A Fair Bird D'pot

First the Bird D'pot portion of this post. It has been raining, so I didn't get out for my weekend ramble. Thus, no new birds. 

I did have this chipping sparrow left over from a few weeks ago. He was having a run through the grass.

Linking to the Bird D'pot



Onward to the Fair portion of my post.

The first Illinois State Fair was celebrated in 1853 in Springfield. In the first year, the admission fee was 25 cents. Last Thursday it cost $14 to get in.

There was a time when the fair was postponed. There was no state fair during the years 1942-1945 because the fairgrounds were used as a U.S. Army Air Force supply depot. Not D'pot, depot. According to one historian, in the fall of 1943 more than 1,000 Chinese military personnel were trained on the grounds.

Interesting facts:

The Illinois State Fair played a key role in the popularization of the corn dog, starting in 1946.

The fair has long been noted for its annual butter cow.  What is a butter cow you ask? Well, it is a life-size cow formed from pure butter applied to an armature by a sculptor wielding an oversized palette knife. Sorry there are no pictures as we didn't find the butter cow. Well, to be honest, we didn't actually look for it. 

After a mighty long walk from our parking spot, we discovered we had to walk into the light. Which we did with more than a little trepidition. And no, there were no trumpets or angels waiting to escort us onto the fair grounds.

But there were beautiful horses running in front of sulky carts.

Inside the arena there were horses showing off their many talents. This one got honerable mention. The blue ribbon winner's pic turned out too blurry to post.

After much walking around, viewing the art exhibits, western jewelry and touring the livestock barns, it was time for some refreshment and a rest. We passed on the gator-on-a-stick, opting for a more traditional rib eye steak sandwich and lemon-orange shakeups. We enjoyed our fair food while sitting on this old bench in the shade of the horse barns. Good thing we didn't find horse barn fragrance offensive. 

Of course later on we had dessert in the form of an ice cream cone. We passed on the fried candy bars, but we were approached by an older lady looking for the fried butter stand. Fried butter? It sounds totally disgusting, but it must be an interesting project to actually get it fried. We didn't go looking for any fried butter! I'm assuming it was somewhere near that butter cow.

The Illinois state fair isn't nearly as big as the Texas state fair, but it was okay as fairs go.

This week's Rubbish Tuesday post will have more pics from the fair. Can't wait can you? 

Happy Sunday!