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| Big Tex - Symbol of the Fair |
Sunday morning my husband and I slept in and were having coffee discussing what we should do for the day, which usually entails laundry, grocery shopping and errands. I let the dog out and noticed that it was a gorgeous day. Clear skies, low humidity, sun shining and about 70 degrees. So, I came back in and said "why don't we go to the State Fair instead?" He thought about it a few minutes and said "Why the hell not?" Fortunately for us, our house is about a 5 minute drive from the fairgrounds. We got there around noon and couldn't believe that there was NO line to get into the parking lot and we got a great spot.
Ended up being the perfect fair day with the great weather and the fact that it wasn't very crowded (we speculate that the lack of crowds was due to a Dallas Cowboys game being played at 3 pm that day - people in Dallas are serious about watching Cowboys games).
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Yes, you are reading that right. It is a slice of pizza that is battered,
rolled in cool ranch doritos and then deep fried. |
First up was lunch. The Texas State Fair is know for its plethora of gross fried food options (see above as one example). They have everything from fried s'mores, fried nutella and fried butter to fried meatloaf and mashed potatoes. We tried to be fairly healthy and we split a grilled alligator kabob and later split a tater twister (basically a freshly made potato chip in one long spiral).
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| Grilled alligator on a stick |
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| Tater Twister |
We went to see the auto show so Steve could look at the new cars and after that we walked around the grounds and popped into the creative arts building. They have some weird stuff in there. The fair has all kinds of competitions, including a best quilt and best painting one but there are some odd ones where people make really creepy looking dolls or ugly sweaters. The quilts hang from the ceiling and are lovely but some of the other exhibits are very strange. As one of my friends said last year about the creepy dolls, "Even if you did do this as a hobby, why would you let anyone know about it?"
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| Strange "Creative Arts" Exhibits |
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| Life size butter sculpture |
We then moved on to the livestock arenas. We checked out the petting zoo area, which was filled with all kinds of animals from your basic longhorn steer and chickens to zebras, emus and llamas. We then walked to the swine building and watched the hog judging competition and looked at some of the pigs, including the famous "Hogzilla" that sleeps outside.
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| Boris, aka, Hogzilla |
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| Hog Judging |
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| Bacon (but so cute!!) |
By that time, our dogs were barking so we headed back to the food pavilion so I could buy some Texas goodies and we stopped to watch a live music act and use up the last of our coupons on a few light beers. It was one of the best fair days ever!
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| My Texas goodies from the food tent - some spices, pickles, relish and olive oil |
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| Great way to end a day at the fair! |
We ended up with about $10 of coupons left over so we may try and swing by on the last weekend in October so we can see a few more things, ride some rides on the midway and try some more food.
