Thursday, September 28, 2006

Doing the L. A. County Fair

My husband took me out to dinner and then to the L. A. County Fair on our first date. It was near my birthday, and after we married four years later, the Fair became a birthday ritual.

Yesterday we did the Fair again. It's only a fifty minute drive from our home, and the weather was glorious--clear and mild. Most years it's been unbearably warm. It covers a lot of territory, and we've learned as we've grown older that sitting on the benches or a low wall around the trees needs to be a frequent pastime.

This year they'd changed the special features signifcantly. The barnyard was beautiful, with animals in almost zoo-like enclosures. One of the highlights was Asian water buffalo. Their gigantic horns are as wide as a man is tall. While the buffalo were dark brown, their horns were a striated buff color. There was no missing them!

And the Budweiser Clydesdales were back. I just love them...such huge animals. I especially love the fluffy, pure white fetlocks and the short, black tails. It was feeding time, and I was amazed that the man who fed them walked right into their stalls and left the door open. The horses knew the routine and waited patiently until he'd hung thir buckets of mash in the feeding trough. These draft horses each drink 30 gallons of water a day.

The dalmation with his red collar was following the man down the line, but he stayed out of the stalls.

There were lion rabbits I'd never seen before, in lion color with huge ruffs around their faces. There was a Zonkey...a zebra crossed with a donkey, and a hybrid Zorse...a horse crossed with a zebra, if you can imagine that. I don't know. The idea turned me off just a litle.

We saw pheasants of all types, some of them in gorgeous colors.

I'd been given money for my birthday, and I spent it on a lightweight pair of binoculars and a pair of earrings from two of the many booths. The orange earring "stones" are from the Spiny shell, and they're set in sterling silver with a patina finish. I just love them. Great color for fall.

We ate hot dogs and barbecued chicken, fat ice cream bars dipped in chocolate and nuts, drank milk and split a Cinnabon topped with yummy frosting while we watched a high dive act. It was evening, and the live bands were playing. I'd visited a retired fire watch tower in the Smokey the Bear encampment, but we were too tired to wait for the magic show. It was night by then, and we'd been there eight hours.

Time to head for home.

On my website soon I'll post my interview of the editor of Mysterical-E, the e-zine developed by writers of mystery for readers and writers of mystery.

Have a great day...or a good night,
Dee Ann
Posted by Dee Ann Palmer 8:17 AM 0 Comments:

Post a Comment

---------------------------------------