Texas State Fair

We went to the Texas State Fair again this year. Oprah taped a show a few days before we went (though we saw it after) and described it as "the biggest state fair in the America." Katie had two requests for the fair this year. She wanted to see the cow milking and she wanted to go on the rides. Have to love the gossip of preschool. She knew all about rides because her friends had been to the fair already. We ignored them last year.

This was the first nice weekend in quite a while and the last weekend of the fair, so it was packed. It was also the Texas - Oklahoma game at the Cottonbowl so it was even more packed. We took the train (called the DART) from downtown (after parking at Peter's office). The problem was DART was not prepared for the crowds because this line hasn't been open very long and they, as the newspaper described, "assumed Texans would never get out of their pick-up trucks to take public transportation." So a ride that should have taken 10 minutes, took an hour and 10 minutes - standing room only. And the fair was packed. So we won't go during the Texas-OU game again.

True to the spirit of the fair, we tried some of the fried food highlights. We tried fried peaches (very good and crispy) and the fried butter. Fried butter was sort of a pat of butter in the middle of a donut hole. It was as interesting as we thought it would be. The fair is filled with all different types of fried food, but it was so crowded, we skipped just about everything fried.

There's a part of the "Midway," the part of the fair with the rides and games, that is devoted to kids rides. We allowed Katie to do the ones that looked pretty safe, and surprisingly she didn't want to go on any of the ones that I thought looked scary. Her favorite was this little water ride/flume, as you see above.


Katie also tried the bumper cars.


Ice cream at the livestock shed, before we watched the cow milking. Katie wanted pink ice cream, of course.


The cow milking. This year Katie knew the milk was warm when it came out of the cow.