top 5 tuesday: my fair monday

Yesterday, I went to the state fair for the first time in my life. (that I remember) I was surprised at a number of things that were different from what I expected. Here are my top 5 fair observations.

1. Size. Seriously, this fair was HUGE! It was in the parking lot of the USC football stadium, which parks 80,000 cars, but it still seemed to span forever! We felt like we were walking for miles around the loop.

2. Diversity. (or lack of) Expecting a flea market-esque variety of food, goods and amusement, I was somewhat surprised at the lack of it. Now, there were TONS of different kinds of food, but you generally had what you would expect at a fair. (Pizza, corndogs, nachos, funnel cake, fried foods, chicken, burgers, etc) When we came across a rare fried food booth, we had to consume. (see # 5 in this post) The rides, while all having different names and themes, fell mostly into the same categories. You had your big swings, your ferris wheels, your scramblery things, your tilt-a-whirls, your funhouses/obstacle courses and your slides. Lastly, even the games were somewhat the same. We found one skeeball game in the entire place. Many of the other ones were shooting games, basketball games, coin/ring toss, bottle breaking games or skill games.

3. Crowd. We were both surprised at the number of people who were at a fair on a Monday afternoon. We chose the time because we figured it wouldn't be crowded, and while it wasn't REALLY crowded, it was definitely more than we expected. We kept seeing a lot of school-age kids there way before school should have been out. It was about halfway into the day that we overheard someone say that the local schools were out that day. Figures.

4. Animals. I had hoped for a barn or farm area where there would be livestock and a petting zoo. I was definitely not disappointed when we entered the barn area. We saw cows, donkeys, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, ducks, other various birds, llamas and a zebra. Yes, a zebra. We also stopped by an "African" exhibit on our way out. Apparently we were missing out on some large cat show that was about to start, (lions? tigers? I'm not sure) but we did get to see an Asian fishing cat, a lemur, a capuchin monkey, a kinkadou and a boa constrictor. Not at all what I expected at the fair, but very cool. Oh, and I almost forgot...they also had elephant rides. For real.

5. Fried Food. This was one of my top reasons for wanting to go to the fair...I wanted to sample these rare deep fried delicacies that I would hear about. Well, I definitely did! Deep fried Oreos & deep fried cookie dough to be exact. They were delicious! They were amazing! And it definitely makes sense that they are served only once a year during the fair. :)