County Fair!

The Fair, originally uploaded by michaelcollinsdunn.

Tam and I, being Midwesterners, have always wanted to make sure that Sarah, despite her urban East Coast upbringing, understands the rest of America as well. So we try to take in such things as county fairs, complete with blue-ribbon pigs and prize pies. Today we went to the Prince William County (VA) Fair, just south of Manassas, VA. It's one of the better ones in the area that still has an agricultural side to it. Pic of the Midway above. If you have access to our Flickr and YouTube family accounts you'll be able to see more pics of Sarah enjoying it.

Some observations: A county fair that is ride-intensive can be pretty expensive. Now that Sarah's over 6 and I'm not yet 60 (only about a one-year window) everybody has to pay $7 a head to get in. Only $21. But tickets are $1 each and most rides require three or four tickets, whereas for $20 you can get a ride-all-day wristband. I bought wristbands for both Sarah and Tam since often Sarah wants one of us with her on the ride. So before we'd done anything we'd managed to spend $61. Then, of course, there are the games: the sort of thing where for anywhere from $2 to $5 you can win your kid a poorly made stuffed animal worth maybe $1 max. And of course, the food. One of the stands was actually called "Fry City": I guess they're not even trying to pretend to be healthy. Actually Tam and I ate at a stand from one of the better barbecue joints, Dixie Bones of Woodbridge, VA. (As those who've been following us online for awhile will recall, we take barbecue seriously. See our The Search for Barbecue pages for more on this.) Anyway, by the time you've bought this stuff plus ice cream and popcorn etc., a mere county fair makes you wonder why we cringe at the idea of King's Dominion or Hersheypark, which tend to charge $80 to $90 to get in. but may be higher class on the rides, most of which are included.

Anyway we visited the animals, both the petting zoo (Tam and I are both having bad allergies tonight, Tam especially, perhaps because of the petting zoo), and the competition animals, and Sarah enjoyed looking at all the crafts, cakes, knitting, embroidery, and other competitions. She is shown in some of the pics and video doing this.

I think we all had a very good day. We did some Wal-Mart shopping after, so it was also an expensive day, but got us out of the city.

More later, perhaps.