A Veritable Smorgasbord Orgasbord Orgasbord
Or so the Fair is dubbed by the Goose and Templeton the rat from the musical animated film "Charlotte's Web". We went to the great Texas State Fair on Saturday and can attest of all the delicious goodies left on the ground so sung about. "A fair is a veritable smorgasbord orgasbord orgasbord. You will find... "Melon rinds and bits of hot dogs, cookie crumbs and rotten cotton candy, melted ice cream, mustard dripplings, moldy goodies everywhere, lots of popcorn, apple cores, banana peels and soggy sandwiches, and gobs of gorgeous gook to gobble at the fair !"
Kroger's offers a special "The DART/State Fair Combo Ticket " deal for $16, so we got two of those. You get an all-day pass, and a round trip ticket on the DART. The DART is Dallas' public transit system, so you pretty much get to ride the DART rail or bus to the fair. Did I mention it drops you off right at the entrance (avoiding traffic and parking)? IT WAS SO FUN, it was one of my favorite things!
Love had never taken a metro so she was a little worried that we wouldn't get there or get off at the wrong stop, but most of the people on the DART were doing to same thing as us, so after I figured out where we were going it was pretty easy to follow the crowd.
Kroger's offers a special "The DART/State Fair Combo Ticket " deal for $16, so we got two of those. You get an all-day pass, and a round trip ticket on the DART. The DART is Dallas' public transit system, so you pretty much get to ride the DART rail or bus to the fair. Did I mention it drops you off right at the entrance (avoiding traffic and parking)? IT WAS SO FUN, it was one of my favorite things!
Love had never taken a metro so she was a little worried that we wouldn't get there or get off at the wrong stop, but most of the people on the DART were doing to same thing as us, so after I figured out where we were going it was pretty easy to follow the crowd.
We took the Red line from Bush Turnpike to Pearl, the got on the Green line from Pearl to Fairpark. After we got in, we were greeted by "Big Tex". I don't really see what so fascinating about a 52 foot tall man wearing size 70 boots, a 75 gallon hat, a size 100 180/181 shirt and 284W/185L XXXXXL pair of Dickie's jeans, but it's an icon and has been the "mascot" for the State Fair for over 50 years. "Howdy folks!" 
I was more interested by the man who has no legs! How does he do that?! I betcha he's an amputee.
I was so bedazzled that I was taking pictures of every random stupid thing (got that from my mom), but Love was doing such a great job keeping us on task and finding where we needed to be on time to see every show. There were SO many things to see and do, shows, concerts, exhibits and museums, rides and contest judgings that we just decide to stick to the free shows.The first thing we watched was a Russian gymnast and her two stuntmen preform some tricks. check it out! Look how they do!
Then we went to see the "Pirates of the Caribbean Dive show". Since we are " the water people" (love swimming, met on the swim team, a favorite drink, and seeing how I work for a company that sells bottled water), we were instantly excited. That was way cool, the dives were really quite talented, considering their landing pool was only 10 feet deep, and some of the dives were preformed from the high dive over 80 feet up! WOW!
How well do you know my wife? Need I say what Love's favorite thing was? We next went to see the "Spirit of the Horse"(it was like an Intro to Horse Riding) horse show and to see the livestock stables...
Watch those fingers young lady! But do you really think that sign would stop her? Really?
Needless to say, we had a conversation a little like this:
Love: " Can we get a horse?"
Me: (raised eyebrow): " A what?"
Love: "A horse? Please?"
Me: "What do you want a horse for? I've got 135 of em back home under my hood."
Besides the horses, they had sheep, goats, pigs, and cows! Would it be fitting to Texas without boasting the largest longhorn? Sorry, naturally, we are A&M fans (Austin & Melissa, that is)!
Or "Boris" the largest hog? He kind of remainder me of out little hamster Bear, roosting around in his wood chip bedding , sleeping all the time, and smelling bad. Needless to say, Boris' pen was next to the "Hormel pork sausage and pork chop" restaurant for easy access after the fair....
After walking though the barnyard, we made it just in time for the Pig Races!
If you have never seen a pig race... you are missing out of quite the treat, let me tell you! They have four pigs, who madly dash around the arena for ... an Oreo. They divide the crowd into sections and each section is encouraged to cheer for their pig wearing #1-4 silks. We were in section 2, and our pig #2 won all three races! The crowd was LOVING it! 
The audience was very responsive and was cheering and yelling very loudly for the pig of their section to win the coveted double stuffed cookie. It was very exciting to see all those little pigs run their hearts to snatch the cookie up before anyone else gets it.
One of the biggest drawbacks about the fair is that you are bound to get hungry, what with all those delicious smells, 
and you are trapped within the park's fences bound and enslaved by State Fair food. In line with Palmer tradition, each person "gets one treat". With all sorts of food, and every sort of "fried" tummy turning confection imaginable provided at the Texas State Fair, from fried butter, fried bacon, fried alligator, fried corn, fried tacos, fried dough, fried hot dogs, and the like it was hard to come to a decision, but I settled on a Corney-dog and Love choose a funnel cake. YUM! It was 27 tickets total, so we had 3 left over for a little bag of chippies! We shared out meal so that way none would have to go without a dinner item or a desert item. No where else but at the Fair would I EVER consider paying $15 for two little corn dogs, a plate of sugar powdered dough and a hand full of Cheetos. 
If you have never seen a pig race... you are missing out of quite the treat, let me tell you! They have four pigs, who madly dash around the arena for ... an Oreo. They divide the crowd into sections and each section is encouraged to cheer for their pig wearing #1-4 silks. We were in section 2, and our pig #2 won all three races! The crowd was LOVING it! The audience was very responsive and was cheering and yelling very loudly for the pig of their section to win the coveted double stuffed cookie. It was very exciting to see all those little pigs run their hearts to snatch the cookie up before anyone else gets it.
One of the biggest drawbacks about the fair is that you are bound to get hungry, what with all those delicious smells, 
and you are trapped within the park's fences bound and enslaved by State Fair food. In line with Palmer tradition, each person "gets one treat". With all sorts of food, and every sort of "fried" tummy turning confection imaginable provided at the Texas State Fair, from fried butter, fried bacon, fried alligator, fried corn, fried tacos, fried dough, fried hot dogs, and the like it was hard to come to a decision, but I settled on a Corney-dog and Love choose a funnel cake. YUM! It was 27 tickets total, so we had 3 left over for a little bag of chippies! We shared out meal so that way none would have to go without a dinner item or a desert item. No where else but at the Fair would I EVER consider paying $15 for two little corn dogs, a plate of sugar powdered dough and a hand full of Cheetos. 
After eating, our final destination took us to feed the animals at the Baylor Children's Petting Zoo. It had quite an array of exotic animals, from zebras to llamas, giraffes, water buffalo, goats, bison, ducks, chickens, kangaroos, pigs, donkeys, sheep, 4-horned rams, alpacas, ostriches, emus and camels, we had a lot of fun feeding and petting and playing with the animals.
All in all the State Fair was great fair! We had such a blast and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Fun times were had by all, even Brother Porter Rockwell in a UT Longhorns cap of whom I managed to snag a quick shot, made an appearance and was having fun!
All in all the State Fair was great fair! We had such a blast and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Fun times were had by all, even Brother Porter Rockwell in a UT Longhorns cap of whom I managed to snag a quick shot, made an appearance and was having fun!
posted by Austin @ 8:43 AM
5 Comments:
I thoroughly enjoyed your post! You don't get entertainment like this every day... :) I tried to make some of the pictures big, but alas...they would not enlarge. why? Melissa actually had ridden a DART bus once before to the fair...but not the rail line. Big Tex used to be considered "really something" because he was so big and he talked and etc., but now everyone is so spoiled with technology and all kinds of special effects that he seems a little old fashioned. I guess he represents the tradition of the Texas State Fair more than anything. :) How DID that man with no legs do that? That was one of the pictures I tried to enlarge. Was he "floating in air?" It looked like it. :) Anyway, thanks for the really fun post. I loved it.
I am glad that you post things so that I can see how much fun you and Melissa are having! I do love the State Fair. There is nothing like that here. Glad you guys enjoyed yourselves!!!
I am all about the food at the fair. But I really hate crowds and kids. And it ends up costing us so much b/c I want to eat all the food and the kids want the rides. So we have only been once since having kids. I can get my fetchers Corney dog and funnel cake at the pumpkin patch and the kids can get their rides at Sandy lake park. Much easier and cheaper for ME:) But Steve and I did go every year I was a teacher b/c we had no kids and we got free teacher tickets and the parking was not $15-20 back then!
I meant I hate going places with crowds with my kids (The way I wrote it seems like I said I hate kids;)
I can comment on your stuff Audi!!
I had to get a google account last year for 7th grade. Sorry about your hamsters. The fair sounded like fun. Wish we could have gone but I'll pass on the drive their and back.
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