Do the North Carolina State Fair

It's no Puyallup Fair, but it'll do.

Conor & I made our way to the North Carolina State Fair a while ago, and I was excited to see what a fair out here would be like. More mullets? More Nascar? More ethnicity? Oh man, the possibilities were endless. Conor's MO was food, my MO was people watching. Since all of my friends that read my blog are on the Left Coast, I thought I would write this post as a sort of comparison. Part 1: Things you would see at a fair in WA. Part 2: Thing you would NOT see at a fair in WA.

PART 1: THINGS YOU WOULD SEE AT A FAIR IN WA:



No fair would be complete without a ShamWow stand. There were no other infomercial-like stands though, which was weird. However, this guy was enough for the whole fair. Look closely at the pin on his shirt.


Here's a close-up. So good!


I debated what section this should go in. Although NC has it's own brand of crazies, I think WA has it's fair share, and this guy could probably be found anywhere. Loved the whole ensemble though.

No fair would be complete without all the animals! Although, I've never seen jazzercise sheep before, they were my favorite.













Conor got to milk a cow!


We also walked past a pig auction. Do we have these in WA? I feel like I've just never seen it before, but I'm sure they have them there. Isn't that why they had fairs in the first place?


PART 2: THINGS YOU WOULD NOT SEE AT A FAIR IN WA:


This was the first thing we saw when we walked onto the fairgrounds. Chew tobacco is huge here. So is smoking, but all I ever see are Skoal ads. The guy actually yelled at Conor for taking this picture. You're at the fair - hello!


We walked into the Hobbies & Crafts exhibition. Couldn't pass up taking a picture of this one.


Not too many people walking around with grills in Washington. A few, but not enough to be advertised at the Fair.


Do we have church representation at our fair?


Were there turkeys in there? No. Were they real guns? Yes. Was it frightening? You bet.


Conor wanted to eat the strangest, funkiest food, and I think he succeeded: Alligator tail. He said it did taste a bit like chicken, but that it was really fatty and tough. I stuck to roasted corn.


Now, deep fried "insert sweet treat here" very well could have been at the Puyallup fair this year, but I can guarantee you that it was in full force, and probably originated somewhere in the south. Conor couldn't decide between all the deep fried treats (oreos, moon pies, twinkies, candy bars, strawberries, banana pudding, etc.) but he finally landed on deep fried cookie dough. Ugh, it looked really gross in person, sorry for the shaky pic. Conor said it wasn't as tasty as he was hoping it would be.


So, good story here. I was highly stressed out for a majority of the day due to all the people that were there. You couldn't walk anywhere without brushing against someone and wanting to scream. While we were waiting in the VERY long deep fried food line, I noticed these two girls that walked up and were standing close to the line. Gradually, while we were standing still in the slow line, they were mosying closer and closer to the line, and my blood pressure started to rise a bit. Finally, the person in front of me noticed, and I thought they would do something about it, so I wouldn't have to. I was wrong because they decided not to cut in front of them, they cut in front of us. On any other day, I would have just been angry on the inside, but the anxiety of the day turned me into The Hulk. I said loud enough for them to hear "Are you serious?!? Everyone behind you in line has been waiting over 20 minutes, and you're just going to cut in front of us?" I was expecting a lot of cheering, and the girls to be carted out of the fair forever. Instead, my cheeks just turned pink, and the large black man behind the counter took our order first, then there order. Oh well, justice was sort of done. I think I did embarrass them a little bit, and the nice lady behind me told me she was proud of me.

Overall, besides being completely overwhelmed by the people there, I must say that the Puyallup Fair is a bit better than the NC State Fair. Conor and I still had a great time!!