IN State Fair

I grew up going to the Indiana state fair almost every summer. My Grandparents lived within walking distance and I has vague memories of walking there once or twice. We just happened to be at my mom's during the fair. The Olympics were also going on, but you will have to find your own pictures of that.

When we first got there the children were all wondering about all sorts of things THEY wanted to see. All six talking at the same time. I thought it was going to be too crazy to last the whole day, but it got better. We rode a park and ride shuttle from a local mall--a amusement ride of sorts for the children--and they dropped us off as far from what they think of a fair as possible. So we did the things that we don't have at our county fair including the Riley Farm where they got to play at being a farmer with specific tasks even T could handle. They received "money" after "selling" their good as the "market". They got to "buy" a snack at the end. Then we went through Pioneer Village in which old farm crafts and jobs are displayed and demonstrated. I could have stayed there for a long time but we spent the day compromising and I lost here.

Before lunch D found the tractors. By some motherly scheming I did manage to keep him out of the John Deer store. He could have spent all day on the tractors old or new he didn't care. Then we ate our lunch and found the FFA, Indiana young farmers, and DNR buildings. I remembered this well form my childhood. It has been updated.

With full stomach topped with ice cream the children settled down and we headed for the more traditional fair things--the entries. To get there we traveled through a covered bridge--IN is known for covered bridges--that was a replica of one that was destroyed in this spring's floods. So this was brand new.

Then we visited the garden and Home Arts buildings. I loved seeing the quilts, sewing and crochet projects. I saw one afghan that was basically crocheted circles but some of the circles were doggy faces. I wonder if I could ever find the pattern for it? Josie liked the sewing and the pictures. Daniel liked riding the elevator.

Then it was of to the livestock. We saw tons of cows. Then the draft horses were getting ready for a show and mom wanted to see it. I thought that would be neat. So in the 15 minutes we had until the show we looked for the pigs, most were gone ,but we did get to see the champions and the world's largest boars. The children were impressed by them.

They also liked the draft horse show. The rigs were impressive and we found out costly. I had trouble getting good pictures inside the coliseum, but you get the idea.

We tried to find the regular horses, but it appeared they were not there. We did find the sheep. I would like a Tunis sheep--they were so soft and had brown faces. We walked around a bit and this bigger sheep bahhhed right in T's face. It took quite a while to get here settled down--she did not like that! The sheep association had a small shop. I bought some Indiana wool for some projects.

I took us 45 minutes to find a shuttle (people moving trailer pulled by a tractor) that had room for us all to get back to the bus stop. Our wait was interrupted by the daily parade which consisted mostly of old tractors, that didn't bother Daniel one bit, but the rest of us were tired and ready to go home. So we finally squeezed on the tram.

On the shuttle ride in the morning we also had so squeeze in. Everyone who could sat on a lap. The lady next to me offered to have Mary on her lap. We chatted on the ride, her name was Mary also. Then on the Tram another lady, also about Grandma age, offered to hold Mary on her lap. I asked her, "your name doesn't happen to be Mary?" She said yes! Wild! I explained what had happened in the morning. She smiled.

We finally got out of the fair grounds and home by 8 PM had a quick supper and went to bed exhausted.

Josie made a room on my mom's back porch so she could have her own room. She set it all up with decorations and slept on camping mattress on the tile floor.