So I went to the Iowa State Fair yesterday. As predicted, I had a great time people-watching "Iowa's finest." A few headlines of my 6-hour excursion:
1) A little girl who looked around 5 years old sat at the table across from me at the Dinner Bell (it's a sit-down tent for food at the fair), and she was peppering her fries! If anyone knows me, they know I pepper nearly every food that isn't sweet with a mound of pepper, to the point that people make fun of me. Not only did she pepper those potatoes once or even twice, but three times, to the point where her mother took the shaker from her. Ha! Also, I basically love condiments and spices, so she also had a pile of ketchup next to the fries. She's basically my hero.
2) On the walk back to the car, I witnessed the most horrendous outfit I saw at the fair. Forget the beer-bellied men in "wife beaters", the mu-mus and tights, mock turtlenecks (on a super hot and humid day, old ladies!) or the excessive amount of people with bad teeth, a woman was fairly overweight was wearing a stretchy green tube top tunic that had three strips of fabric on the back that tied in the middle at whatever vertebrae it hit on her back. Obviously, there was no fitting a bra in that number, and women need to wear those; they just do. I forget her bottoms since I was too occupied being disgusted and shocked by her shirt, but I fear it was leggings or a mini skirt or both. *Shudder*
3) The fair has more than 50 different foods on a stick, ranging from foot-long cornbrats to deep-fried Twinkies. At an army/national guard tent, a man in camo was passing out pencils with the Army National Guard info/logo on them. To entice people to come take them, he called them erasers on a stick. I was pretty much in stitches for a few minutes. Pencil = eraser on a stick. Clever.
4) No fair trip is complete without a trip to Bauder's ice cream stand. Best ice cream in Des Moines - the only two ice cream things that top it are Four Queens Dairy in Cedar Falls or gelato. I had a single dip of fresh peach ice cream and was in heaven. Fresh peaches in the cone, and all the ice cream is made locally in Bauder Pharmacy's basement. Yum!
5) I went on the Ye Olde Mill Ride. The only thing about this ride is you get in this log thing, and a fake-blue river takes you along this tunnel that goes in darkness until you get to a couple places in the tunnel that are lit and display old fair posters. For some reason, I freaked out (really embarrassing), and I have no idea why. I usually am okay with rides, especially ones that are so tame, but for some reason those were the scariest five minutes of the fair. Yes you can laugh, I get paranoid and it's totally laughable.
6) Animals are rampant at the fair. I saw the big bull, a 3,404 pound beast with a ring in its nose. That bull meant business. I also saw a lot of different kinds of chickens, including one that's feathers looked like fur - cutest chicken ever! Another one had just laid a pink egg - better call the Cadbury bunny! At the exotic petting zoo, I got to see a zedonk (1/2 zebra, 1/2 donkey) and I petted a watusi, which looks like a wildebeest/cow creature. They also had a live snake exhibit that wasn't super exciting, but I got to reminisce about the days when I was a National Geographic nerd and knew the names of a lot of these creatures in like 4th grade. One last mention are the ponies - I want a shetland sooo bad when I'm older. They are honestly the cutest creatures that aren't little fluffy dogs.
... and 7) While leaving, I saw a stand for chocolate-covered bacon! I may be going back next week, and if so, I am buying some! I didn't yesterday because I was stuffed with a chicken sandwich and an immaculate ice cream cone. I figure that if I'm going to BaconFest next year, I should start preparing for the craziness :)
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