feet and all, in his feed trough, and poked his head through the fence in order to allow himself a bite from the feed trough in the calf's enclosure. It seems that the grass is always greener, no matter where you are.

I finally worked my way back through the darkness and the mud to the car and was able to extract the vehicle from the parking area and work our way back to the street in front of the fairgrounds. All in all, it was quite fun.