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!

opening day at the fair

so yeah, we actually hit up the fair on opening day this year.  because it was butt ass hot that day, we decided to hold out and take our chances by waiting for the sun to go down before heading over.  it's only about a 10-minute drive for us, which is nice. 

the season pass package i'd bought includes a parking pass good for the first week of the fair.  of course, when we got to one of the two gates we could use it at the line to enter was about a mile long.  we ended up paying a pretty penny for parking at another lot, although it was a lot closer to one of the entrances and we didn't have to walk too far.

as soon as we got through the turnstile i got the bean to give us her best spiderman pose.

and we all ooh'd and ahh'd over the idea of putting this in a game room.  a full-size arcade game plus a drink cooler all in one?  yesssss.

things took a turn when we got to the grandstand building where the culinary competition display cases show off the prizewinning entries.  i've been entering this contest since 2012, so we were all pretty familiar with how things are laid out and knew exactly where to go to find the cookies. 

except that this time, my colorful cookies were nowhere to be found.  the girls and the special friend scurried around all of the display cases to make sure we hadn't just missed them, but i recognized the category codes for the sugar cookie contest and none of the plates with prize ribbons were mine.  and i know it's probably stupid, but i was really crushed.  yeah, i'd joked around about "let's go 4th place!" but i thought the cookies i turned in were actually pretty cute.  and i'd given the extras to one of my friends who devoured them all in one evening, so i knew i hadn't made any horrible mistakes with the recipes. 

i spent the rest of the evening trying to squash my disappointment and enjoy the time at the fair with the kids.  we left the building and hit the food booths, and the bean finally got the deep fried cream cheese on a stick she'd been dying to try:

it was served with a sweet chili sauce that we were all surprised to find she really liked.  and she was pretty stoked that it was all she'd hoped it would be.  who knew.

the old lady ordered one of this year's newest items:  the buffalo chicken chimichanga.  it's a tortilla stuffed with buffalo chicken, macaroni & cheese and bacon, then cut in half with the cut ends dipped in ranch dressing and coated with crushed hot cheetos.

the bean and i shared an order of the bacon-wrapped chicken legs and fries.  so bad, but so dang good.

the special friend opted for an order of buffalo chicken strips and fries.

we took the bean clear over to the other end of the fair for something she'd been craving all day - a sleeve of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.  we each had one and she still had enough to pack away into her backpack for later.

i was bummed to see that the sewing machine booth i always look forward to seeing didn't seem to be at the fair this year.  it's always fun to see the newest machines on the market, and drool over the multi-needle embroidery machines that cost thousands and i'll never have room in the house for.  but then we walked into a different building and found this:

we happily took a basket and made our way through that maze.  there were tons of different kinds of candy there, from a zillion flavors of tootsie rolls and saltwater taffy to giant lemonheads and atomic fireballs to extreme sour warheads and everything else in between.  there wasn't a lot of chocolate, but given how hot it always it at the fair that was totally understandable.

as we snacked on some of the treats we bought, the bean walked through the kids' building to see the arts and crafts submissions from kids all over southern california.  she hadn't submitted anything for judging this year because we were out of town on the day that they were to be turned in, but she was still happy to look at everyone else's artwork.

we decided to head on out after that.  it was late and the old lady had an early wake-up call the next day, and the heat and crushing defeat had sucked all of my energy anyway.  but our passes are good for any day of the fair, which runs through the next few weeks.  i'm sure we'll be back.

meh.

i didn't place at all at the fair this year.  i'm still bummed about it.

that's all i got for today.