A Fair to Remember


That's "fair" pun number 3!

Today, MacArthur thought it'd be fun to go down to the Ventura County Fair, next to his hometown (affectionately known as The 'Nard). So he, Erico Suave, their new roommate Marina Maria, and I made the 2 hour drive and landed in some strawberry crazy town.

It was a lot of fun. The fair fare was $7 for adults and gave access to all the cool exhibits; all of them. We strolled down the food stand lane and grabbed lunch first. Then we went to an animal area with plenty of goats and sheep (that looked like goats). When we turned the corner, we found a bunch of horses in their stables. These things were huge! They're very intimidating and, well, big. I was pretty freaked about getting too close, but after a little 5 year old just ran up and pet the horse, I had to. I pet it twice and then backed away.

We went into some other award presentations including the Kids Drawings, Kids Plate Settings, Kids Spelling Bee, Best Photography, and Best Collections. They were all equally awkward. The collection area had some of the lamest collections I've ever seen. Some collections contained items only 3 years old or so. And there were happy meal toy and beanie baby collections that had far less items than I have stashed away in my storage closet. If I had known I could have won prize ribbons for my junk, I'd have entered long ago.

We also visited the carnival area. They had these crazy fast spinning rides; ones where you'd say, "Wow, that's fast" and then it'd go a lot faster. I had never been in a funhouse before, so we got some ride tickets and went into one. It was okay. Some of the bridges were fun, but some of the trick steps and spinning turn table steps were lame. We also had a yearning to ride a cheesy dark ride, so we went to the spook house. It seats two people per car and there are no lap bars or restraints. It was so hilarious! Around ever corner, a light flashed on some cheesy horror figure and a buzzer rang. But the most entertaining figure was a monster at the end that looked like it was cage dancing.

Before we left, I wanted to do something you could only do at a fair. At one of the booths, they had deep fried Twinkies, Snickers, and Oreos. I hate Twinkies, so I opted to eat the mind-boggling deep fried Snickers bar. It looks like a regular Twinkie with chocolate syrup squiggled on it and topped off with powdered sugar. The taste, however, is somewhat unexplainable. The Snickers bar is completely melted inside the deep fried dough and it is really rich. It's not something you can just eat quickly; it must be devoured (not because it's so good. Because the chocolate and sugar oozes and coats your mouth. I'd liken it to eating a spoonful of peanut butter). Would I eat it again? Probably not. After I ate it, though it was pretty tasty, it made my stomach and chest hurt. Not really something you want from a dessert.

So, fairs are fun. They're not as seedy as I remember. Maybe at the next fair, they'll have more deep fried options. I'm really curious as to what other foods can kill me.



Fairly tired,

Ricky
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