Hey, It's The Nevada 150 Fair!

Yay!  Our first state fair in years!

The economy crunch hit our state pretty hard, so state fairs were, sadly, a no-go for the last few years.  Since this year marks the 150th year of Nevada statehood, everyone got it together and decided to have a state fair and to their credit, actually HELD it in the state capitol, Carson City.  From all reports it went great, no major problems.

We went opening day and although they got the show on the road a wee bit late, it was a beautiful day.

We didn't attend the ribbon cutting and official opening so we missed the Wells Fargo coach and Mark Twain lookalike, but our gov was there and let's just say that he and a few other smart politicians wore jeans and shirts and skipped the heat stroke-inducing suits.

We went to the poultry show area (where else?) and hung out with some of our new poultry friends from the NNPFA http://poultryfancier.wix.com/nnpfa and their birds.  We actually hung out there so perniciously, ha ha, that we made it on the Nevada 150 Fair's Facebook page--my kid is pictured in a shot of a buff Polish roo while her dad and I are off to the side.

But hey, chickens!  One of these little porcelain d'Uccle girls valiantly laid an egg in the sweltering heat while surrounded by people.

The poultry were all freshly scrubbed and shined up, some thanks to a special kit.

This little Dutch Bantam eventually got Best in Show for chickens.  No surprise since Dutch bantams are so dainty and pretty, and tend to stay very neat and tidy.  She's a pretty girl and knows it, and earned her award.

...although the grumpy Langshan rooboy might disagree.

These pretty little Columbian bantams were is serious danger of being tucked under my arm and spirited away.  Banty Columbians have been at the top of my very short 'Most Wanted' list for years now.

There were CALL DUCKS.  Also at the top of my 'Most Wanted' list.  I've never owned any, but they are just so damned cute.  This little female was pretty, but her owner said that she'd only had her a short while and she tended towards suckering you in and then biting you, HARD.  We kept our fingers away.

This little snowy white Call duck won Best In Show for waterfowl.  I didn't realize until later that I'd inadvertantly taken a picture for the Call Duck Witness Protection Program.

In the same tent were the small animals, including this rabbit who was much more relaxed than the uptight Call ducks.

Eventually even we got tired of hanging around the chickens like some weird poultry stalkers, and wandered over to the barns.

Stolen food tastes best.

And we were pleased to see that not only were the cows squeaky clean, but arrayed according to size.

Someone is a LOT more organized than me.

Time to wander the fair some more.  After all, you work up an appetite staring at poultry.

Yes, we tried it, and no, it wasn't *quite* up to what you'd expect--the chocolate never hardened, so it was hellishly messy, and the bacon was kinda 'meh'.

This booth sold...ah...'interesting' wares.  Not sure it's legal, but hey, then again this IS Nevada.

The local Republican booth was terrifyingly funny.  Stomp the evildoers, RAWR!

I thought the love beads some passerby had added to one of the tusks was a nice touch.

The Oscar Meyer Weinermobile was hoppin'.

We worked our way over to the Fine Arts building, where there was a nice selection of cool stuff--the fly tying booth was great but I got so engrossed I forgot to take a picture.

I was very taken with the fantastically intricate quilted wall hangings that one woman had entered.  Gorgeous, gorgeous, GORGEOUS things.  This one had a death-spiders-poison theme, the amount of detailed work she had put into it was amazing.

A few of the squares, my craptacular pics do NOT do it justice.  She had incorporated quilting, embroidery, applique, beading, buttons, numerous types of fabrics, ribbon and lace, jewelry, buttons--the more you looked the more you saw, it was amazing.  I wanted this thing in THE worst way.

Just as I turned away from this one, I saw another that she had there.

We were, however, very disgusted to see that some BB brain had placed tape over part of this piece of artwork.  You can see it on three of the squares.  Because, you know, BOOBS.

 

AUUUGGHHH, Won't someone think of the children?!

It was actually nauseating and distressing to see that someone had done this--with or without the artist's permission didn't matter.

My God, the human race saddens me sometimes.  I didn't reach up and rip off the tape, although I sure as Hell wanted to.

Time to go elsewhere and do something fun. Off to the Walk On Water attraction to torture our unwitting teen!  This is one of those things where they zip you into a giant plastic hamster ball floating on water and everyone outside the ball laughs.

Unsuspecting kid climbs in...

Ball is inflated and child hermetically sealed.  You can literally see the second thoughts she's having.  Too late!

They give her a shove and she's out with the other poor dumb suckers.

Now is when all the people who aren't sealed in hot, smelly plastic balls and trying to stand on water have a good laugh.  The guy roaming the pool was great, we'd point out the kid's ball and yell, 'Give that one a spin!' and he would.  The kid loved it.

After she got out I asked her how it smelled in there.
"Terrible!"
"But was it fun?"
"OH, YEAH!"
So I guess fun wins in the end, as it always must.

That was about it for the day, we wended our way back to the car and split.