I had been complaining to my co-worker A. that there were no state fairs around here where I could see livestock. He mentioned that near his hometown in Pennsylvania is the Bloomsburg Fair, and it has livestock and rides and food and a variety of other country-like activities that one does not get to experience in New York City. So on Saturday I went with Cricket and Neenernator and B. to the Bloomsburg Fair. Which is three hours away. I hope you appreciate my devotion to seeing a fair. From the moment we arrived, it was exactly what I had hoped for. You had to park pretty far away since the ENTIRE POPULATION OF PENNSYLVANIA showed up, so they had bench-things on wheels attached to tractors which would go from the parking lot to the front gate. Tractors! I was thrilled. As I entered, I had to take a picture of what greeted me.
Yes, come to the fair and get grilled bologna and onion sandwiches! Just reading the sign made me taste bologna and onion for days. Also, note the giant apple vendor selling deep-fried apple slices. The phrase “deep fried” became a critical part of the day.
This was a booth where they would tell you what your name meant and try to get some God in your life. They had this super-convoluted map on the side of their booth. The lady in the picture and I stood there and tried to figure out what the goodness gracious was going on, but we couldn’t gather heads nor tails of it. We’re somewhere between the cross and the damning hellfire all the way on the right. And then it was on to a truly righteous and godly activity, the demolition derby!
For those of you who do not understand the finer nuances of demolition derby, please allow me to clarify. You line a group of suicidal cars and their enabler drivers up, back to back.
Then there’s a countdown, and the cars slam into reverse and whump into the cars behind them. The cars continue whumping and smashing and having critical components break off and occasionally catching on fire until only two cars are able to drive and whump. They are the winners. Here are some of the finer photos.
Then it was on to the livestock. They had award-winning rabbits! And chickens! I was ecstatic.
This chicken* just stood there in the sunlight posing for me. I can truly say I have met the most photogenic chicken on earth.
This chicken fell asleep with its big chickeny butt in the air. It’s tough, the life of poultry.
This chicken was all up in my grill like a crazy paranoid chicken on Law and Order SVU. “I don’t have to let you in my apartment! I know my rights!” It also helps that this was a super-tiny psycho chicken. I was very intimidated once I stopped laughing at it.
This is a photo of the softest rabbit ever, possibly. I wanted to scoop him up and book it out of there, but having a couple thousand angry Pennsylvanians running after me waving tractor parts as I made off with their rabbit was not appealing, so this story does not end with me as the proud owner of this rabbit. However, it also doesn’t end with me in the hospital with tractor parts wedged into my orifices, so that’s good too.
There were some seriously attractive cows there. These are two of them. Bored and beautiful cows – it’s just like being back in New York! Har! Har har!
Now this picture I tastefully cropped. The cow on the right had what looked like sausage casings hanging out of her, and before I could give it a great deal of thought, Neenernator pointed out the little baby calf curled up next to her! Awww, baby cow. It’s less than twelve hours old.
Closeup of baby cow.
There were all kinds of neato fair things there, but the ice cream machine run by an 1903 John Deere engine was pretty awesome.
I took pictures of the award-winning pumpkin and the canned goods and a variety of other things, but I will spare you those pictures. There’s only so many first-prize squashes you can look at before you just HATE SQUASHES. That night we went to the tractor ‘n’ truck pull, which, I must say with all honesty, is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. I’m not even going to explain it in detail. There’s a tractor (or truck) and then there’s a big weight, and whoever pulls the weight the farthest wins. And the winner gets to club the woman of his choice and drag her back to his cave for a good ole-fashioned Neaderthal matin’ experience, most of which she will be unconscious for. I mean, really, people – I let my butt go numb on the bleachers for this? But on the whole it was a great experience and I highly recommend it for people who live in the city all day every day. It’s definitely a break from the norm.
*Yes, I’m well-aware that that’s not a chicken, it’s a cock. I have issues with saying that. Like every time I watch a dog show with my mother and they say, “That’s a stellar bitch out there, Bob” and I get all uncomfortable because, you know, I’m watching WITH MY MOM.
