Redneck Fun at the County Fair

Whenever I talk about going to the county fair, I feel like busting out my best Larry the Cable Guy impersonation. But I suppose it’s really not a Redneck thing. I used to go to the Del Mar County Fair every year when I was little. I remember going through each exhibition hall, gawking at all the old Barbies and cereal boxes and Happy Meal toys. And I remember in the industry hall there was a water company that was set up every year with a spigot that looked to be floating above the crowd, pouring water into a bucket beneath it. I’m too embarrassed to tell you how old I was before I finally figured it out. But I will say it was after I had moved out of the state.

My other favorite thing there was getting to meet the girls who were county royalty. And the Fairest of the Fair. There was a Spanish theme to the fairgrounds, so the Fairest of the Fair would usually be dressed in one of those pretty Spanish dresses that the girls hold in their hand to dance (I have no idea what they are called, I just know that it was all I wanted to wear when I was little) and a mantilla in their hair. They were GORGEOUS. And I wanted to be them when I grew up. But then I learned all the stuff you have to do at an actual beauty pageant and decided it didn’t sound like such a cool thing anymore.

The fair we went to on Saturday was about one tenth the size of the Del Mar fair, with probably twice as many stinky animals. OK, so probably not, but I never had to wander through every single animal stall before I married a man that wants to be a farmer when he grows up. And had two kids that love talking to the animals. Diva likes to pretend that she can speak their language, so we had her stopping at every stall telling that particular animal that they were the cutest one there. It’s cute and I love it, but I never thought that I would.

After wandering through the animal houses and going on a couple of way-too-expensive-for what-they-are rides, we embraced our true Redneckdom at the Demo Derby.

Now, up until about three years ago, the Demos got an emphatic “no” from me every time the hubs asked if I wanted to go. But since I gave birth to his own Mini-Me, CB roped CJ into asking if we could “please, please, please” go to the Demo Derby. And that kid is so cute that it’s impossible to say no to him. So I went along, and the rest—as they say—is history. It was so fun! More fun than I thought it would be. It made me want to find an old Chevette and paint it pink to go play too. But I haven’t. After Saturday’s race, I’m glad. We got in early enough that we got pretty good seats and I saw a whole lot of bouncing around inside those cars when they would get hit. It just looks painful.

Another bonus of the good seats was the occasional overspray of mud balls. There’s a big fence that is supposed to catch the majority of them, but my hair was caked with mud. Plus, it started to rain in the middle of the derby (the stands are covered—thankfully), so by the end of the night, it wasn’t so much mud “balls” as muddy water being splashed up from the track. The kids were laughing so hard that I couldn’t help but laugh too. But I treated myself to a deep conditioning treatment when we got home because there was no other way that crap was coming out of my hair.

The ride home was terrible! It was raining so hard in a couple of places that we had to slow down to about 35 on the highway. The wipers couldn’t even keep up! And in the middle of the night there was a huge crack of thunder that practically made me jump right out of bed.

CB had wanted to go to a threshing show yesterday, but sadly it was still raining (I wish I knew a way to project the sarcasm in that statement), so we stayed home and went swimming at the community center instead.

So all in all it was a pretty good weekend. A good way to keep my mind off of things. And thanks to everyone that commented on Friday! I hope you all got to have some great conversations with old friends! :)

How was your weekend?