Texas State Fair 2014

I had so much fun this weekend there were times I thought I was going to burst with excitement. We spent about 4 hours walking around at the fair. I'm so glad we go every year. There were old favorites, new things, and changes.

A big part of the State Fair is food. Our first stop when we arrived was to buy some fried guacamole. The guac part is spiced and mixed with finely shredded cheese. The batter is spicy and crispy. I could eat two orders all by myself, but we shared one.

I wanted something sweet, but not too sweet, so we got a belgian waffle with whipped cream, strawberries, and powdered sugar. We asked them to go light on the sugar and it was perfect. The fried guac and waffle was our lunch.

We went to see the arts and crafts exhibits. Every year they have a butter sculpture made with hundreds of pounds of butter. This year the butter sculpture was horses. We didn't see the decorated shoe exhibit in the crafts area. That is usually one of my favorites. After arts and crafts we saw a milking demonstration.

The baby animal barn is my favorite part of the fair. This year I got to pet a baby zebu, a kangaroo, a zonkey, a baby buffalo, a porcupine, and even more animals.

We saw a lot of sheep in one of the barns. We even saw some tiny lambs. One was only four days old!

Ross's favorite part of the fair was the pig races. The piglets ran so fast!

I wanted to ride the ferris wheel, but the line was pretty long. I didn't have the energy or patience to stand around and wait. Next year we will have to hit it up as soon as we get there.

We rode a shuttle back to the parking area. The young girl that sat with us told us that they didn't eat anything in Dallas because of ebola. The hysteria and ignorance about ebola is insane. These people didn't have any trouble going to the fair with a bunch of strangers, but they wouldn't eat the food. Great.

State Fair 2013

Even though we are still a little jet lagged we had to visit the State Fair before it closed.  The weather had really cooled off since we left. I wore a cashmere sweater, and hoped for the best.  It was nice to walk around without carrying any bags--no camera (just the phone), nothing.

As always, my favorite part of the fair was the petting barn. This year I got to pet the zebras--they are usually far back in a corner because they bite.  I also got to pet the baby kangaroo, some Brahman calves, and a lot of other animals.

Fried guacamole--our favorite.  The only other fried food we had was a fried blackberry pie.

A sheep being shorn.  We saw lots of sheep, bunnies, and horses.

We went and saw the bird show.  Apparently the show is there every year, but we have never seen it.  They had cool hawks, an owl, and other birds.  One bird even sang Old MacDonald.  It was freaky.

Free ice cream!

I liked this goat asleep in the red tire.  Goats are silly.  A chicken was standing on top of a goat, which is funny because goats are usually the ones standing on something.

I don't know what this thing was called.  It had conical horns.  The freaky thing was that the horns were very warm.

State Fair 2012

On Sunday we went to the State Fair with Tejal.  It was a bit chilly, but we still had fun.  Of course my favorite part was the petting zoo area.  We got to pet lots of goats, baby goats, bison, zebu, camels, llamas, alpacas, a very soft baby alpaca, miniature horses, donkeys and more.  The baby giraffe wasn't close enough to pet, and neither were the baby zebras.  If it hadn't been so crowded I would have gone back in again when we passed it later in the day.

We stumbled upon the rabbit show and stuck our fingers in the cages to pet the rabbits.  These black and white rabbits were the softest ever!  The all back ones looked like velvet, but weren't as soft as these guys.

Oh, these were twin kids born the day before we visited.  They had their own little pen in the center of the big pen.

We went and saw the car show. I liked this Texas-themed bug.  Along the side it was painted like the Texas flag, and that white area on the front of the car is a map of Texas.

I don't have any photos, but we ate our full share of fried foods: fried guacamole (my favorite), fried snickers, fried nutter butters, fried butter (not very good), fried pickles, and fried cheese.  Lots and lots of fat and carbs.  I really wanted a corny dog, but they aren't kosher.

We did exactly what we went there to do.....eat our hearts out.

Photo Month: Day 24: State Fair: Baby Giraffe

Texas State Fair 2008

So Saturday morning we headed over to Dallas for the Texas State Fair. It was a beautiful day and I was able to wear my new sunglasses most of the time. First thing we did was head over to the baby animal barn. The animals still were kind of sleepy and sloth-like. Check out the photo of the baby camel. It just kept stretching its head back like it was trying curl back on itself. We got to pet a zebra (which later ate its own poop) and an alpaca, which was sooooo soft!
After the barn we went for some fried foods. We started off with "fire and ice." It was supposed to be fried pineapple chunks with liquid-nitrogen-frozen banana whipped cream and strawberry sauce topping. We didn't get the special whipped cream and the strawberries in the red goo sauce were frozen. The pineapple (fried) part was yummy though. The second fried delicacy we tried was fried snickers. It was really fresh --we watched the guy batter and fry it. I liked the ooey-gooey-ess of the chocolate and caramel, but the peanuts detracted from the melty experience. We started to get the gollywobs, so we had some pizza. We went through the arts and crafts exhibit hall and the agricutural hall--mainly to get free ice cream. Oh, our last fried delight was the fried guacamole. It was every bit as good as last year. Creamy mostly-avocado guac ball with a crispy, spicy, fried coating. Mmmmm good. We are going to get that every year from now on!
We heard some bagpipes and drums and checked out the car shows. At the end we stopped to watch a stunt show. It was so lame! We rushed home to get ready for Laura and Jason's wedding. I'll post some photos from that tomorrow.