2025 Clark County Fair! – Day 3

Goodness, I’m tired. And we are only 3 days in. I’ve been getting about 5 hours of sleep each night, but that’s apparently not enough for what I’m asking my brain and body to do during the day. So here is a quick recap of today so I can crawl into bed.

We arrived after church, hungry and on fumes. We stopped in the Gazebo where everything was humming right along so we made our way to one of my favorite food trucks to chat with owner Tosha while her hubby prepared my super delicious lunch (see Fair Food Feast Collage below for details). We commiserated on fair exhaustion. I suspect Tosha and I are both only a few days away from punchy.

Rob and I decided to see if the less-than-a-week-old piglets were out and about. We had dropped by their special pen yesterday, but they were all snuggled in a corner asleep. So cute! But not easily photographed. Today, they were hungry and feisty, tails a wigglin'! And very photogenic.

So many piggy tails!!

There were 11 piglets, and the runt was obvious. Poor little thing kept trying to nurse on a rubber ball, thus explaining his runtiness. The gathered crowd was rooting for him, telling him to find an open slot on his mom. "Go over there! Over there!!" It took a few minutes, but when it finally dawned on the little guy to join his siblings, the crowd cheered. When he finally latched on properly, there was yet more cheering and applause and much relief.  Mostly by women who seemed to be having nursing flashbacks. Confident we had saved the undernourished piglet in both body and spirit with our sage advice, guidance, and encouragement, the women high-fived each other and wandered off towards the cows.

Adorable but heartbreaking. Not the
sharpest pig in the pen (with apologies
to Charles Schulz).

While the other piglet rescuers admired the cows, Rob and I wandered over to the cat barn to check out the Cat Agility Competition. With adequately low expectations, we were nonetheless hoping for slightly more action than last year’s attempt at getting cats to frolic around an obstacle course on command. Cats. On command. Hahahahahaha!!!

Quite a large crowd was gathered…and then rather quickly dissipated as the spectators realized that the competition was much more entertaining in concept than in reality. Other than one fluffy white kitty who tentatively followed some treats around the course, we mostly watched cats slink around to safe corners, hide in a tunnel tube, and plot their escape.

All the cats seemed to have the same route in mind.
It was also in the direction of their comfy cages.

This young kitty actually went through
the course twice! Not on command, 
not because it was supposed to,
and not in order.
Duh.

After we checked on the afternoon shift at the Gazebo, I decided it was a good time to start my somewhat self-assigned task of going around to all the departments participating in the Passport to Fun program. I had hoped to do that on the first day, but well, bonkers. My goal is to make sure they have all the supplies they need, and to update a woefully old spreadsheet of contact info. YAY MORE SPREADSHEETS!!

There are 41 departments on the old spreadsheet, so this is a multi-day task. 

Today I chatted with the Grange, FFA, Robotics, Open Class Beef, 4H Goats, 4H Llamas, 4H Cats, and the Cheese folks. Cheese folks?!? We honestly thought that was a typo. We have never ever seen a Cheese Department in our almost 20 years of Fairing at the Clark County Fair. Even some of the other departments we talked to laughed with us, wondering how in the world “Cheese” got on the old spreadsheet.

Guess what Rob found in the 4H Goat barn while I was trying to track down the Goat Superintendent?

CHEESE!

Apparently they have been there for years, but everyone is always distracted by the goats and unknowingly waltzes right past their beautiful display of fromagery. Guilty! 

We chatted for just a few minutes, because spreadsheet. But I promised we would be back before the Fair's end to take a nice long read of all the Fun Cheese Facts lovingly posted in their display.

We have a Cheese Department!! Who knew!?! Man, I love discovering new things about my beloved Fair!!

Her name is Candy and she is so nice!
Go see her and say hi! East end of the 
4H Goat Barn!

We capped off Day 3 in the Grandstands, listening to the band Kansas. It was quite loud. Loud enough that I was not able to carry on a phone conversation and had to ask the volunteers in the Gazebo to please text me their concerns. Turns out a latch broke on a window cover. I’m so intrigued by what constitutes Gazebo Emergencies! 

Latch down on Window 1 in the Gazebo! Stat!

Although I only knew 3 songs in the Kansas set (Dust in the Wind, Hold On, and Carry On, Wayward Son), I really enjoyed the concert. Primarily because the band prominently features a violinist. News to me! 

The violin is my favorite instrument. Hearing it played in a rock band is pretty spectacular (and rare. Hi, ELO!). I was totally mesmerized by the violinist’s talent and speed. Not enough to go buy a Best of Kansas CD, but enough to happily sit through a full set of rock songs I had never heard (much to Rob’s exasperation).

We were told his violin is called 
The Viper and it goes about 200mph.
It was incredible to watch and listen
to this guy fiddle so fast!

Today felt a little more Fair-ish, but I was still “working.” Rob toted more Beanie Babies down the midway, I responded to texts and phone calls, we checked in with 8 departments, and we tracked down some signs for a few departments that never received them. We’re hoping to make a bigger dent in the spreadsheet tomorrow. It is fun chatting with folks, but goodness it is tiring. Faking extroversion is hard! Amazing what I will do for the promise of playing with a spreadsheet!

Make way for the Beanie Babies!

FAIR FOOD FEAST COLLAGE!

Top Row:
Italian Smashed Potato from the Raclette Cheese
Sandwich booth across the walkway from the
church ladies pie stand. OMG! SO GOOD!
It was a boat of cheesy goodness. High
quality ingredients, pretty healthy (especially
if you are doing keto - just ignore the potato), and so
satisfying. It was salami, ham, bell peppers, onions,
some smashed potatoes, all grilled together
with oozy cheese. I shall be having this again.

Paired my Smashed Potato with a cup of Lemon-
Basil-Cucumber water. It looks super boring but it
was so refreshing and much more interesting than
water fountain water. Thanks, Tosha!

Done with being healthy, I moved on to
a Hawaiian Shave ice. Lime and boysenberry.
The boysenberry was surprisingly good! A little
less sweet than other berry options, almost
sort of black cherryish. From the only stand 
selling Hawaiian Shave Ice (just west of the 
Food Court near the Columbia Stage)

Middle Row:
Cherry Cheesecake Dessert Nachos from the
new food truck next to the Raclette booth.
Really good! And sadly, so lonely. Honestly,
the truck looks closed so even though it is in a 
prime spot, I rarely see people order anything.
Which is a shame, because these fried wonton
dough chips doused in cinnamon and sugar and then
topped with cream cheese frosting and cherry sauce
was super tasty! It was almost sort of mini
elephant ear-ish. I will be trying other versions (the
Red Velvet and the Cookies & Cream both look 
really tempting). 

Teriyaki Burger from Boppin' Bo's in the Food Court.
I am SUPER SAD the Burger Buggy folks retired. I 
adored their burgers with ham slices. Mopey, I decided 
to try a Boppin' Bo Burger on the recommendation of
several people I trust. While the Teriyaki version was
good -- I liked the slice of pineapple and the tang of 
teriyaki sauce -- it just wasn't the same as a Ms. Burger.
It wasn't special enough for me to have again, since I 
can get a burger a lot of places outside of the Fair.
Glad I tried it. No complaints. Just not special enough
for Fairing.

I remembered to carry around my bag of kettle 
corn today! YAY! Good concert snack.

Last Row:
Frozen banana dipped in chocolate and sprinkles.
I was super excited to find a frozen banana! They
are only occasionally offered at the Clark County Fair.
I was a little surprised the chocolate was added upon 
request and was not the type that hardens. So it was
basically a frozen banana with chocolate syrup.
Really messy and not quite what I had in mind, but
still very good and was just the snack I was looking for
post-concert. Plus, fiber! Found at the Sweet Spot inside
the Food Court on the east side in the middle.