My Birthday...

Ron and I both have wonderful memories of childhood visits to the Lucasville County Fair in Southern Ohio.  My high school band went every year to perform at least 1 time during the week.  After our performance we would spend the rest of the evening exploring the midway, visiting the animal barns, looking at all of the 4-H displays, and collecting a ton of free business novelties.  Even after we had graduated and married, visits to the fair each year became a tradition.  There are very few things I miss about Ohio, but the county fair is one of them.

Since moving to Texas, the Texas State Fair has been a major event that we have always intended to visit.  We just never got around to it.  When Ron asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I told him I wanted to run away for the weekend and I would let him know where I wanted to go.  On Wednesday, Ron mentioned going to Dallas and spending Friday at the fair, then Saturday at the temple.  It sounded perfect... and it was!

 Big Tex greets the visitors as they enter the main gate of the fair grounds.  We parked on the opposite side of the fair grounds so we ended up walking across Fair Park to finally get a picture of him.  

 There are so many things to see and do at the fair that it really takes more than 1 day.  We managed to ride the air tram, see the tree walker, watch the dog jumping competition, marvel at the Chinese acrobats, visit the Texas History museum, browse through the exhibitions, and walk through the midway.  

One thing I didn't do, was ride the giant Texas Star ferris wheel.  I think Ron would have loved riding it, but I have a slight fear of ferris wheels.  I think it has something to do with getting stuck on one in a thunderstorm when I was around 6 years old.    

The weather was perfect!  We had temperatures in the 80's, clear skies, and because we were there on a Friday the crowds weren't bad at all. 

There were MANY school aged children there during the day.  I told Ron that I figured parents kept their kids home from school just to avoid the crowds on Saturday.  The state fair is such a part of the culture of Texas, that I can't blame them a bit. 

I usually don't do a very good job of taking self portraits of us, but this one turned out pretty good.  We were standing around waiting for the Chinese acrobat show to begin.  Isn't my Sugarbear adorable? 

One of the biggest draws to the state fair is all of the unusual deep-fried food items.  They have fried Twinkies, Ories, Frito Pie, sourcrout balls, bubblegum.... you name it!  Ron was determine to eat something that was deep fried.  I stuck with the tried and true grilled hamburger and salt water taffy.  Anyway, it was getting pretty late in the afternoon, and we still had some tickets left so Ron bought the most unusual item; deep fried bacon. 

He only managed to eat 2 pieces.  He said they were a little weird and would have been a lot better with some Ranch dip.  I didn't have the slightest desire to even taste it!

It was a wonderful weekend spent with the greatest husband in the world.

Thank you Sugarbear, for the perfect birthday present!