Big Fun

I have completed my yearly trip to the California State Fair. Think of it as your classic county fair, but with the best of 58 county fairs rolled into one.

The best Art from the counties (usually the top tier from the county fairs) are brought to Sacramento and judged. Art includes youth art exhibits, fine art, industrial education/art (blueprints, posters, etc)

There are special exhibits that come in every year, this year they brought in "toytopia" which looked at the history of toys. This went from Barbie to GI Joe to proto-chess sets. There was also a look at the history and works of Theodor Seuss Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss.

There are a lot of people who only know California for Hollywood/LA, Silicon Valley and Yosemite. Each of the 58 counties corrects this their county exhibits, that showcase what they have. The bulk of the California economy is not entertainment or high tech, but Agriculture. This is shown in several ways at the fair. The grounds include a working demo Farm and a large livestock pavilion. The farm demonstrates growing methods and agricultural/aquacultural products. The pavilions hold the livestock that come from all over the state to compete in the fair. Pigs and cows and goats, oh...
Don't miss the nursery where you see baby livestock in the first days of their lives...sometimes you get to greet them in the first second of their lives.

The Cavalcade of Horses is an Arena that shows everything from dogs chasing frisbees to dancing horses (Friesians)

One of our local supermarkets (Savemart, used to be Albertsons) sponsors a wine country area where the various wines entered in the state competition can be sampled. Wines do not come from Napa alone, most of the counties have wineries. In the central coast area there are some good wineries, particularly in northern Santa Barbara county. East of Sacramento the Apple Hill area of El Dorado county has wineries and apple orchards tucked in the hills. Amador county has the Shenandoah Valley (the other one) packing in a number of small wineries that produce excellent red wines, some wild and some old vines brought over from Europe (took my Mom there last year we only made it through about half of the wineries before we had to stop for the day).

No fair is complete without the midway (standard)

Big fun for those of us who like these sort of things, oh and deep fried coke is not so good.