Back To The Fair

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BACK TO THE FAIR

Of the many things I love about Columbus, Ohio, not least is the Ohio State Fair.

I am a consummate Fair lover and Fair goer. In the over four decades I've lived in Columbus, I've only missed the yearly State Fair two or three times.
Or at least that was the case until COVID came along. Alas, the State Fair was among the activities which that nasty little virus put the kibosh on back in the summer of 2020, and somehow it took my mate Tom and I three years to get ourselves back.
But this year we finally got ourselves back, and how sweet it was, even more so because this was the year that the sun, moon, stars, and everyone's schedules finally aligned such that the Fair coincided with my daughter's family's yearly summer visit from Los Angeles,

...which meant that this was the year that my dream of someday taking my granddaughters to the Ohio State Fair would finally come true.
They arrived on Friday, August 4, and the following day we went to the Fair. The Californians still operating on West Coast time, we left the house around noon, which, in fairness, was still only 9am in Los Angeles.
This being the final weekend and second last day of the State Fair, I expected that everyone who was intending to go to the Fair would have already gone and that the crowds would be down. Au contraire. Of all our years of Fair-going, this day was the most crowded Tom and I had ever experienced.
After scrounging around the vast parking lot for a space, we joined the parade of afternoon arrivers headed, like ourselves, from the far end of the parking lot to the entrance gate.

The lines at the entrance gate, massive as they were, moved quickly,

And soon we were in the fairgrounds snapping our first selfie of the day.

And so we spent the day doing the things and seeing the sights, me savoring the experience of introducing our granddaughters and native Los Angelino son-in-law to the delights of the Ohio State Fair.

There was the hands-on Physics lab, run by members of the the Ohio State Physics department,

In the arts and crafts building we looked at the table setting (called tablescaping) displays,

...Christmas tree entries,

...sewing, quilting, and crochet,

...the youth art entries,

...from artists elementary school age,

...through high school, some quite original and imaginative,

...the miniatures,

...and my perennial favorite of all the Fair exhibits, the cakes.

We visited the agricultural exhibit building,

...where we saw a mama pig and her 3-day-old babies,

...and outside of which we ran into Theresa and Mayren, who were also having a fine time.

This was also Mayren's first visit to the Ohio State Fair.

We visited the small animals, the chicks and ducks, and geese,

…and bunnies,

…and the sheep, including the ones covered up to keep their wool clean,

…that I nicknamed the Ku Klux Lambs.

And, of course, we visited the Dairy exhibit to pay a visit to the butter cow and calf and the rest of the figures of famous Ohioans sculpted from 2,000 pounds of Ohio butter,

…and to have a scoop of delicious ice cream from the Velvet ice creamery located in nearby Utica, Ohio.

And then there was the fun of just strolling the midway,

...where one is likely to find entertainment of all kinds,

…and where the famously - and sometimes creatively - unhealthy Fair fare is a show in and of itself,

…at times begging the question, “Does anybody actually eat this &#%$?”

But as we made our way among the dense crowd of our fellow Fair-goers, I was hit with another thing I love about the Ohio State Fair, perhaps the thing I love most: the diversity of the people here,