Fair People

Templeton the rat knew what he was singing about when he crooned, “A fair is a veritable smorgasbord!”

As soon as our legs carried us through the gates into the vast excitement of the Oregon State Fair, Michael began twitching and shouting out food items as if he spontaneously had developed Tourette's Syndrome.  “Ooh!  Ooh! Corn dogs! Funnel cakes! Ah! Chili cheese fries! Oh man, Oh man! Elephant ears!  I gotta have some of that!”

I was calmly trying to watch the dog diving competition and couldn’t concentrate with all the flailing of arms and pointing to food signs going on next to me.  Between Eva whining to go to the rides and Michael whining that he needed some fair-food in his belly, I couldn’t even enjoy those marvelous canines leaping into the big pool of blue water.  Why can't we all just calm down for one minute!! 

The moment I agreed to abandon the dog show, this is where we went:

To the veritable smorgasbord.  Michael said we would “share” the hot fudge sundae.

I had approximately 2 bites.

I’ve been to the fair only twice; once to watch the Demolition Derby, and once as a freshman in college when I went along with my roommates.  I can't say I’m a lover of the fair.  I don’t get it.  I really don’t.

Michael has fond memories of going to the fair.  Michael gets it.  I really don’t.

But we found ourselves at the fair after picking up a couple of buy-one-get-one-free admission tickets somewhere.  I thought to myself, “Sure, why not?  It’ll cost us 8 bucks to get in, a few bucks for the rides, and we’ll be on our way.”

Silly, silly girl.

We did end up having a great day at the fair.  But it was more than a few bucks later.  And it was hot and we didn’t have sunscreen.  Or enough water.  I DON’T KNOW PROPER FAIR PREPARATION PROCEDURES!  I’M SORRY!

So what do you do at the fair on a hot summer day?  Well…you fight forest fires with Smokey the Bear:

You eat a freeze-dried cricket.  Eva totally did.  After a few crunches, she spit out all the little parts and exclaimed, “Yuck!  That tastes stale!”  (Eva doesn’t really know what stale means.  I give her stale Cheerios at least once a week.)

You see the animals.  Both real and stuffed.

You buy a unicorn and name her Fruitcake.  Then change her name to Angel the next day.

And of course, you go on the rickety rides put together by toothless carnies, and hope you don’t die.  This is the best part of the fair.  Eva had a marvelous time on the rides until the very end when she chose to ride The Shockwave.  It went up and down and around and around and she screamed the entire time while sobbing, “Make it stop!  Please make it stop!”

So let’s put this into perspective with a Mastercard commercial:

Parking fee: $5

Fair admission: $8

Ice cream: $7.50

Unicorn: $10

Rickety carnie rides: $50 (Nope, that ain’t a typo)

Water: $3

A summer day spent with your family making lasting memories…

$83.50

Campout!

Remember this summer when we went camping in Bend? 

I do.

We had a good time. 

The weather was perfect, I packed tons of food, we were with our favorite friends, and the weekend was over too quickly.  Let me tell you all about it.

We went over Labor Day weekend.  Saturday morning we got up and I asked Eva to get dressed to go camping.  This is what she chose to wear into the dirt and dust – a sparkly tutu.  You just can’t take the girly out of this girl.  I love it.

We loaded the car and began our trip with Goldfish and a movie.

And ended our trip 3 days later with a cave and bat guano.  Have you ever been in a cave?  It’s darkness like I’ve never experienced before.  And it’s cold.  And damp.  But you should try it.  We went to the Lava River Cave, and although Eva was wearing flip flops and the park rangers gave me disapproving looks, we trekked on and had a fun adventure.   

So what did we do in the middle of our trip?  Well, I’ll tell ya. 

We went canoeing and tried desperately not to tip with the two 5-year-old girls horsing around in the canoe.  (We didn’t tip.  Michael is quite an accomplished canoe-driver).

We ate Dippin’ Dots while waiting to rent our canoe.  Cuz that’s a really outdoorsy thing to do.

We went hiking, where Eva insisted on climbing on every log that was straddling the river.  Once she slipped and almost fell into the current.  I almost had a heart attack.

We went tubing in the Tumalo river and it was so cold it made my eyes water.  I was the unfortunate oaf who slammed into a rock and capsized.  As the frigid river rushed over my body, I could barely eek out a scream.  Michael and Eva laughed and laughed.  Eva mentioned the catastrophe just the other day and again, she laughed and laughed.  Man, that water was so stinking cold!  But the kids didn’t seem to notice.  What is wrong with them?

We also had plenty of time to hang around camp and play and compare drawings.  There was a playground near our campsite, and anytime we were at camp, the kids were off making friends and getting filthy.

We also went to the Oregon Observatory to look at the night sky.  It was breathtaking!  We saw Saturn and Mars through telescopes but the number of stars you could see even with the naked eye was astounding.  And the Milky Way as well!  It was mesmerizing.  The observatory will be a return trip for us sometime in the future.

Ahhh…summertime camping trip.  Do I dare admit that I enjoyed it?  I certainly did.

But only once a year.  Once is enough.