STATE FAIR OF TEXAS

I went to the opening weekend of the State Fair of Texas. This was the first time I had been to the State Fair since I was a kid. I must say that the overall experience made me a bit sad...

I took my daughter in hopes of a fun afternoon of stuffing ourselves with the new, creative, fried delicacies, visiting the exibits and a few fun rides; however, we were sorely disappointed. The exciting food that we had been dreaming about was either incredibly well-hidden among the vast number of vendors or was short staffed and the lines were a mile long. The exibits, well, left something to be desired. The rides were a ridiculous amount of coupons/money. We could have bought tickets to Six Flags and ridden more rides - much cheaper.

Parking was $10.00, Admission was $14.00. Bottled water ranged in price between $3.00 and $4.00 - HEY, if I am going to pay that kind of money for water, I expect to see the Eagles, Alan Jackson or Tim McGraw on stage while I am forking over those big bucks for WATER. A temporary tattoo (which my daughter really wanted) was a minimum $7.00. The simplest of the rides were at least $2-3.00. The coupons really ticked me off; they are $ .50 each and are a blatant attempt to make you forget that you just handed over $3.00 for a twenty-second ride. UGGH!

The Fair has become so large that a map is required to find ANYTHING and the things we wanted to do and could locate on the map were spread throughout the entire fairgrounds. The things I really wanted to find were not specifically outlined in the booklet handed out to ticket holders - therefore, not found. To see and do all the things we wanted would have required about five miles of walking around in hopes of stumbling across the guy selling the Fried Banana Pudding (Where was he, by the way?? Do you think he could send one to Lake Texoma?).

There were a few highlights at the Fair. The Kroger Bird Show was a hit! They have been putting on shows at our Fair for twenty years and said that this is the only State Fair at which they appear. I did manage to find the Fried Cheesecake; it was AWSOME!!! The petting zoo was neat; they had a beautiful baby Longhorn (see below - isn't he cute!) and the piglets were adorable. The other great thing was seeing the park and the Cotton Bowl again- the flowers were beautiful and the Bowl a Texas icon that will be greatly missed.

At the end of the day, I spent about $100.00 for one and a half people and still did not get my Chicken Fried Bacon (line too long), my Chic-o-mole (unable to locate) or my Peach Cobbler on a Stick (also very well hidden) and my daughter did not get the greatly desired airbrushed tattoo.

It saddens me to say that I will not be going to the Fair again. For all the reasons above, the fun has gone out of what used to be a really great experience.

P.S. If you are thinking of going and your child has a ticket from school, those are no good on weekends. Your kid has to cut class to use the ticket.