2012-366 Day 214 – Ventura County Fair

Yes, it’s the first of the month, but the Resolution Update will wait a day.

For the past ten years or so (the estimate given to me), my parents have had a tradition of going out to the Ventura County Fair on the first day and checking it out. This is encouraged by the fact that, to promote such traditions, the Fair offers admission for a dollar on the first day before 3pm. Jess and I decided to tag along this year and, with the proper work arrangements made, met up at there house and headed on down.

After an uneventful drive to Ventura, we got into the very long line of cars heading into the Fairgrounds. Here’s the problem with parking at the Fair, all of the entry and exit points only have a single lane, and there are multiple freeway exits feeding the same single lane road. This lead to a very long line since we got off a little early for a pit stop. We finally made it into the parking lot with me only having rear ended one of the cars in the line (it was very low speed, everyone is fine, insurance will take care of the tiny cracks in the other cars bumper, I’m only including this factoid for honesty and completeness, we’re just going to move on now, okay?) and crossed the width of the parking lot to the front gates. The courtyard was crammed full of people trying to get in, but they had multiple lines going so we only spent about five minutes getting up to the front and acquiring our tickets. (Thanks again Mom and Dad!)

We managed to move through the sea of humanity in the entry plaza and popped out into a grassy area surrounded by food vendors with a stage at one end. We were all pretty hungry, so we scoped out what was around and headed for the corn dog cart. Jess and I got jumbo corn dogs, which we found pretty underwhelming. I found the secret to the jumbo dog when I decided the corn casing wasn’t my favorite and peeled it off to discover that they had skewered two hot dogs back-to-back and dipped the whole thing. The stage featured some children’s dance troupes that ran the gamut from ballet to modern dance, which I vaguely wondered how someone booked a five minute set at a County Fair side stage on a Wednesday afternoon (although it was opening day) before realizing they were probably from summer programs.

After everyone had finished, we decided to go inside the nearest pavilion, titled the “commercial” area, and found ourselves in the merchant section of the fair. There were all sorts of products and do-dads on display, and we wandered the aisles of a couple tents checking them out. One kitchen gadget caught Jess’ eye and we all stopped, with Jess and my father being tempted by the siren call of never needing a garlic press again. The little grater plate being demonstrated was pretty ingenious, cutting out all the waste and being far easier to clean, so both our households now own one.

Our tour continued with the winners of various art contests from Kindergarten all the way up to high school. It was a little sad to see all the second and third graders with more artistic talent than me, but knowing my sister got all the artistic genes and left me with the technical ones, I got over it pretty quick. There were some really nice projects, although I have no idea how many competitions they have in Ventura County, because I had to have counted several hundred first place ribbons in there.

The next section highlighted the agricultural areas of the county with various displays and ribbons for the winners of beer, wine, and food growing. Outside was a walk which featured the winners of various landscaping displays, which was probably my favorite part of the fair since it was on a mesh covered separate area that was very peaceful, and all of the displays were lush and green, with some featuring my favorite element, flowing and falling water. The entire fair was kind of a rustic throwback, which was a nice break from the current pace, and it really showed through in the care that people took in their plants and displays.

We made our way to the back corner of the Fair to look at the livestock, seeing all manner of sheep, goats, chickens, rabbits, a couple horses, and a small cow (we could not figure out where any of the larger livestock were being kept or displayed). We almost walked past my Aunt and Uncle, who were hanging out in the area and had come on my parent’s recommendation, but I saw them looking into one of the pens and called everyone back. We talked for a few minutes and then went our separate ways to finish up looking at all the critters. A couple of them most certainly wanted some attention, but the majority paid little mind to the humans filtering past their pens.

It, of course, would not be a trip for Jess and I without trying some sort of specialty food. My parents have a tradition of getting an Apple Tower, which was apples, caramel, and whipped cream in a cup, but we were at a Fair and new we had to hunt down the quintessential Fair food . . . stuff that was dipped in batter and fried. We found the appropriate vendor and, after a few minutes, walked back to meet my parents bearing a fried Snickers bar, a fried Ding Dong, and two fried Oreos. The Snickers bar was our least favorite, simply because the frying process pretty much liquefied, so there wasn’t the resistance I expected when you bit into it and everything was melted together. The Ding Dong held up much better and gave a pleasant chocolate center to the fried dough. The star, however was the Oreo, which somehow managed to maintain everything about an Oreo while adding a yummy fried shell. It worked quite well.

At this point we had completed my parent’s annual sojourn and Jess and I had to get back to bring dinner to our friends who just had the baby. It took a while to get out of there, and we hit some traffic pockets on the freeway, but we made it back in plenty of time, dropped my parents off and said our goodbyes, then picked up food and had a great dinner with the happy family and new baby. In all, a very good day and certainly an enjoyable way to spend a random Wednesday in the middle of summer.

Weight: 229 Loss: 11 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 227.1 miles
Volleyball Match Record: 5-2 (13-8 Game Record)
Fitocracy Level: 23 ID: disciplev1