Iowa State Fair - Celebration

The Iowa State Fair has a mission and we certainly did our part. I spent the morning at the fair with Debbie, Patricia and Dad, then met up with Sara and her friends after lunch to party on well into the night. It was a long, hot and slightly sunburned day, but worth every minute.

We weren't the only ones dedicated to sucking the marrow out of the Iowa State Fair.

This little girl was dancing up a storm close to midnight. I don't know what they put in the fair food, but it's good stuff. Actually, I ate a lot of food at the fair. We didn't have meals exactly, more a kind of constant communal grazing. I had some fries, and a smoothie, some lemonade, a lot of water, a taste of fried cheese curds, part of a funnel cake, and some Dipping Dots, billed as "the ice-cream of the future."

They're not bad once they've melted a bit, but they start out very, very cold. I also helped to consume a shared turkey leg, a very strange Iowa State Fair ritual in which group identity is reinforced by collective consumption of a large, very medieval leg of turkey straight off the bone. Once we had almost finished this peculiar, messy feast I was given the honour of gnawing on the last part. It was only later I realised that this privilege included the honour of carrying the bone around until we passed a garbage bin (trash can).

There were plenty of other fun things to do at the fair. Sara's friend T-Bone took all the kids for a ride on the big slide ... including me. Thanks T-Bone!

When the heat was too much for us, we had a water war to cool off.

The object of the water war is to use a slingshot to shoot water balloons at your friends who are attempting to drench you from the other side of a large pit.

Here Lindsay and Sara demonstrate how it's done in a boys versus girls bout. Declaring a winner is quite difficult. Judgement seems to be based on total wetness rather than number of strikes achieved. It seems that as long as everyone is wet at the end the game is considered to be a success.

Having watched the experts in action I couldn't resist having a crack at it myself.

I like to think I achieved moderate success. My opponent (T-Bone) and I were both well past damp by the end. Unfortunately, I had not given advance consideration to the likely wardrobe ramifications of having a water war in suede pants. I spent a good ten minutes in the ladies' loo (restroom) after the drenching, first trying to peel down the pants, and then trying even harder to haul them back up again. A word of advice to those planning a water war in the future: make sure you have an empty bladder before you start.

After a long day at the fair with my new friends I felt right at home. I felt even more at home when we passed this giant spinning globe and Australia suddenly rolled around right in front of us. Here Sara and Lindsay pay their respects to my rotating homeland.

Dear Australia, I'm having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.