Cap'n John's Blog

The L.A. County Fair

We made it to the L.A. County Fair this weekend. We'd been to the Orange County Fair every year for the last couple of years, but our friends from O.C. moved to Carson City, Nevada, so we didn't make it this year. Saturday JE did not have a nap and he ended up going to sleep around 5:30pm. Then he refused to wake up for Liz when she tried to wake him for dinner, so we let him sleep, figuring Sunday at the fair was going to be a big day so he'd need his rest. Of course he woke up around 4am Sunday morning, looking for his teddies, who were all in the family room where he'd passed out the night before. I'd put him in his bed but forgotten the teddies. My bad. I got him back into bed with teddies this time, but of course he barely slept and was back in our room around 5pm this time, wanting to play Nintendo with me. Despite knowing we were going to the Fair the next day, Liz and I had been up until 1:30am (or some other ungodly hour) watching Dog Soldiers, a rather surprisingly good werewolf movie. I really wanted sleep so I got JE into bed with us. Bad move. The little guy spent the next hour kicking me, not really kicking, just pushing his legs against mine, so I finally kicked him out of bed around 6am, and got him settled on the sofa in front of the TV. Now I know why my mum got me trained way early to prepare my own breakfast on a Saturday morning. Love you, mum :)

Around 7:30am I awoke to the smell of Cheese & Bacon Savoury Shapes (crackers for the Americans) on account of JE standing over me, and I remembered he'd been snacking on a box of them the previous afternoon. No, his breath was not that bad, he'd been eating them for breakfast while watching the Disney Channel. Come on, bacon is a major breakfast ingredient in most countries, and cheese too, in its own way. There's wheat in them thar biscuits as well, so half a box of Cheese & Bacon Savoury Shapes is not that bad a breakfast :)

After I got up and made coffee I fixed myself a bowl of Weetabix, which JE ate some of as well. There, happy now :P

Xinh arrived shortly after I kicked Liz out of bed, and if you've read Xinh's blog you'll know we got to the Fair way early. We secured parking barely two rows from the front gate and ticket booths, and then had a half hour wait for the ticket counters and gates to open. Thank heavens for Nintendo, Gameboys and Pokemon :D

Inside the Fair we purchased 28 tickets for the rides, but JE and I promptly used 24 of those on three Big Dipper rides; that's the HUGE slide where you need to sit on a potato sack so you don't get friction burns on your arse as you slide down. After riding the Big Dipper we wandered through the rest of the Fair but avoided the Petting Zoo when we found out it was $3 entry, per person. Why is OC Fair's Petting Zoo free, yet L.A. feel compelled to charge adittional admission on top of an already high admission price? We couldn't send JE into the Petting Zoo by himself, and I didn't want to spend $6 just so he could pat some sheep or goats then want to feed them as well, at $1 per tiny bag, which would get gobbled up by the first critter to knock the bag out of his hand. Of course there were very few people inside the petting zoo, only those rich fools willing to shell out some more hard earned cash just to pat some sheep or goats. Liz & I are members of the LA Zoo, so if JE wants to pat some sheep or goats we'll go to the LA Zoo (free admission) and then go to the Zoo's Petting Zoo, also free admission. However, we did pay $5 each for JE and I to ride an elephant ;) That was pretty cool.

We toured the flower show, ate some delicious roasted corn, then headed to the dog show, put on by Extreme Canines which featured some frisby catching tricks and an obstacle course race. The cool thing about Extreme Canines is that they acquire their dogs by rescuing them from shelters and pounds, rather than buy them from over-priced pet stores. The other cool thing is that their dogs are almost exclusively Australian cattle dogs: kelpies, blue heelers, border collies, etc. Big shout out to the Aussie working dogs ;)

At the "Big Red Barn" there were supposed to be more animals, but all we saw were mutated pigeons. Pigeons with long feathers growing from their legs, all the way down to their feet, as if they were standing on a carpet of feathers. Pigeons with their heads growing out of the center of their backs, or so it seemed, so they were perpetually looking up at the sky and in danger of drowning if they got caught out in the rain. There was also a tractor ride, but this was a pedal powered tractor ride, with little pedal powered tractors for the kiddies to sit on and pedal around. The catch being the kiddies can be no taller than 42"; JE is currently just 41" so he got to ride. That kid was like the Energizer Bunny, he just kept going around and around and around. The other kids stopped and new kids arrived and took over, and JE kept on riding. There was no cost, no tickets needed, no time limit, although I pulled JE off at one point because a queue of kids had developed. I made him go to the back of the queue and wait for his turn to come again. And then he continued to ride around, and around, and around. I lost count of how many times he went around, but guess what, when Liz arrived with the stroller and JE got in, he stayed awake! I thought he'd drop off to sleep straight away, but he didn't.

We slowly strolled back towards the exit, passing through the midway where I won a small red dragon for JE on the shooting gallery. It was a jungle scene where you were required to shoot the little light targets located in the trees, in the gorilla's and lion's chests, etc. Shoot enough targets in 60 seconds and you win a prize. The funny thing was that shooting the light for the cobra made the cobra squirt a stream of water out at the crowd, but 3 feet to my right. When another father and his son decided to have a turn I was on my second round and totally ruling the gallery. There were four or five targets I was shooting in succession, including the cobra, and every few seconds the cobra would be squirting its load of water...straight at the father and son to my right. Damn it was hard to concentrate on shooting when out of the corner of my eye I could see the father constantly having to duck to avoid getting wet. Xinh and Liz said they told the father not to use the gun in that stall but he was stubbornly persistant and he paid for it :)

JE took a turn at the game with the racing horses where you roll a ball up a ramp and depending on which hole the ball goes in, your horse moves forward so many spaces. Liz sat next to him and played to. When the race was over Liz was in third place, just ahead of JE, and oddly enough the attendant gave Liz a small toy but skipped JE. Or perhaps she knew Liz was with JE so she gave the toy to Liz to give to him.

On the way out JE got very upset because we had 1 ticket left and he knew it, and he wanted to use it. We couldn't convince him that it was a souvineer, or that we'd used it to play the horse race game, and we left the Fair with him in tears. By the time we got to the car, however, the tears had dried up and he was all smiles again, ready to play Pokemon on the long trip home. We left around 4pm and there were hundreds of people lined up at the entrance, waiting to buy tickets to get in. Out on the road there were hundreds of cars still making their way to the Fair.

We lucked out, it was not a hot day, in fact it even looked as if it might rain at one point, but it never did. Typical Los Angeles weather. Rain threatens but never comes down...although when it does rain it POURS!!! So thankfully it didn't rain, and thankfully it also was not too hot.

I could not believe JE did not have a nap at all that day, considering how early he'd got up that morning. He didn't even fall asleep in the car on the way home. Liz and I wanted naps, but the little guy was still revved up and raring to go. I think it was his bath that finally did him in, but he still wasn't asleep until darn close to 9pm last night.

What a weekend.