I love a fair. The fresh lemonade, deep fried food and snacks on a stick, animals, weird events, and excellent people watching, what’s not to love?

The Washington County Fair just happens to take place in my parent’s town, so we were basically required by fair law to attend. Plus, this fair has a mountain view so I recommend being around at dusk.

First things first, pet all the animals. We got to pet goats, sheep, llamas, alpacas, cows, miniature horses, a Clydesdale, a CAMEL, a water buffalo, and we saw a snoozing kangaroo and a giant porcupine. It was incredible. I really hope when we find a house we have a neighbor with cool animals we can pet and feed occasionally.

After petting the animals we headed for a bathroom to wash our hands for approximately two years before doing anything else. Thankfully the building with bathrooms had all the arts & crafts and food winners items on display. And even better, it’s where the mullet and beard competition was being held. So after we had clean hands, we took in a little bit of the youth mullet competition, walked around to see the winning craft & food entries, and stopped to chat with a couple of police officers to ask why they hadn’t grown out their own mullets and entered the competition. I didn’t take ay pictures of the mullet competition because it was young kids, so you’re going to have to use your imagination on that one.

Of course the fair wouldn’t be complete without a fresh squeezed lemonade and a funnel cake, so that was the next step after working up a treat craving viewing all the winning jams and cakes in display cases. We got a traditional lemonade and funnel cake with powdered sugar, no frilly toppings for us, we are fair food purists.

I’ve been to a lot of fairs and festivals in Florida and I am sure there were agricultural shows and such at some of them, but I never paid any attention to that portion if it existed, I was there for the snacks and live music. Now that we live in the woods though, there were two giant buildings dedicated to showing farm animals, and people were walking around the fair holding chickens, like you would hold a small dog or a cat or something. I have never once in my life seen someone just walking around with a chicken in their arms outside of their yard or farm. Another new thing, cow showing. It’s like a dog show, but for cows. Some of the kids showing these cows were very young and very small and the cows were not small.

The other giant animal building held all the show poultry and had a nice little green room area for the show cows. They had some nice saw dust, fans, and misters to keep them comfy. It was super interesting and I obviously have a ton to learn about how a 4 year old gets into cow showing and how exactly does one train a cow? So many questions to google before the fair next year.

At the end of each night there is a musical performance, we didn’t bring any chairs so we just kind of listened as we walked back to the car, and then we saw the rodeo which you needed a separate ticket to attend, so good info to have for planning our trip to the fair next year.

What are your favorite things at the fair? And do you or someone you know train cows? Please let me know how that works in the comments.