Case in point: I would swear I have lots of seemingly tangible memories in my head of attending a fair or carnival and I'm pretty sure it is true that I have been to the Del Mar Fair at least once in my life. However, taking a moment to sort through my memories, I think my idea of a fair has mostly been shaped by a combination of scenes taken from various movies and TV shows. Not to say this is a bad thing because I think most people would say the same thing. Entertainment has a huge influence on our lives, more than we realize most days, but when I take a moment to consider this, it doesn't necessarily make me want to stop that influence altogether - I know I'd never survive total disconnection from media. It does, however, makes me more aware that I live way too much of my life vicariously through characters on soap operas and motivates me to get out there in the world and see what things like fairs are really like for myself instead of through a camera lens.
Which brings me back to my case in point once again (no more crazy tangents and soap box speeches, at least not in this blog, one can hope!): Luckily, I moved in with my cousins who do get out of the house much more often than I and are kind enough to take me with them, so I finally got to experience a state fair for the first time in a long time. Unfortunately, we chose one of the first really cold days this fall, but we braved the cold weather and the crowds on the first Saturday it was open to check out the North Carolina State Fair.
It was a fun day, full of new experiences. North Carolina and the southern states in general are big fans of fried foods and the state fair is a perfect place to exhibit this tradition to the extreme, including fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fried candy bars, and fried Twinkies, to name a few.
I went for the fried Twinkie -not as scary or exciting as I had hoped. Turns out that the filling of the Twinkie melts and disappears during the frying process so you just end up with lots of breaded greasy/sweet stuff on a stick, which wasn't bad, but wasn't that great either. My cousin Billy got a fried candy bar, Milky Way, I think and he was not a fan at all. Not sure if it was too sweet or just a nasty combination, but I just remember he was sorry afterwards! I also had a corn dog, which I rarely have the opportunity to eat and perhaps that's a good thing because I was not that impressed. 
I also got some fried mozerella sticks and shared a funnel cake. And to wash it all down, I got some Pappy's Old Fashioned Soda Pop - rootbeer the first time around and then gingerale for the free refill on the way out. 
Clearly, at least for us, the fair was mostly about eating our way from beginning to end, which seems like a better idea than throwing your money away on those expensive carnival games where the reward does not equal the cost in the slightest. At least when you eat your way through, you leave satisfied with a full belly and empty wallet rather than disappointed with a dinky little stuffed animal and an empty wallet. That's my opinion anyway.My little cousin Connor got to play a couple of the kiddie games so he could have the full exprience.
I think he won a little car or toy of some sort that wasn't age appropriate but he didn't really care about that anyway. The joys of being one! I didn't want to spend more money than necessary since I still didn't have a job at the time, but I really should have paid up and seen what an eight-legged woman looks like in real life. 
Oh well, I'm sure they'll have something equally awesome at next year's fair, regardless of which state I'm in! Despite the cold, it was defintely a worthwhile experience. I even got a souvenir Mt. Olive pickle (a local NC company) sticker that smells like a real pickle, something I'll treasure for as long as the smell lasts - not sure if I want that to be a long time or not, it's a tough call!
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