State Fair

Took Michael to the State Fair today. He's reached the magical 42" which is the gateway to actually being able to ride some pretty cool stuff.

I just took him by myself, father and son day at the fair. I had actually taken him, Zoey, and Grandma a week before, and that didn't go so great. He only got to ride a handful of rides, since it was warm, and Zoey didn't get to ride anything, so she was kind of cranky with sensory overload of the fair and having to sit in a stroller while brother went on rides.

Michael asked me all week about taking him back to the fair today. I had promised to take him back on the weekend.

When we arrived, just after 10 AM, it was downright cold, and there were hardly any people there (no lines, yay!)

We bought unlimited ride wristbands. I was a little worried we wouldn't ride enough to justify spending $35 / person for the unlimited wristbands. In retrospect, it ended up being a great financial decision!

We immediately set about trying to ride as much as we could. Rode the skytram round trip, ferris wheel, and the Sizzler, which whips you around with incredible Centrifugal force.

The guy broke out the measuring tape and checked Michael and said he was just tall enough to ride the Sizzler.

Felt a little woozy after that, luckily Michael wanted to ride some submarine thing that was for really young kids. Teacups were next. The spinning teacups were what really did me in, and I thought I was going to throw up. Stumbled off those, onto a rotating pirate ship for kids with him, and finally onto some surf wave thing.

The hard hitting combination of all those moving/spinning rides made me have to sit down and seriously consider my options of either throwing up, lying down on a bench, going home, or all of the above. Michael was saying "Daddy I want to ride more!!!" but I told him I felt awful, wanted to puke, and fingers tingling and head spinning. Really thought our fair day was going to be over at 11 AM, just having gotten started. Michael got the idea and let me sit for a while. Eventually we went and got lunch.

Surprisingly, a meal of oil-soaked (but freshly cooked) french fries made me feel tons better.

We rode tamer things in the afternoon. I felt better. We ventured onto some of the more thrilling rides. Still felt okay.

Then Michael discovered the fun houses. He calls them "trap house". The first one he found had a Marti Gras theme with a mirror / transparent pane maze. He was really into it, had a great time. He rushed through the thing in like 2 minutes, and wanted to do it again. And again. And again. Then he wanted to find more trap houses. Found out the fair had a total of 5. 3 in the central area, 2 further toward the back. Whenever he got to one, he would run through it in 1 or 2 minutes and want to go again. And again.

This is when I became glad that we had the unlimited wristbands. The fun houses are the WORST deal if you buy the a la carte tickets. Those are $20 for 20 tickets. Each trip through the fun house is 3 tickets / person. So for me and Michael, it would have been $6 for each run through a fun house, that he does in like a minute and immediately rushes back to get in line to go again.

At one point, I counted we did one of the fun houses 4 times in a row, in like a 10 minute span. That would have ended up being $24 if not for the unlimited ride wristbands.

We ended up staying until 6:30 PM. It was dark. I knew finding the car would be bad, since the parking is not market, half of it is in the grass, and it's HUGE (think Disney World type parking without neatly organized sections, rows, and numbers). I did my best on the way in to remember where we parked, even took a picture of the area, but of course it didn't help since we came in the morning and left after dark. Being spun around and around didn't help my memory functions either.

Probably wandered around the parking lot for 20 minutes or so. Started to get increasingly concerned. Tried not to let it show. Finally, I had been holding down the panic button to set off my car and saw it go off. So happy to see my car!

Michael fell asleep on the car ride home. We had a great time!

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