Take Me Out to the State Fair: Observing Humanity in it's Most Raw Form

Todd took me to the Utah State Fair last weekend.



We went on the last night of the fair, so people were out in all their fair splendor. I wish I had been a little more brazen about my photo-documentation. People dress CRAZY to go to the fair. Because we went at dusk, the nice people had left for the evening and the weirdos were out and about. We had not been there five minutes when we saw this:



Santa checking out the gas stoves...no joke. Later that night we saw Santa being followed around by little kids begging for pictures with him. Santa was there for a good time, not for publicity. Ah, the curse of celebrity...



Isn't this classic? Iconic? It was such a lovely night! Who can resist a fair?



By this time, we were scouting out the rides and looking for corndogs and funnel cakes. But we had to meet Tyler & Brittany and Tyanna & Chris. They were at the grandstand watching the tractor pull.



A tractor pull consists of various parts of machinery none of which look like tractors. I couldn't tell if the tractors were supposed to do the pulling or be pulled.



Brittany really wanted to go on some rides, but we decided to go see the animals first. This is really my favorite part of the fair...the animal judging.



This is the pig auction.



This is the pig being bullied and abused by the 4-H-er. She was also bullying and abusing us by telling us to MOVE! (Yes, she was talking to US that way and not the pig...charming.)



This sheep was getting a hair cut...a wool cut. Sheep are really cute from a distance, but up close, they are freaky looking.

After the animal viewing, we located the only ride Brittany wanted to go on. She plans on it all year, and had previously asked me to be her ride partner. I readily agreed. The tickets for the rides were about $.85 per ticket and each ride took 2-5 tickets. Fairs are not for the rich (or the wise). Brittany and I got in line and Todd got a corndog...a huge corndog.



Concealed with in the corndog was a deadly weapon. I'm glad he did not impale himself.




Brittany's ride of choice: THE ZIPPER



You get into a cage and get flipped around while going up and down. I guess the ride DOES look vaguely like a giant zipper.

Here is the nice carnival man who closed us into the death cage.



The cage is VERY small with a VERY tight bar that closes down over your lap. Here we go:



They only load every other car at a time, so we got off to a slow start, but from the second we got into the cage it was non-stop laughter. The anticipation was killing us as the slowly filled the other cages. Some cages stayed empty to what we speculated was vomit damage.

Once we got started it was non-stop laughing and flipping and screaming. The cage flipped over and over and my HUGE necklace kept hitting my teeth. I had to hold onto it with one hand and hold on to dear life with the other.



All those blue sparkling cages was a sight to behold. After an eternity of spinning and flipping and laughing and screaming, they slowed down to let more people off and on. Somehow our cage got forgotten and the ride started up again. For one scary moment we both imagined being forgotten for the rest of the night, and the bile began to rise.



One round was fun and hilarious, but the during the second round the laughter was a little more manic...tinged with slight panic. I had tears streaming from laughing so hard.

Oh the relief of getting off!



We made it!



We all had tickets left over, so we went on a smaller ride called Moby Dick. It was fun, too with lots of laughing and screaming. I was hoarse and beginning to cough up phlegm. I needed a funnel cake.




Weeeeee!





After a couple of $4 corndogs and $5 sodas, we found the funnel cake stand. We consumed our entire daily allotment of calories in one sitting. YUM! Then we watched Tyanna, Chris, Brittany, and Tyler play dodge ball. Way fun.



It was a $40 dollars well spent for some carnal pleasure at the carnival.



Join us next year!