Dutchess County Fair

There is no reason for me to post about this, as I should really be packing, but it's been so long since I've been to a fair, I had to share the experience! Today we went to the Dutchess County Fair in upstate NY...

First of all, a detour took place after a very long traffic jam getting onto the Cross Bronx Whatever to get out of Manhatten. The detour involved parades, bathrooms, mini ice-cream dishes and unhelpful police officers, for a yarn store for New York City Mouse, which turned out to be closed.


Once we found the county that the fair was in, we kept our eyes peeled for signs of the fair, and saw a crazy-haired woman as we pulled up next to her at an intersection. We wondered if she might be going to the fair. Her hair was a halo of teased tangles, offset by the longest roots we'd ever seen. Sure enough, we spotted her at the fair petting a goat:


Once we made it into the fair, bladders emptied, we were hell-bent on finding corndogs. Bingo! We found them, and the vendor was so surprised that we knew what they were. Apparently, they aren't much of an upstate thing as they are a Midwest and Texas thing...


We mosied on over to the petting zoo, which wasn't a petting zoo at all but a big auction. That's when I began slipping into a slight depression over all of the animals in cages. We did milk a goat, however, and said hi to many friendly dairy cows, including this one;

But the chickens are what sparked my saddness, as they always do when I see crates of them being carted on the highway on the back of big semis. I eat chicken all right, and beef and all that, but I was still very sad to see all of these animals in such small pens.


We recovered over a beer under the farris wheel, followed by a renewed commitment to ride a ride and play a game. What began as a light determination to win a prize for a boyfriend, became an obsession. We tried desperately to win at the squirt gun game, a game where 11 people play and only one wins...



and we tried again...



...until we took a break to ride a ride!




One more time, many $20s later (dumb, dumb!) we took to the guns and aimed for a prize:


And success.


We celebrated the day with more corndogs, and this finale of a funnel cake topped with surprise scalloped apples.


We got oh so very turned around coming home, and almost went in many circles covering New Jersey, Manhattan and the Bronx, but we finally made it safely back. NYCM wants to go to a wool festival in October...I'll have to contract a location manager to secure our directions (oh good, Boyfriend can do it ;) ), save my money after today's $4 swing boat ride and surging gas prices, and properly fast for all the deep fried food...!