Utah State Fair 2008

Mark and I went to the state fair on Wednesday night--and we had a riot!

Food
First things first: get some food. There were two things I desperately wanted at the state fair: a foot-long corndog and a carmel apple. We got the foot-long corndog. But, we couldn't bring ourselves to pay for the carmel apple too--too much money.

Mark got a really great bbq turkey sandwich dinner from a Sanpete County booth. His dinner came with corn on the cob. He saved me a few rows and I found it to be perfect for my taste, which is: not too old!
Horses
One of the events at the fair this year (I think every year) was the draft horse pull. Those are beautiful horses. Huge. And, strong. And, ready to pull! Most of them were excited to pull as fast as they could as soon as they were hitched--which in some cases happened in reverse order (meaning they took off without the sled). We didn't stick around too long to find out how much the winner could pull, because we wanted to get to the tiger show. But, we did see the horses pulling 5,000 pounds. Zoiks!
Tigers
We went to the 7:30 show of the Tigers of Marcan. It sounds exciting, huh? Well, it was. I mean, it's not like the tigers were eating live chickens or dancing the waltz. Their attention spans were pretty short. But, they did some great things like all got on their stools at the same time, they lined up according to color, and they did some great jumping tricks.

There are apparently four color variations naturally for tigers: (1) snow white - white main color with very pale gray stripes, (2) white - white main color with black stripes, (3) golden or strawberry - a light orange background with darker orange stripes, and (4) bengal (or "regular") - orange background with black stripes. They had (1) (they actually had 3 of about 30 known), (2), and (4) color variations at the show.
Mullet Spotting
We figured the state fair was as good of a place as any to seek out mullets. The contest was on from the moment we stepped through the gates to the time we left. I found the most mullets (three). And, the best single mullet: long, scruffy, and greasy.

Mark won the contest, though, because he spotted a matching mullet set. Yes, ladies and gentlemen: matching mullets. The man and the woman obviously were a pair. It was amazing, simply amazing.
Livestock
We visited the livestock barns and got great joy out meeting the animals. First we saw the fowls. Then we saw the goats. Then the dairy cows (what was left of them--they must have all done their gig and left town). Then the beef cows (only half of them were left in the barn too, maybe that's what they were using for hamburgers at the fair). Then we looked at the sheep. And lastly, the pigs. We saw one pig that probably weighed 800 pounds.
The Zipper
We decided we had to do at least ONE ride at the fair. So, after great humming and hawing, we decided that we'd grit our teeth and spend the $10 to get 10 tickets - or 5 for each of us. Five tickets were required for each person riding the Zipper: our ride of choice. When they started loading the pods, we noticed they didn't ask the riders for tickets. We thought, "Huh...sweet!" And, they indeed did not ask for our tickets. Woohoo! Free ride!

I knew I'd be okay on the ride, I've done the Zipper before and I've done "scarier" rides at amusement parks before as well. But, it still unnerved me when Mark started immediately trying to rock our pod over. As soon as the machine started going, though, I started laughing my head off. Well, not literally, as it was firmly held in place by all the padding. But, I enjoyed it so much and had to prod Mark to laugh along with me. (He wasn't nervous, he was just trying to get the thing to spin! Too much concentration.)

Because we got on free, we took our chances and lined up again for another go on the Zipper a few minutes later. This time, sadly - they took our tickets. But, we laughed as much as the first time and thought our 10 tickets were well spent.
The Magician
The final thing we participated in at the state fair was a magician's act. And, actually - Mark got up on stage. Some of the magician's tricks were pretty good (his final one). Some of them - well, it wouldn't take much to figure them out (writing down the "thoughts" of a participant). And, some - they were pathetic (a "knife through the heart" trick).

The magician's final stunt was to have 12 volunteers come up on stage: 1 flipped through a phone book and picked a number; 3 wrote down the number and verified its accuracy for the audience; and 8 (including Mark) revealed the number (1 held the dash). Mark was so brave, I'm sure he was scared of the audience, but I think he managed well. heheheh.....
Exhibits/Booths
Some of the exhibits we looked at included the photography, the county displays, and the various arts/crafts. Some of the booths we checked out were the cowboy hats, the Jamaican-type hats, the carnival games, and the market place junk.