We Faired today with some friends from waaaaay back. George and Rob went to college together. Rob and I were then part of George and Lisa’s wedding party several years later. George and Lisa moved eastward to Indiana a number of years ago, raising a son and daughter. The daughter (Laura, 16) is especially experienced in the ways of All Things 4-H. George, Lisa, and Laura showed us their Fair today for about 6 hours…and pointed out highlights for Rob and me to cover tomorrow on our own. So handy to have personal tour guides!
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| Despite the sign, we were in Indiana, not India. I need longer arms. |
I was thrilled to finally see the Fair that Laura has entered so very many 4-H projects in over the years (Mom does an excellent job keeping Laura’s far-flung fan base in-the-loop on Facebook). Laura touched my heart and tummy by presenting me a small plate of 9 different fudge entries she had kept frozen for me. I might have hinted just a teeny bit over the years that I was desperate to sample her often-winning creations.
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| Blue Ribbon Winners! A Triple Layer Chocolate Cake with Andes mints and Extra Dark Chocolate Brownies. Laura, pleeeeeease come visit us and bake for us. |
We got to see some of Laura’s baked goods and photograph entries, and also learn about the various non-animal 4-H competitions offered at the Indiana State Fair. My golly, they have categories here I never knew existed! Things like Electricity where the kids start off making a flashlight and then advance to hard-wiring things like a shop light and a lamp. Then there’s a category for Activity Boxes which are plastic theme-oriented totes filled with materials to entertain and teach a small child about something. Very cool yet somewhat quirky idea.
Not to be left out, there are some super weird competitions for adults to enter, too. There was a display case full of old toys. More cases filled with old china. Still others filled with crystal goblets and vases. For a spell, I got confused and thought I was in an antique store. Instead, the Indiana State Fair apparently gives out blue ribbons for Pack Ratting, Hoarding, and Estate Sale Scavenging.
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| Despite being offered the Senior Discount on a tram today, no toys from my childhood were entered in the Antique Toys competition. Phew! |
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| Aside from the ribbons, I am sure I have been in this antique store many times in many places. So weird. |
A sense of some place
I am still trying to get a sense of the Indiana State Fair. I haven’t yet gotten a solid read on its personality and vibe. It feels a lot more urban than the other Fairs we have been to, with the biggest mix of ethnic diversity by far. It feels smaller than Wisconsin and definitely smaller than Iowa. It has more of a sense of history and place than the Washington State Fair in Puyallup, which honestly isn’t that hard. The Puyallup Fair is pretty dang generic.
There are large buildings that have been on the Indiana Fairgrounds for nearly 100 years. There are little spaces tucked away that suggest they might be Indiana specific, but then the Midway and food booths all feel typical, basic, and characterless. The Fair offered a rodeo (for $2) and a Boyz II Men concert (free) tonight, but then there is also an adorable and quite impressive one-ring circus featuring three shows daily (free).
While this is clearly a large state fair, the Indiana State Fair has small-fair touches like a little area in a grove of trees that was set up as an outdoor movie theater. When we walked by, “The Incredibles 2” was being shown to about two dozen weary parents and enthralled little ones.
There were also a handful of ping pong and air hockey tables set up in a niche along the main concourse where teens and adults were enjoying some good ol’ fashioned garage entertainment. While on the one hand, these street-festival activities seemed out of place at a large state fair, they also were quaint and encouraged simple pleasures enjoyed with friends and family.
So I’m just not sure what the Indiana State Fair is yet. I suspect I’ll spend another ten-ish hours tomorrow trying to figure it out.
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| The fair is situated around a race track which is to the left in this photo. The Wisconsin Fair had a race track, too. I wonder if that's common for State Fairs? I think I need more in-person research to find out. |
Anorexic Cow Show
We anticipate seeing more animals tomorrow, but before our allergic friends arrived this afternoon we moseyed over to the Cattle Barn. Dairy cows were being judged. I thought I knew dairy cows. I do not. I thought I had seen udders. I had not.
We walked into the building where Jersey cows were milling about, waiting enter the showring. Not understanding what I was looking at, I gasped and grabbed Rob’s arm.
“What is wrong with these cows??? They are so skinny!”
I was certain that PETA would soon be arriving to protest the undernourishment and mistreatment of these poor Indianan cows. Their ribs were visible and hip bones that I didn’t know cows had were protruding and nearly poking through taut skin. I was horrified.
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| Can you see why I was quite concerned here? I mean, COW RIBS!! And that pointy hip bone thingy! Poor cowsy wowsies! |
“They are dairy cows. They are supposed to be skinny. They aren’t meat cows,” explained my suburban-raised husband who suddenly knew All Things Cow.
And dang if he wasn’t right. I know this because the Indiana State Fair has THE MOST AWESOME idea in their animal barns next to the showrings. They have little cards titled “Judge Along at the Indiana State Fair.” We picked one up for Dairy Cattle. Listed were five bullet points about “What a judge might look for in dairy cows.” Bullet #4: “Cows that show a lot of ‘dairy character,’ which means that they are using the food they consume to produce milk, not meat, so they may look somewhat skinny and boney.”
Once I calmed down about the cow ribs, I then got all troubled about the ENORMOUS milk pouches the Jersey cows were lugging around. OMG! I have never ever seen udders so enormous and dangly! The lady cows were waddling around the show ring like they were each straddling one of those big fitness balls. It looked terribly uncomfortable. Again I feared PETA.
Bullet #3: “Udders that are large enough to make a lot of milk but easily adapt to milking machines.”
Okey dokey then. I tell you, those judging information cards are brilliant! I wonder if they were inspired by PETA?
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| Just ouch. |
SCHEDULE:
We will be Fairing one more day in Indiana and then our expedition around Midwestern State Fairs will come to an end for 2019. BOO and thank God. Oy, my body.
STATS:
Distance walked: 10,862 steps or 4.6 miles. I’m pretty sure that is our shortest mileage since we left the Pacific Northwest. But, today we did something different and yet familiar with our Fairing. George, Lisa, and Laura come to their State Fair with enough frequency that they often run into people they know. As was the case today. We ended up sitting at a shaded picnic table with a nice breeze chatting with some friends they bumped into. We probably sat there for 30 minutes, just shooting and enjoying the breeze. Afterwards, Lisa apologized for the delay in our Fairing. To the contrary, Rob and I enjoyed the detour immensely. It reminded us of home.
Earrings: Pretzels! I got very little reaction from my pretzels in Wisconsin but people in Indiana sure did notice them! I had people stop me, tap me on the shoulder, and come seek me out to tell me they liked my earrings. Several asked where I got them (Etsy), including a rather enthusiastic young woman working at a pretzel stand. I’m sensing some Esty store owner will soon be wondering what in the world happened in Indiana to prompt a flurry of orders for her pretzel earrings.
Re-entry stamp: None offered. Boo!
First indication we were Fairing with extroverts: George and especially Lisa are Extroverts with a capital and bolded E. They can be quite fun…and sometimes startling…for us introverts to be around. The five of us were happily sitting on the wooden seats of the Tractor Tram on our way to root beer when Lisa and Laura started playing a game that is their tradition every time they ride the Tram.
The game is to pick a general target – a person wearing a hat, somebody wearing pink, somebody working in a food booth – and try to get them to wave. The gals do this by energetically waving at their targets, WHOO HOOing!, and yelling HELLO! Some of the targets understand the game after a couple of beats and wave back. Others dutifully ignore Lisa and Laura as if they were selling Leaf Gutter Guards. Still others wave back assuming they know the women and then tilt their head sideways like confused puppies trying to figure out who the heck the crazy ladies are. At least that was my observation.
Oh, and apparently the two troublemakers might have been thrown off a Tractor Tram in the past when they got too many fellow passengers in on the game and the whole Tram created quite a disturbance on the Fairgrounds. Oh, extroverts.
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| The target was "Consuming a corn product." |
Price to enter the Indiana State Fair: Much to the surprise of our entire group, at some point in the last 24 hours the Indiana State Fair decided today was “Free until 3:00 Day.” Score!
Price for parking: $8
Price to ride the little Tractor Tram one loop around the Fairgrounds: $1.00, or $3.00 for unlimited rides. Or free if you have silver hair and politely accept the Senior Discount.
FAIR FOOD FEAST PARADE:
So far, I am not all that jazzed about the food here at the Indiana State Fair. I kept asking folks working at the Fair what key foods I should eat…what would best represent the culinary personality of the Indiana State Fair (no, I did not phrase it that way)…and I kept getting answers like “well, there are corn dogs…” Honestly, the food here is striking me as food you could get at any fair or parking lot carnival. We found a couple things to try…and hopefully we will discover more tomorrow…but overall the Fair Food here is a big ol’ sigh. Nevertheless, I DID manage to eat a few things.
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| Teriyaki pork on a stick. It was very good but not quite the same as the pork in Iowa. Oh, Iowa pork.... |
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| Deep fried pickle spears. I LOVE pickles. And I quite enjoy deep fried things. But it turns out, I really didn't like these. At first they were too hot and the pickles were all floppy and mushy. After they cooled down a little, they weren't quite as floppy but I realized the cruchiness is key to my pickle enjoyment. I ate 4 of the 6 pickles and decided to move on. |
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| I misread a menu item and thought this lemonade was going to include cinnamon, which sounded novel and intriguing. Instead, it included some lemon zest which was supposed to make it markedly different than all other lemonade in the Fairgrounds. It did not. OK but nothing special. |
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| A staple at this Fair: milkshake from their version of the Dairy Wives Barn. I was disappointed that they didn't have very many flavor options. This is a chocolate and strawberry mix. I thought they would actually mix them together in a milkshake. Instead, it was two very large globs of flavored soft serve ice cream in a cup. It was good but it was not a milkshake. Maybe they count on the ice cream melting fast enough to turn it into a milkshake?? |
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| A new item this year: Two hash browns serving as bread on a grilled cheese sandwich with 4 cheeses. It sounded much bigger and cheesier than this. Rob and I shared this. It was fine but the hash browns were not crispy and the cheese wasn't terribly thick so it was a lot of undercooked hash brown and not a lot of cheesy goodness. |
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| Laura recommended this and she was right -- excellent root beer! Very root beery and not overly carbonated. This was my favorite beverage of the day. |
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| Sampling Laura's chocolate fudge! It was dense and chocolatey and covered my teeth in brown wonderfulness for a spell. SO GOOD! |
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| Double dipping with White Chocolate Orange Pecan AND Maple Walnut. Although I haven't seen Laura's bedroom, I'm guessing she could wallpaper the entire room in blue ribbons. WOW! |
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| One of the best pretzels I've ever had. It was carby and bready and warm. Rob and I shared it, asking for it to be sprinkled with parmesan cheese and garlic salt. I might have another one of these tomorrow. Yum!! Best food of the day. |
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| This Peach Cider Slushy sounded so interesting. It was not. I was expecting something a bit tart and peachy. Instead it was sweet and tasted like pear juice. Also got a pretty big brain freeze. They didn't give me a straw, so I slurped it for a bit until a straw was located. |
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| Rob and George got this poutine with the fries fried in duck fat. Toppings were bacon, cheese curds, and gravy. We all sampled them and none of us were particularly impressed. The cheese curds were especially disappointing. The duck fat didn't seem to add anything. BOO!!! |
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| I was told this was the corn to get. It was very good! The key thing I noticed that was different from the corn I get at home is that here, the kernels came off super easy. They almost fell off the cob as I bit into them. I liked that. |
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| Rob and I shared two deep fried treats to cap off the night. This is deep fried cinnamon butter. It sounded great in theory. In execution, it ended up being too buttery. Once we let some of the butter ooze out, the proportion of cinnamon improved so it was more enjoyable. Nevertheless, we did not finish our order. |
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| We also shared these deep fried Funfetti Cake Pops. I love Funfetti cakes! Sadly, the batter inside was not fully cooked, so some bites were cakey and other bites were gooey. Not really all that appetizing. We did not finish our order. |
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