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Tuesday, June 6, 2023

2023 l.a. county fair roundup

so one good thing that came out of the pandemic was that the l.a county fair moved from september to may, which is lovely because it was always hotter than a witch's butthole at the fair.  this is the second year of it being in may and the weather is pretty much perfect - with most days starting off overcast and cool and temperatures in the 60s and 70s.

the bean and i headed out during opening weekend using the two-week season passes i'd bought at christmastime.  i was super amused at the shirt they chose to wear - one of their trademark button-downs with little corn dogs all over it.

i'd already gotten the heads up about the fate of my two entries into the home arts competition, so i was okay with stopping to grab something to eat before heading over to check them out.  as always, there were tons of options for food and we chose some delicious carne asada tacos from king taco as our first item.


it also helped that they had a booth directly across from the entrance to the grandstand buildings where the competitions were displayed.  and so once we were done gobbling down every last bit, we headed over to find my crocheted entries.  it didn't take long to find them both.




we browsed through all of the competition displays - tablescapes, sewing, embroidery, various food items. and when we were done, it was time to find something else to snack on.  that came in the form of bacon-wrapped pickles for me and deep-fried oreos for the bean.


the dogs were barking after all that walking around (haha, it'd been like an hour...maybe) and we made our way over to the footsie wootsie machines for a little foot massage action.  i fished through my bag to find as many quarters as i could find and we were both startled to find that not only were the machines now accepting only credit cards/contactless payments, but that it now cost a whole dollar for a few minutes of bliss.  we sat down anyway, but man...that's some inflation right there.

neither of us ate this, but i had to take the picture anyway because whoa.  this is a fried chicken sandwich served between two krispy kreme donuts, drizzled with raspberry sauce and covered in crunch berries cereal.  like...WUT.

while they made endless fun of it last year, the bean's favorite food item for 2023 was this skewer crammed full of bacon-wrapped, deep-fried pork belly.  and i gotta say...it was delicious.

and we couldn't leave without stopping at cathy's cookies for a bucket of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

you know what's funny?  i was craving pizza, but at almost $10 for one slice at the nearest booth i decided to make a pitstop before going home.  because i mean - come on, you can't beat $1.99 costco pizza!

the next week, we went again with the bean's friends from school.


this time, i had some fresh potato chips topped with gooey cheese sauce:

we saw some animals, like this sweet cow:

and the bean enjoyed this slice of cheesy, garlicky pizza.

one of my mom friends from the bean's elementary school days is the voice of the fair - she does all of the voiceovers for their ads online and on tv and the radio.  she texted me one day out of the blue - and i'm paraphrasing here - "hey, do you want to go to the fair for free with a parking pass, eat some free food, take some pictures and possibly be in next year's commercials - plus get paid for your time?"

um, YES PLEASE.

and so that's how i ended up at the fair one more time, hamming it up and posing for videos and photos.  this is the only picture i took with my phone, at the tail end of the photo shoot.


three days after the fair ended, i found myself at the fairplex once again - this time, just to pick up my competition entries.  this was a first for me, because in the past i'd only ever submitted cookies and those always get tossed in the trash when they clean out the display cases.


it was kind of weird to drive around inside the fairgrounds, with all of the rides and food booths and things being torn down and moved to either storage facilities or to the next fair or carnival.


and now i have these back in the house...along with two blue ribbons that i'm pretty proud of.

woohoo!  can't wait till next year - maybe this time i'll actually get my act together and sew up some clothing to submit for judging.  let's see how many different categories i can maybe win a ribbon in.

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