Meet me at the fair....

FYI - I live in the CITY!  But...the "country" is only a couple short miles away, and it is endless entertaining! For our Friday night activity, a group of friends drove to the county fair in Cheney, about 25 miles from Wichita. Somehow, in my 55 years of living, I have never been to the county fair.  To make up for that, my friends (many of them grew up on a farm) guided me through a variety of classic and quirky fair experiences and we had a blast!

First on our list...fair FOOD!  We chose the Cheney Methodist Church building because my friend Vicki's sister helps there every year, and because we know those church ladies can really cook! The building is permanent - read the sign - they've been serving fair food for 125 years.  But it isn't air-conditioned - more like a giant screened-in porch, but we happily worked our way through chicken and noodles, taco salads, and beautiful pieces of pie.  I can't imagine how hard these ladies (and men) work to serve food all day for 4 days - that's a marathon church dinner!

After dinner, we strolled past the "Fair Idol" contest and listened to a couple aspiring singers...country music, of course. Then we headed for the large animal barns, where my friend Marlys insisted I pet a cow.  Admittedly, I was a little nervous about this large animal, altho this one wasn't full grown. Marlys told me stories of her 4H youth days, when she showed cows and had to style their tails as part of their whole body grooming process.  What a hoot!  Yes, when cows come to the fair, they are unusually clean and well groomed! I'm not showing a dairy cow pic...I'll leave that sight to your lactose imagination!

On to the pigs, which were a mystery to me. They put 8-10 pigs in the ring at the same time, and their hapless owners (who are all dressed up!) try to herd them around with little sticks. It was hilarious, until a couple pigs decided they didn't like either other, and they had to break up a pig fight!

Then onto the goat pins, where one little goat decided he was "king" of the pin, and tried to rule from his bale of hay, keeping out challengers with his little horns.

In the small animal barns, we saw chickens of ALL varieties, ranging from classic chickens to the weird and wonderful. This little gal looked like she was having a bad hair day, or is it a good look for poultry? Whatever...she won a purple ribbon for her efforts!

And then the bunnies...again, all shapes, colors, sizes...all equally CUTE!  You really want to stick your fingers through the cages and pet them, but there are signs everywhere warning that the bunnies BITE!

Finally, we checked out all the fair rides.  Notice, I didn't say we rode the rides...we checked them out.  Our conversations went something like...

"WOW...I used to love that ride when I was young!"

 "Yea, but I think that would really upset my stomach now." 

"I used to be able to ride those things all day." 

"I think that would really make my back and neck hurt now."  

"Don't these portable rides that go from place to place make you a little nervous?"

"And look at that guy running the ride - he is so scary, can we trust him with our lives?"

We skipped the big grandstand event (you had to pay for this) which was bull riding. But I must mention one of the MOST entertaining events at the fair...watching the people...OH MY! 

Friday night at the fair was so much fun, we decided to return Saturday AM for breakfast with the church ladies. We got up early and rode our bikes and greeted all the unsuspecting church folk in our geeky bike gear.  My husband Alan was a happy camper with his biscuits and sausage gravy, homemade cinnamon rolls and watermelon.  Look out cows and random farm critters, I'm coming back next year!