Thursday, September 16, 2010

A Fair to Remember

Happy Friday! Happy weekend! Happy Fall! Happy County Fair! I hope the county you live in has a fair like the county I live in. The Cumberland County Fair opened this week and it is quite the sight to see. I should know because I’ve seen it!
My friends and I had gone to the little carnival in the parking lot of the Food Lion, and that was a good warm up for what awaited us at the county fair. While the carnival had rides and a midway, the fair has all sorts of exhibits, concerts, competitions and animals. It didn’t take much asking to find a few friends to share in some fair fun. Felisha hadn’t come on an adventure with me lately and I missed her, so she was first on my list of friends to invite along. Jibbers and Cami seemed to enjoy the carnival, so I figured they would get a kick out of the fair. My trusty sidekick and ever hopeful voice of reason, Bobbi, agreed to tag along as well. I had seen Corny heading out for the Walmart earlier in the day and had invited him to come along and he said he would fly by the fair when he was finished his parking lot greeter shift.
We had to get a ride to the fair, so we told my brother, Tristan, that there were going to be packs of pretty girls roaming all around the fairgrounds. Since there really were scantily clad women at the beach as we had promised last time, he agreed to be our chauffeur. Since I didn’t want to spend all our time at the food stands, I hadn’t mentioned the fair to Malcolm. The four of us crept out the front door and tip toed to the car looking around to see if Malcolm was lurking somewhere. We scurried the last few feet and flung open the door and jumped in the car and landed right on top of Malcolm. After he extracted himself from the pile of critters, he explained that he had been under the deck and had heard us plan our expedition. He just knew we wanted him to come along! I figured it would probably be a good idea to have another male for Jibbers to hang out with, so I didn’t say anything about Malcolm coming along. But somehow I knew Malcolm was going to be trouble…..
As we neared the fair site, we could see all the lights and giant rides rising up over the horizon. Bobbi started getting nervous when she saw a ride with a giant arm swinging around wildly. She made me promise that we would NOT go on that ride. I told her not to worry since I was more interested in the other activities and not the rides.
After Tristan found a parking space, he turned to us and told us to meet him back at the car in 2 hours. I promised we would try – but since none of us wore a watch (or could even tell time for that matter) it would be hit or miss. Tristan drew a picture of what the clock would look like in two hours and entrusted it to me. I put it under my hat and prayed I would not lose it in all the fun.
As we wandered down the midway we made note of what we wanted to do later. We decided that first we would check out the exhibits. We went into this HUGE room – the expo center. As soon as Malcolm spied the food he was gone. I yelled after him that the food was for exhibit and not to be eaten. I was hoping he heard me or we would be heading home sooner that we wanted to!
The rest of the gang and I wandered up and down the aisles looking at all the beautiful animals. Rabbits, chickens, goats, sheep – all the barnyard varieties of animals were there. I was hoping none of our little group would be scooped up and placed on a judge’s table! There was some judging going on at one end of the expo center. Since I love a good competition, we walked down to where the judging was going on. Much to my dismay, there was Malcolm standing at the table with the other entrants. I tried to motion to him to step away, but he thought I was waving at him, so he waved back. I shook my head no, but it was too late. The judge walked up to the table to start evaluating the entrants’ chickens.






I couldn’t watch so we headed back out toward the midway. A few minutes later Malcolm came running out of the exhibition hall – a moment later his bucket of chicken came flying out the door also. Evidently, the judge was not amused. I have a feeling the chickens were not amused either!
Before we reached the midway, we saw a crowd of people standing around an oval pen. We asked someone what was going on and they replied that everyone was waiting for the pig races to begin. Pig races?!?!??!?! Pigs don’t race. I know horses and dogs have been known to race, but not pigs!! This I had to see. We joined the folks milling about, but when I turned to say something to Bobbi, she was gone. So was Cami. I asked Jibbers and Felisha if they knew where they had gone, but they said they had no idea. Suddenly, a bell rang and the little gate opened up and the racing pigs came jumping out. . I felt bad that Bobbi and Cami were going to miss the pig races – until I turned to watch the race.





There were Bobbi and Cami just having a good ol’ time jockeying a couple of pigs. They were just bouncing up and down like crazy on the backs of the pigs. Poor Cami could hardly hold on and she had to grab her pig’s ears to keep from falling off. Even though neither Bobbi’s nor Cami’s pig won, they had a great time and were just giggling away when we met up with them after the race.
Next we came upon a bunch of ponies. Their owner was giving free pony rides. While Bobbi and Cami had had enough riding for one day, Felisha, Jibbers and I decided we would partake in the more sedate riding experience. We found some appropriate riding hats, and jumped aboard.





I had never ridden a real pony before, and I just loved the rhythm of the pony’s steps. We pretended we were moseying along on the range. I was sad when our time was up. I patted my pony on the nose and thanked him for the ride. Felisha and Jibbers also enjoyed the ride!
We found someone with a watch and compared the picture Tristan had drawn to the watch’s face. It looked like we still had plenty of time to continue our fair experience. Felisha suggested we might have fun playing one of the many games on the midway. But which one? We wandered up and down the rows of games until we came to the perfect one. I’m afraid of clowns and nothing would please me more than shooting a clown with water until his head exploded. Well, maybe it was more like shooting the clown in the mouth until a balloon on top of its head popped. Either way, I liked the idea of shooting at clowns!
Malcolm had wandered off toward the funnel cake stand, so it was up to the rest of us to take on the clowns. I learned very quickly that ferrets are quite the good shots with water pistols. One after another, Jibbers popped his clown’s balloon. I did win one time, but I know Jibbers was being nice and let me win. That’s okay – it was fun hearing the balloon pop! Corny showed up to cheer us on.








Every now and then one of us would “accidently” hit him with some water and he would squawk and flap his wings. After a while he grew tired of us soaking him and headed home. He was tired from working all day anyway, so he needed to go get some rest.
After all his winning, Jibbers had this huge pile of tickets. We had spent a lot of time at that game, and we figured it was probably time to head back to the car. Jibbers piled his tickets on the shelf and told the attendant he was ready to redeem them. We were all anxious to see what he had won. When the attendant walked up with this giant bear we all gasped. Wow! We all thought it was great until we realized we would have to somehow carry it to the car. I sent Bobbi to find Malcolm, and when they returned we all got together and hoisted it up and started toward the parking lot.





The walk back to the car seemed a lot longer than the walk from the car to the fair. I guess schlepping a big bear makes it seem that way! Tristan was waiting at the car and when he spied us he ran up to carry Jibber’s trophy for him. He sat the bear in the car with us which must have looked funny to people passing us on the road. Tristan was nice enough to drive Jibbers and Cami to their house so he could help them take the bear inside. Tristan rang the doorbell and Jibber’s and Cami’s Mom was very surprised when she saw the bear. We all waved to her from the car and she laughed and waved back.
We dropped Felisha off next. I promised her I would not let it go so long between adventures and I would see her again soon. She politely thanked Tristan for the ride home and gave me a big hug before heading into her house. It was time to head to our house and take a nice long nap after all the excitement of the fair. The fair is open for over a week, so I think I will be going back again.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend. If there’s a fair in town make sure to go – you’ll have a blast!

Love & licks,
Josie

3 comments:

  1. Thank you so much josie we had a great time and had lots of fun !!! your our Best Friend :0) lots of Dooks Jibbers & Cami xxxxxx

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  2. I think you should put these on youtube. You could make a slideshow of your funny photos and then text slides in between them to tell the story. Then add the music.

    You would have to cut the text down a lot because youtube viewers have short attention span, but you would get more viewers.

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  3. Luffed da KFC trick !!!!! MOL MOL MOL oxoxo

    ReplyDelete