FAIR AT HOME ~ Day 7

OH. MY. WORD! HOW FUN!!!

Tonight our neighbors gave me such an enormous gift.

In a normal year, tonight Rob and I would have been sitting in Our Spot in the Grandstands, sweaty and dusty and cheering on my favorite event of the Fair -- the Demolition Derby.

I absolutely adore watching cars crash into each other and seeing tailpipes drag and tires pop and bumpers litter the dirt arena. The VERY best is when a radiator blows. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, the cheers are deafening.  When I leave a Demolition Derby with my ears ringing, I know it's been a great night.

A Fair just isn't a Fair without a Demolition Derby. Even a Fair At Home. So tonight, a bunch of my neighbors gamely gathered on Tim and Karin's driveway, eight of us toting our vehicles, and we had a Demolition Derby using remote controlled cars. WHAT A HOOT!!!

The Line Up

I can't claim credit for the idea (that brilliance is my friend Shannon). So I am not bragging when I say an RC Demolition Derby is truly a stroke of fun-for-all-ages genius.

Our competitors ranged from a 12-year-old to folks with grey...or no...hair. There were no strict rules about the vehicles, with modifications allowed as long as the "spirit of fun competition" was kept in focus.

We had a couple trick cars that flipped around, a Tuff Truck, a couple race cars, a couple that sort of looked like baby quads, and a beast named The Shoveler.

I decorated my lime green car with llama and Seahawks stickers.  I was clearly aiming to instill panic.  Actually, I needed the stickers to tell me which side of my car was up (I had a flippy car). Because when the bottom was facing up, my controllers worked backwards. It was all sorts of confusing.  I did donuts all over Tim and Karin's property, not once on purpose.

Teenager Makayla outfitted her car with some menacing bolts, one of which fell off during the event. She said she had wanted to use nails instead but dad told her no. Because...the glue wasn't drying fast enough.  Dads are awesome!

Tim zip-tied metal bar bumpers to both ends of his car. You know, to ram into things with much more gusto.  It was absolutely perfect that one bumper fell off in the arena.

Fred added plastic handles to all four sides of his red sports car.  Well, I thought they were handles.  "They are to protect the wheels."  These guys had come to COMPETE!  I loved it!

Matt -- a hobbyist mechanic -- added a big scoop to his entry and had to remove the car's body to access the battery. It looked very professional and intimidating. Lucky for us, the mighty Shoveler's battery was rather short lived.

Last minute adjustments, just like a real Demo Derby!

We all warmed up and sized up the competition by running a race down Tim and Karin's long driveway. I think the race had already been won by the time I finally got my car going straight. So many flips and spins and donuts. And I had practiced!  Honest!

We then did a timed slalom course using volleyball cones. I was quite relieved when Howard clocked in at 1 minute 30 seconds (the winner was something less than 30 seconds), taking me out of last place. Until I realized I hadn't managed to actually finish the course (I went waaaay off-roading in the rocks and then grass, heading for Idaho). I came in last...even with Fred's unintentional attempts to finish the course in reverse.

Howard diverting into the rocks and making
Makayla do some fancy footwork

The final event was The Derby. The rules were simple: 1) if your car flipped over, you could not upright it with your hands; and 2) if your car left the arena, you could stay in the competition only if you were able to drive your car back into the arena over the boundary of 2x4s.

With the verbal green flag by Karoline, our 12 minute RC Demo Derby was underway!

Within seconds...just like a derby with big cars...there was lots of banging and crashing, some even intentional! Cars climbed on top of each other, cars got stuck together, cars flipped over with wheels spinning. It was hysterical!  A few entries energetically left the arena, including the Tuff Truck who triumphantly hopped back over the boards and continued pushing around the competition.

Classic!!!  SO FUN!!  We must do this again.  Seriously.

Surprisingly, all of the cars held together very well. No extraneous parts – other than the ones added on with zip ties or slow drying glue -- fell off. Instead, it became clear that the winner would be decided by two factors: not rolling around upside down like a potato bug, and not having a dead battery.

Kyle had this figured out pretty quickly and started strategically pinning the competition into corners or under his car to force lots of battery usage to break free. BRILLIANT!

Click here to see Kyle capture the competition

I was flipping along and having a grand time staying in the arena until my battery died. I apparently spent a tad too much time unsuccessfully practicing today and having my wheels spin in the grass like a dog scratching its ear with its hind leg.

Click here to see my practice session

I spent the rest of the derby stuck in a corner and thoroughly enjoying watching the remaining grown men duke it out with their toy cars.

Click here to see lots of Derby action and me stuck in the corner

The winner was Tim. Kyle was upside down, and despite minutes of effort literally spinning his wheels, he just couldn't flip himself over. Fred's car started making a high-pitched whirring noise like a drill and finally died. Howard spun around on two wheels for awhile, a few times aaaaalllmost righting himself. But Tim...with one metal bumper missing, a battery still going strong, and controlled victory loops around the arena...was the decisive winner.  CONGRATULATIONS, TIM!!

Click here to see Kyle potato-bugging

Click here to see Howard spinning

The "Before" Photo, complete with both bumpers

Tonight my little neighborhood gathered for about 30 minutes. Thirty minutes of laughter, cheers, smiles, good-natured ribbing, and friendships developing and deepening. Thirty minutes of fun just for the sake of enjoying life and being a community of neighbors on a rural hill in the hinterlands of the Portland metro.

It wasn’t the Demolition Derby I thought I would be attending this year. But in some ways, tonight’s derby was even better.

Thank you again, dear neighbors. What a gift.

My Party Llama Mobile had such a llovely time despite
getting tired so quickly.  SUCH A BLAST!

FAIR AT HOME STATS!

Today’s t-shirt: I always wear today’s t-shirt on Demolition Derby day. Although Rob and I tend to sit in the same general area for all Fairing in the Grandstands, it can be hard to spot us when things get super crowded. I love cheering the car crashes with friends, so my neon shirt makes it easy for fellow destruction enthusiasts to find us.

Today’s earrings: Milkshake! Because today was Milkshake Day! It was also Physical Therapy for My Foot Day and my straw got all kinds of tangled in the elastic band of my face mask.

Pretty stoked about this selfie!  Only took a few tries and
several stares from fellow Five Guyers.

Today’s hand sticker: Awwww!! So adorable! And concerningly the least durable sticker so far.

Time today’s hand sticker finally bit it:  The little heart broke somewhere around 2:45pm.

Number of steps walked:  I wish I had had my phone in my pocket during physical therapy.  I did a lot of impressive stepping today!  And yet I still managed to beat yesterday's steppage by 68 at 4,458 steps for the day.  WHOO!!

UnFair food consumed: A slightly mushy banana for breakfast. Some water and some pineapple chunks as snacks, and a post-Derby dinner of a fast-and-easy-cuz-we're-tired-of-cooking sausage and olives pizza from Dominos.


FAIR FOOD FEAST TREATS!

Milkshake!
The milkshakes at the Dairy Women’s Milkshake Barn are THE treat everyone must have in order to truly claim they have been to the Clark County Fair. Although the shakes are made from soft-serve ice cream, they are thick enough to require a spoon or reaaaally good suction to eat.  The shakes come in all sorts of flavors, with the fresh fruit add-ins provided by local suppliers.  They are darned good milkshakes!

The milkshakes at the Fair are pretty much the only milkshakes I have all year. The occasion or the flavor has to be pretty special for me to indulge otherwise.

I have wistfully eyed the milkshake menu at Five Guys Burgers for a several years. They are rumored to be very tasty and thick and worth the calories. So with no access to my annual Dairy Women shake, I figured this was the year to finally satisfy my Five Guys shake curiosity.  Yay Fair At Home!

Verdict: Eh. Given the hype, I was actually pretty disappointed. I ordered a chocolate banana shake. I’m not convinced there was any banana added. The chocolate was VERY good – rich and fudgey. The shake was pretty thin, though. I consumed it faster than a Starbucks Refresher when I forget to ask for light ice. For the calories and the money, I wanted more. But at least now I won’t stare longingly at that part of the Five Guys menu board anymore. 

It's not Fair unless I have at least photo of
me looking like I'm smoking an old timey pipe

Bacon-Cheddar Corn!
The recipe verbatim is: Spread mayonnaise on warm corn. Roll in grated cheddar cheese and top with crumbled, cooked bacon. Sounds simple enough. Ha!

With all the weird cooking concoctions I’ve managed to not destroy this week (in large part to Rob handling the scary hot oil stuff), it seems absolutely appropriate that today I was taken down by bacon.

I don’t cook bacon. I rarely eat bacon. I like bacon. I just don’t allow myself the indulgence very often. So the “cooked bacon” part of the recipe was a stumbling block. Even more than the idea of putting mayonnaise on corn.

I thought about frying the bacon in a pan, but I hate cleaning up grease splatters. Rob suggested I bake it in the oven, finding instructions on Google that required a pan, a rack, foil, preheating, and at least 25 minutes. That sounded like a lot of work simply to have a crumbly topping.

I had vague memories of the mid 1970s when my family first got a microwave. All the things you could cook! And so fast! We had some sort of plastic rack thing that I recall seeing covered in paper towels and crispy bacon strips.

“Is there a recipe online for cooking bacon in the microwave? Involving paper towels?”

A few typey taps later, Rob called back from the living room.

“Yep! A plate, two layers of paper towels, bacon strips NOT TOUCHING, then another paper towel. Cook on high for 10 minutes.”

And those of you who have cooked bacon in a microwave, I heard that gasp.

Yes, 10 minutes is WAAAAY too long. Like maybe 7 minutes too long. Like I hope that smell goes away before winter too long.

Comments on my Facebook post of this photo included the
simple yet pertinent "Why?" and "How?"
The second batch was much less blackened due to my
checking on it every 30 seconds.

Verdict: Best adorned corn of the year! The addition of cheese was quite lovely, and my hard-earned bacon bits were so much better than those frighteningly uniform ones you find in salad bars (remember salad bars?). The mayonnaise was weird. It really should have been butter. Why can’t it be butter? Next time it will be butter. And next time maybe I’ll even break out the frying pan and Clorox Kitchen Wipes.

Irregularly shaped bacon bits!

Improvised Snack!
Conceding that half an ear of corn doesn’t constitute lunch (Rob had the other half), I scrounged around the kitchen for something I didn’t have to cook. My eyes lit up when I saw the bag of fry bread left over from last night. Score!

Now something to put on it…

I can’t remember why I bought the jar of Salsa Con Queso last week when I was doing my Fair Shopping. No recipe calls for it. I was likely just caught up in the Forbidden Foods moment.

Verdict: Nacho cheese spread glopped onto warmed fry bread is pretty satisfying! In retrospect, I should have warmed up the queso, too, since it was sort of cold for my last couple of bites. And maybe next time I’ll add a few homemade marinated jalapeno slices to kick it up. But as a quick and Fair-worthy snack, highly recommended just as is.

I wore just a little con queso on most of my face
during the eating of this snack