Good, Fair

We went to the County Fair today. It was a jumble of pigs, goats, pigs, cows, sheep and just about any kind of fried food you could want. We spent most of the day walking around looking at all the livestock, with A reminding C not to touch any of them (she didn't have enough hand sanitizing lotion it seems). Being from hardy farm stock myself, I went ahead and petted the animals.

The thing that struck me the most was that they had "Perry's Exotic Zoo." They weren't kidding. White Siberian Tiger cubs. 6' alligator. A pissed off baboon. Camels. Lemurs. All tended to (ably no doubt) by people who weren't as cleanly as regular carnies.

C had two highlights. The first was at the firefighters' hall. They had an exhibit that showed how sprinkler systems in homes make a huge difference. They had two bedrooms that had been burned, one with sprinkler system, one without. C stared at it for minutes on end, and listened as the Firefighter talked to A about it. Later, C would tell me that he gave the bedroom some medicine and vitamins, and it made the bedroom happy.

Here's a snapshot from that hall:

Daddy Conehead teaches fire safety

Then we had the great idea to take the kids to the tractor pull. I didn't realize that they had those things in Northern Illinois, but then there are NASCAR fans here, so anything is possible. Before they got started, the emcee introduced pretty girls as angels that worked for a local car dealership. They read some promos, and one of them said that talking to the angels was the 'most fun you could have with your clothes on." Nevermind that the girls were 18 or so.

By the time the tractors got going, both kids were overdue for naps. So when the tractor bellowed more black smoke than my old VW Scirocco after not changing the oil for 15,000 miles, they were a little scared. But the noise really put them over the top. I swear these things were louder than a jet.