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Thursday, September 5, 2019

mommy & me day at the fair

the bean and i decided to return to the fair on sunday morning, trying to beat the crowds by arriving first thing in the morning and hoping a lot of folks were still at church.  of course, when we arrived about ten minutes before they opened there was already quite a crowd waiting at the gates.  no worries, though.  we were still among the first ones inside.


we wanted to check out stuff that we hadn't gotten to look at the first time around, along with some of the exhibits that the old lady and her special friend likely weren't super interested in visiting.  we stopped inside the floral building, which was pretty...and air conditioned.



i wanted to see their l.a. pop culture section, which was route 66-themed.  they built miniature versions of some of los angeles' most beloved and visited attractions, and it was fun to walk through it.


i guess this is meant to represent the horrendous l.a. traffic? 


too bad angels flight doesn't work anymore.  i would've liked to ride it at least once.


who doesn't love giant food?




more recreations of southern california attractions, including some of our local museums.







this part offered a display of menus with the old-timey prices from local restaurants like bob's big boy and the tam o'shanter, plus some audio descriptions of where they were located and what made them special.



 wanna be "big"?




the last bit of the exhibit. chinatown, LACMA, city hall, griffith park and observatory, the queen mary, a miniature version of a float from the rose parade.  and they managed to salvage last year's hollywood sign and reuse it for this year's theme.








 no, i sure did not revisit the site of my failure.


however, the bean wanted to look at the quilting and sewing competition displays.  looking at some of the sewn garments that were in the cases, i started thinking about how maybe next year i'll sign up for a sewing competition.  the bean was inspired too, so maybe we'll work together on a couple of entry ideas and give it a shot.



just outside the building, we found a row of those "footsie wootsie" machines and i pulled out a few quarters so we could get a quick foot massage.



we stopped at this dodgers truck to see if we could find a fun shirt for the upcoming hello kitty night at dodger stadium.  they actually had several designs, but alas...not in our sizes.  bummer.


she decided she wanted to try something else at hot dog on a stick, and so this time she opted for the mozzarella cheese served with marinara sauce.  she'd loved the cream cheese one so much last time that i figured i'd give it a shot.  and i gotta say...it was actually just as delicious as she said. 


we went through some of the shopping buildings again to cool off and walk off our snack, and found some fun photo ops along the way.



back outside, we came across the giant miniature railroad setup that's actually at the fairplex year-round.  it's very detailed and really fun to look at.



and then at chicken charlie's, i grabbed an order of bacon-wrapped pickles and some deep fried oreos to share while she enjoyed a cheeseburger fresh from the grill.


while we sat there in the shade eating, the parade of l.a. county services came by - library, animal control, police, fire...with people happily waving and tossing beads out to the folks lining the street.


it always amuses me to see the coroner's truck driving merrily down the parade route.  like...so weird, right?  the bean was slightly appalled when i explained my amusement.


smokey the bear!


it was super swamp ass hot out there by that time, and so we decided we were done for the day.  as we headed out, we noticed the sign for that evening's headliner for the concert series:


and then as it turned out, pitbull had decided to stay in miami with his family and hunker down for the hurricane coming their way.  the concert was postponed till next week, and the comment section for the official post from the fair officials was...interesting.  people were torn between "stay safe!" and "why wouldn't you just bring them with you so they could get out of the hurricane?" 

we'd been there for just under three hours, and we were spent.  it was SO hot, but with our season passes we'll be back at least one or two more times.  bye for now, fairplex!


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